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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b91160d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65182 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65182) diff --git a/old/65182-0.txt b/old/65182-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8307198..0000000 --- a/old/65182-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8467 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Grey Wethers, by V. (Victoria) Sackville-West - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Grey Wethers - A Romantic Novel - - -Author: V. (Victoria) Sackville-West - - - -Release Date: April 28, 2021 [eBook #65182] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREY WETHERS*** - - -E-text prepared by Mary Glenn Krause, Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit, Duke -University, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(https://www.pgdp.net) - - - -GREY WETHERS - - - * * * * * * - -_By_ V. SACKVILLE-WEST - - -GREY WETHERS - -THE HEIR AND OTHER STORIES - -CHALLENGE - -HERITAGE - -KNOLE AND THE SACKVILLES - -_New York_: -_George H. Doran Company_ - - * * * * * * - - -GREY WETHERS - -A Romantic Novel - -by - -V. SACKVILLE-WEST - - -New [Illustration: Logo] York -George H. Doran Company - -Copyright, 1923, -by George H. Doran Company - - -[Illustration: Logo] - - -GREY WETHERS. II - -Printed in the United States of America - - - - - _CLAIRE_ - - _Ces fantômes charmants que nous croyons à nous..._ - - _Ils sont là, près de nous, jouant sur notre route;_ - _Ils ne dédaignent pas notre soleil obscur,_ - _Et derrière eux, et sans que leur candeur s’en doute,_ - _Leurs ailes font parfois de l’ombre sur le mur._ - - _Ils ont ce grand dégout mystérieux de l’âme_ - _Pour notre chair coupable et pour notre destin;_ - _Ils ont, êtres rêveurs qu’un autre azur réclame,_ - _Je ne sais quelle soif de mourir le matin._ - VICTOR HUGO. - - - - -GREY WETHERS - -PART ONE - - - - -GREY WETHERS - - - - -_Part One_ - - -More than half a century has now elapsed since the events which added -a new legend to the hard ancient hills lying about Marlborough and -King’s Avon. The last organised rustic Scouring of the White Horse of -King’s Avon,--from which occasion these events may properly be said to -date, although a believer in predestination might be found to contend -that they dated, indeed, from the very births of Clare Warrener and -Nicholas Lovel,--that last organised Scouring took place more than -half a century ago. The White Horse remains, the same gaunt, hoary -relic; King’s Avon remains, secluded, tragic, rearing its great stones -within the circle of its strange earthwork; the Downs remain, and every -winter, now as then, shroud their secrets and the memory of their -secrets beneath the same mantle of snow away from the speculation of -the curious. But of Clare Warrener and Nicholas Lovel no trace remains, -unless indeed they have passed into the wind and become incorporate -with the intractable spaces and uncompromising heights. A great many -tales are locally told of them, all too fantastic to be set down in -print; the chalky soil, so unpropitious to other crops, grew at least -a rich crop of superstition, especially in an age and district when -stories of witches and burnings were curiously mingled in the minds -of the ignorant with the opening of barrows and the fable of British -princes. So it is not surprising that the disappearance of these two -persons should have given rise to a jabber of conjecture which rapidly -came to be explained away by a variety of legends following the line of -approved local tradition. It is not the business of print to enter into -these conjectures or their interpretation. It is the business of print -to set down, in as practical a manner as may be, the circumstances -leading up to the final catastrophe,--or fulfilment, call it which you -will, according to the point of view from which you approach it,--and -to leave the reader to carry on the narrative for himself in the manner -best suited to his own fancy and requirements. - - -A peculiar silence reigned over the village; no children shouted, -and no young men or girls passed down the street with that exact air -of energy and enterprise that youth alone can produce. Somnolence -predominated; it seemed a village inhabited only by the aged, and by -those sparsely; a small gaggle of geese quacked and pried with their -flat beaks along the cobbles; but for them, the cats and the old men -had the place to themselves. The cats slumbered, curled round in the -corners of doorsteps, where the sun struck hot on the stone; and on a -bench outside the Waggon of Hay the four old men sat in a row, leaning -on their knobly sticks, and holding pewter mugs in their hands. Brown -old men, brown of hide and brown of garment, so that it was difficult -to tell where their clothes began or their hands and faces left off. -Eight boots of similar pattern set squarely side by side on the stones; -four heads of almost equal similarity nodded together over the pewter, -sagely and immemorially, for it would be safe to say that those four -old men of King’s Avon might have been at any moment replaced by -another set of four old men out of another century, without a casual -observer remarking on the difference. It was the day out of half a -score of years when they were left in supreme sovereignty over the -village. The Waggon of Hay became then what they considered it always -ought to be, and what they chose to maintain it had been at that epoch -of time called “when we were young,” a place of meeting sober and -stagnant, undisturbed by the rude, hobnailed entrance of young men, -calling for spirits in a tap-room where they should have been content -with beer or cider. It was the day when they might sit at peace in -their row on the bench, sure that no lout of a blunderer would stumble -over their toes. It was the day when they might indulge themselves to -their hearts’ content in gossip and politics, uninterrupted by the -revolutionary opinions of their juniors. They could go back to the -time when no railway disfigured the valley of the Frome, when the old -horned breed of true Wiltshire sheep wandered upon the heights, and -when no man dreamt of threshing his wheat save by flail, or of crushing -his apples in any but a wooden press. They could recall without effort -those days in the ’thirties, when, themselves but little older than the -century, they had gone in bands with rude weapons to break up the new -and hateful machinery in the farmers’ barns. They could tell again the -tales of superstition, and the sights which their fathers’ generation -had seen; and above all, most succulently, they could recall how old -Mother Lovel had been burnt on the top of Silbury Hill for a witch, -the bogey their mothers had used to frighten them with; and, nodding -together, the four heads coming closer, whisper that Nicholas Lovel -had all the black arts at his disposal, and had in a fit of rage put -a curse upon his own brother, so that the lad no longer had his wits -about him, but loitered around, the anxiety and disgrace of the village. - -They had the whole day to themselves, in which to say over and over -again the things they had said many times before, and, greedy, would -have liked to have the evening too, but far from it, the evening of -that day was worse than any other evening, for the young men returned, -already uproarious and in their numbers, full of song and boastfulness, -their boots white with the chalk of the Downs, and their broad hats -stuck round with the grasses and sorrel that grew up there on those -unfertile heights. The old men would collect together in a corner, -remotely grumbling, watching the young men as they lounged against -the bar, filling the tap-room with their ribald good-humour and their -tobacco smoke. The old men disapproved of the young because they feared -in them the jostle of the oncoming generation, but the young men merely -laughed carelessly at the old, having from them no longer anything to -fear. The young men, on the evening of that particular day, would be -more than usually vainglorious, bragging of their exploits, growing -with every glass more direct in their modes of expression and more -hilarious in their laughter. It was the day when all prudery was thrown -aside, when each girl must look after herself as best she could or -would, when from the earliest hour of exodus from the village along the -road to the Downs the band of youths and girls fell into two primitive -groups of hunter and quarry, a scramble of catch-who-catch-can, an -escapade of wholesome license over the slopes of the Downs. It is true -that they started out armed with trowels and rakes, but even these -implements of homely design were soon garlanded with vetch and campion -torn from the hedgerows as the party went along, nor were these, the -ostensible justification of the expedition, the true weapons of the -day; the true weapons were the muslin frocks, the black shoes and -white stockings, the ribbons, the sunbonnets, and the eyes and curls -beneath the sunbonnets; and the leather leggings of the young men, -their strong brown hands, their belted smocks, their insolent air. -Impossible that a few wounds should not result from the marshalling of -such an armoury. And while the girls on their return must needs carry -away to their bedrooms the secrets of the day, evading the inquisitive -eye of their mothers, who, not condescending to ask, although burning -to know, remembered with a sigh similar feasts of their own youth, -the young men might gather in the tap-room and between hints and -guffaws convey to all who cared to hear that they were fine young men -worthy of their sex and of a sound country tradition. It was perhaps -from an unacknowledged flicker of envy that the old men frowned upon -their honest coarseness, for occasionally one of them, forgetting -his attitude of rebuke, would let out a cackle of enjoyment and -appreciation, much to his own dismay, and much to the amusement of the -youths, who would cry, “Hey, gaffer, don’t you wish you’d be with us? -Don’t you, you old dog?” - -But until this lusty return filled the tap-room with its uproar, the -cats and the ancients of the village were left undisturbed. Both in -their several ways made the most of their opportunity, the cats to -sleep, since little boys who threw stones had gone with the party, -hangers-on and peeping-Toms of the day, and the ancients to utter -their sage words, to echo approval of one another, and to bury their -faces deep in the pewter mugs, from which they emerged with beards -dripping foam. A suck of the lips, a wipe with the back of the hand, a -long “A-ah,” of contentment, and the mumble of anecdote flowed again -upon its course. Sitting there in the sun was favourable to such -occupations. Since the strenuousness of life’s work was over,--the -early winter rising, the trudges after a lost ewe across snow-swept -Downs, the unearthing of mangolds from the frosted ridge, the hours -of scything swathe by swathe under burning midday,--what could remain -better to do than to sit upon a bench in the sun, with companions -who in colour and outlook were the very spit of oneself, to grumble -against new-fangled notions, and to wet one’s gizzard with a long pull -of ale, which, at all events, however ignominious to admit it, had not -deteriorated in quality since one’s youth? - -Amongst the four old men, he who carried perhaps most authority, if -any difference could be said to exist amongst the ancient cronies, was -John Sparrow, who out-topped them by a year or so of age. Not that -this fact in itself constituted so marked a superiority; it placed the -senior rather at a disadvantage, since there existed amongst the four a -tacit competition as to which should outlive the other, and each within -his own mind dwelt upon the day when a fresh mound should be turned in -the neighbouring church-yard, and a shrunken row of three should sit -upon the bench, and the new topic, surprising by virtue of its very -novelty, be introduced among them, the topic of their missing member. -Each probably knew his companions well enough to hope for little -charity at their hands. It would be fine fun, to have John Sparrow, or -Caleb Patch, or Timothy Cutbush, or Eli Sheppard, lying there silent -and unable to protest, to pick to pieces at their leisure. No, the -few additional years of John Sparrow were not precisely the reason of -his weight of word. But Sparrow’s daughter Martha, called “my gal,” -although she would never again see sixty, was servant at the Manor -House, where lived the only gentry of the village, and consequently -whenever Sparrow began his phrase, “My gal says,” his utterance was -awaited with a certain degree of respect. The village was proud of its -gentry; Mr. Warrener was a scholar, and Miss Clare a lady. Although she -went everywhere alone, and rode her pony like a boy, her ladylikeness -could never be in question. Hence it came about that John Sparrow’s -quotations from Martha held a little flavour of high life, a very -remote echo of fashion; nothing more vicarious could well be imagined, -but to the fuddled minds of the other three it sufficed: John Sparrow -was in touch with elegance. He did not much look like it, as he sat -at the end of the row on the bench, the colour of a hayseed, having -now deposited his empty mug on the bench beside him and drawn from -his pocket a long clay pipe whose small bowl he was very carefully -ramming with tobacco. His daughter Martha was altogether a different -question; she wore a lilac print dress and an apron over it; her grey -hair was partly covered by a cap; she had a sedate manner and shining -old cheeks; she was clean and respectful. She had entirely ceased to -live at her father’s house, having her own bare but immaculate attic -bedroom at the Manor House, and periodically she allowed her father -to come there to tea in the kitchen, where he sat very neat and -intimidated and impressed, enjoying most that part of his visit when he -was boasting about it to his cronies afterwards. Being without subtlety -they betrayed every corner of their envy and curiosity, to which John -Sparrow was not loth to pander. They had had a table-cloth, and cups -and saucers--china, not tin--and Martha had put flowers on the table. -After tea Martha had played the musical box, but in the garden he had -heard Miss Clare laughing as she strolled up and down with her father. -That young lady was getting to a marriageable age; and here John -Sparrow’s recital, which began with veracity, was apt to go astray. He -would make a feeble attempt to convey a sense of his privity to secret -counsels by pursing up his lips, nodding his head, spreading out his -hands, and suchlike indications, without actually committing himself to -the indiscretion of words; but presently under the fire of questions, -the “Come now, John, out with it,” and the final shaft of scepticism -to the effect that he knew no more than they did themselves, he would -invariably be led into confidences which had no bearing whatsoever upon -the truth. Martha had whispered this, Martha had told him that, Miss -Clare, he doubted, was not in truth the daughter of Mr. Warrener; or, -if so be she was his daughter, then no daughter that he ought to own -to, but rather should pass her off as his niece or his ward.... The -other three accepted all such statements round-eyed, and the more they -gaped the more inventive he grew. Their credulity was his undoing. - -And as they drowsed and maundered, they saw Miss Clare emerge presently -from the gates of the Manor House, with their glimpse of garden, lawn, -and cedars, riding astride upon her pony, whose little hoofs came -slipping and shambling over the cobbles, down the street, past the -old men, and took the road out towards the Downs. The old men raised -their heads at all this little clatter, and a greeting passed between -them and Miss Clare; they touched their hats, she waved her whip to -them and called out something which they were too deaf to catch, but -to which they responded with the “Ay, ay” and the gesture of tolerant -encouragement accorded by age towards popular youth. There was a mumble -amongst them after she had passed, of unspecified vague approval, -before the straggly old beards drooped again upon the chests, and the -street resumed the quiet broken by that small disturbance. - - -It was not a very great wonder that the village should look upon -its gentry as so exclusively its own. Its situation was such, that -everything which took place within its enclosure was peculiarly -focussed and self-contained. In the first place, it was isolated far -from other villages, at the foot of the Downs, which loomed over it on -three sides like a huge natural rampart, and in the second place it was -entirely surrounded by an ancient earthwork in a complete and perfect -circle. This earthwork was broken only at two points, to allow the road -to enter the circle, and to leave it again on the opposite side. Within -this little enclosed ring of thirty acres lay the village, complete -with church, Manor House, and village street, incapable of expansion -in any direction, unless it overflowed its boundary, which it had -never done. A few outlying farms at a little distance were included, -properly speaking, in the parish, but they were either too remote or -too well screened by voluminous trees to distract the eye from the -compact symmetry of the little town within the circle. Strangers to -the country, coming unawares upon this singular encampment, were at -first amazed; but presently there crept into their minds the sense -that the whole country traversed by them had been, in a way, but the -natural preparation to precisely such a mysterious and secluded patch -of human habitation. They recalled the straight white road driven -across the Downs; the pits of poor blanched chalk; the shaven clumps -of beech, like giant ricks, upon the skyline; mounds and barrows; the -perfect cone of Silbury Hill, which, rooted in its greater antiquity, -had forced the Roman road to deflect from its course; the loneliness -of the magnificent Downs; the primitive shapes surviving in the White -Horses cut as landmarks upon their flanks. Above all they would recall -those strange monuments of English paganism, the sarsen stones, -hewn by Nature and transported by man to be the instruments of his -superstition, left where they had fallen, singly or in rings, obscure -in a fold of the Downs, or reared to accord with the eternal procession -of the heavens in the gaunt majesty of Stonehenge. - -The stranger would recall these stones as he followed the road through -the gap into the circle of King’s Avon, for there in an ordinary field -to the right of the road, just within the embankment, he would see, -standing upright to the height of ten or twelve feet, a number of -these stones, standing there with such apparent fixity and permanence -that it was disconcerting to observe, on a closer inspection, an equal -number of the stones fallen flat and half-buried in the ground. Their -impressiveness grew, as the beholder began to realise from their -symmetrical disposition that what he was considering was no less than -the ruins of a temple. The village lay just beyond the field, and in -the rough ground, near the field,--partly ditch below the embankment, -partly undergrowth,--many more of the stones might be discovered, -half-hidden by dead leaves and mosses, or even by tins and rubbish, -and in one or two cases made prisoner, like some inarticulate Laocoon, -by the serpenting roots of a beech overhanging the scarp. And as the -stranger, after poking about among this tangle, proceeded along the -lane towards the village, he would come upon other isolated stones, -either embedded in the bank below the hedge, or used as a gate-post -into a paddock, standing there patiently enough, towering above the -gate and above the hedge, indifferent to the fate that had come upon -it; and one, by the roadside, had been made to do duty as a milestone, -and bore upon its face the distances to Bath and Marlborough in -eighteenth-century script and Roman numerals. But, although -the stones were now thus scattered and even totally removed for -purposes of quarrying material, a patient observer might still piece -together the design and dimension of the temple, standing once like -Stonehenge in rings, when no human dwellings were there, in, as it -were, a cup of the Downs, open to sun and rain. But this imaginary -stranger would probably dwell rather upon the relationship between the -stones of King’s Avon, and the stars that they had known unaltered, and -the barrows humped upon the Downs, and the roughly-hewn flints turned -up by the plough, the bones and antlers, and the stray tokens left, -with very little fame, about the country, silent and enduring while -religions perhaps slightly more enlightened because more charitable -passed with the ages above their surfaces. - -This paganism of England, he might have reflected as he made his way -slowly from stone to stone, pausing before each and finding in each -the same monotonous and uncommunicative austerity, this early English -paganism, how bleakly different it was from the paganism of the South! -Indeed, he might wonder whether to call his forebear pagan, which had -a rich full-blooded sound, or, stripping him of garlands, to call him -simply heathen. Here, in this flint country of the small northern -island, no flowers and fruit had surrounded the sacrifice, no cymbals -clashed, no grapes and plaited maize wreathed the horns of the victim, -no songs accompanied the priest. A stone, a knife, and blood, red and -grey, sufficed their ritual. This was no country to see nymphs in the -streams and oaks, to hear the flute of a satyr in the beechwood. Yet -there was a harsher dignity, beside which the Southern paganism was -soft and ample, over-ripe with sweetness. It was a creed which would -not concern itself with the fruits of earth; Demeter was not for it, -nor lecherous Pan, nor a god clothed in the plumes of a swan. It would -concern itself with nothing lower than the most majestic of human -contemplations, the sun and the stars in their courses, so that after -the lapse of centuries the upright stones still aspired to celestial -communion when the gentle or the angry dawn broke over the rounded -Atlantean shoulders of the Downs. - -Clare Warrener rode idly along the leafy lane, her pony’s hoofs raising -little grey puffs of dust. Nothing in particular occupied her mind, -beyond the sight which she was going to see, and which for weeks now -she had been anticipating. She had promised herself that she would ride -on this day up on to the Downs, cast her eye over the festivity, and -ride on again, with perhaps a slight resentment at this invasion of the -hills; a resentment she knew to be absurd, since the rustic youths and -girls at their celebrating had a better right to the hills than she -had herself, they who were the descendants of shepherds and farmers, -wresting for centuries a living from the poor stony soil. She loved in -the hills their spaciousness, and their refusal to yield to tillage; at -most they would grant pasture to the sheep crawling on their slopes, -but for the rest they remained eternally, in the heart of an amenable -and complacent island, the untamed spot--they, and the moorlands, and -the hills of Wales and the North. - -The shady lane which she had been following soon ceased to be bordered -by trees and took an upward direction leading to the foot of the Downs. -It became a steep white road mounting straight up the unboundaried -slopes, with high banks on either side, and the winter rain-runnels -marked in little zig-zagging ruts and pebbles. Some clumps of furze -and a few thorn-trees grew on the lower reaches, but presently even -these ceased, and the short turf was the only vegetation. Up here the -air was pure and sharp; the grasses waved as they were blown by the -breeze; in some places fires had left their blackened patches; a trail -of smoke-coloured sheep moved cropping in the dip of a valley. Larks -rose continually, soaring straight up into the air, impelled either -by some impulse of their own or else disturbed by the sound of the -pony’s passage. Clare rode with loose reins, letting the pony pick his -own way among the pebbles. The road began to wind; it curved round a -shoulder of hill, dipped into a hollow, rose steeply again, and all -the time its direction was hidden round the next corner. At moments -it reached a high point of vantage, whence Clare, looking down in the -direction she had come, could see the low fertile lands, the farms, and -the clump of trees pierced by the church-spire which was King’s Avon. -But to north, east, and west, nothing but Downs, the great back of the -south of England. She rode on. The pony climbed, his head down, his -withers high. She felt the muscles of his flank moving warm beneath -her leg; he climbed, strong and willing, and she put him at short cuts -which entailed mounting an almost perpendicular slope of grass, for the -pleasure of feeling him buckle to the effort. - -Presently she heard voices and laughter borne to her on the wind. -Before long she reached a kind of plateau of grass, the highest point -of all, which commanded a wide view of both Downs and the chessboard -landscape far below, crossed by the white roads like streamers from -a Maypole; and at the further end of this plateau she saw scattered -in pairs over the grass, and assembled at one point as a nucleus from -which these couples had detached themselves, the youth of the village -of King’s Avon in holiday clothes with wild flowers strung about them. -She reined in her pony, not liking to interrupt their fun by drawing -too near or seeming to admire them as a curiosity. She could recognise -most of them at that distance; she picked out the red head of Daisy -Morland, the long limbs of Peter Gorwyn, the sunbonnet of Phoebe Patch, -the silly laugh of young Baskett, the straw-coloured shock of hair -belonging to Job Lackland, the black strap-shoes and white stockings -of Annabel Blagdon, who was the belle of the village, and, finally, -prowling on the outskirts rather like a pariah dog, the indefinably -misshapen form of Olver Lovel. Near by the group were set down the -wicker baskets in which they had brought their meal, also the trowels, -spades, turf-cutters, and hoes, apparently forgotten. The occasion of -the expedition was rendered completely invisible by the sprawling of -the persons seated upon it. This was none other than one of the famous -White Horses, which on that day must be scoured, that is to say, -cleaned of ten years’ accumulation of weeds and grasses; though it was -said that less plantains were uprooted than matches made that day, and -that the true business of keeping the White Horse duly scoured was -performed by some sober shepherd with a pocket-knife, idling away the -hours while his sheep moved slowly within his sight. Nevertheless the -tradition must be maintained. Clare felt a slight wistfulness that she -might not join in with the party, but she had been for so many years -strictly forbidden to do this by an indignant Martha Sparrow,--“’Twould -not be befitting your station at all, Miss Clare, indeed, to go with -those rough louts of boys and hoydens of girls,”--that she had come to -accept this ban as a law of nature, without question. She therefore -sat her pony at a distance, looking on enviously at the clumsy fun -in progress, watching the boys roll over and over down the slope and -get up dusting themselves and laughing, or wrestling with one another -on the grass and making a show of their superior strength before -the girls, who laughed and applauded. She felt especially envious -when she saw Job Lackland pick up his fiddle, settle it firm under -his chin, and begin to play, the notes of the old-fashioned tune -reaching her as clearly as notes struck on a bell, and she could see -the sprigged waistcoat and cut-away coat which Job always wore on -feast-days when he thought he might be called upon to play the fiddle. -The others scrambled to their feet and began a country-dance, a sort -of combination of a Morris dance and Sir Roger de Coverley, for they -fluttered their handkerchiefs as they danced, and at the same time ran -in couples up and down between two lines formed by the other dancers. - -The muslin dresses and coal-scuttle bonnets of the girls, and the -smocks of the young men, together with their fluttering handkerchiefs -and their hands gaily clasped high as they turned and twisted beneath, -made a coloured and merry patch on the top of the hill, like a lot of -butterflies. - -Job fiddled with increasing energy, and as he fiddled he tried to -beat time for the dancers with his bow, so that every now and then he -would miss out a bar while he waved his bow to re-establish order in -the dance which threatened to become confused. At last they all fell -exhausted upon the grass, and cider was passed round, and the old White -Horse, who had been temporarily revealed during the dance, was once -more hidden from view by the spreading frocks and sprawling limbs. - -There were other preparations now in evidence, for to emulate the -scouring of the greater White Horse of Berkshire the youth of King’s -Avon indulged themselves in more or less organised games, which again -were but a cloak to their braggart vanity towards the girls. A rude -platform was erected on trestles on the flat summit of the hill, and -towards this the whole company surged, leaving the white scar of the -Horse once more exposed and placid upon the hillside. The direction of -the games was in the hands of young Gorwyn; he beat a small drum to -call his audience to order; he marshalled the competitors; he posted -tow-headed Lackland with his fiddle to strike up a tune during the -intervals. - -The competitors stood in a group to one side, suddenly sheepish; the -audience, which by now consisted almost entirely of girls, ranged -themselves beneath the platform with the nudges and upturned faces -of anticipation. Clare could only see the crowns of their hats and -sunbonnets. - -Half a dozen young men stood up on the platform, exposed to the jokes -and encouragements of their friends; in their embarrassment they did -not know what expression to assume; some scowled, some tried to stare -with an indifferent gaze out over the distance, some sought the faces -of their special friends among the audience and grinned awkwardly. All -were in the same predicament as to how to dispose of their hands and -feet; some stood stiff and erect, with arms folded severely across -their chests; others thrust their hands down into the pockets of their -breeches; others bent to fidget with a bootlace. - -Some were for wrestling, others for the races; the bolder spirits, and -the most admired, were for broadstick. Gorwyn himself, the broadstick -champion of the village, was, as the last and principal event of the -day, to challenge the winner. - -Clare, growing interested, rode a little nearer; the young men touched -their foreheads to her, some of the girls dropped a curtsy; her advance -caused a little ripple in the crowd. Again she felt the slight regret -that she might not mingle freely and on an equal footing with them; -surely they were clean, English young men, honest enough if a trifle -crude, and the girls were healthy and fresh in their muslins; but she -was too simply a child to dream of disobeying Martha’s mandate. She sat -her pony at her distance, looking on. - -The first event was a bout of wrestling; not perhaps, a very scientific -exhibition, but the rivals went at it with a will, good-tempered and -full of zest, staggering about the platform, their fine, young-men’s -bodies knotted together like a piece of ever-changing sculpture in -a natural setting, not cooped into the dinginess of a studio or a -gallery. Clare saw the shock heads imprisoned under an arm, or going to -butt lowered like young rams; she could hear the deep breathing, and -the muffled shock as limbs and torsos closed anew together. - -And the audience of girls cried out and applauded, or uttered little -screams when a fall seemed imminent; but the wrestlers themselves were -silent, save for their heavy breathing; and the feminine cries and -rustlings of admiration or dismay formed the natural accompaniment to -the masculine concentration. - -The wrestling over, the wrestlers descended to mix in with the girls, -and the competition was eager and frank among the girls to get -possession of one of these heroes and to keep him by her side for -the rest of the afternoon. Only Annabel Blagdon, the belle, remained -unexcited and scornful; she affected to despise the mere wrestlers: -broadstick was the only game for her, as she had already advertised, -and her smiles were reserved for some broadstick champion with his -broken head. Therefore the wrestlers made for her all the more; made -awkward advances towards her, neglecting the blandishments of the -others which were lavished too cheaply upon them. But she scarcely -answered; she knew her power, she knew and savoured the irritation -of her sisters; she tapped her foot in its white stocking and black -strapped shoe, and scorned the wrestlers for their undamaged skins, -though secretly she could not help esteeming their broad shoulders and -their narrow loins. - -Job Lackland meanwhile had struck up a tune on his crazy fiddle, and -made the air gay with his old jingling melody, until the tapping of -Gorwyn’s little drum announced a fresh event; this was a race after a -cheese down the steepest side of the hill, an all-but-perpendicular -bank, round which the ordinary pedestrian would have skirted, but the -lads started down it helter-skelter after the round cheese which was -bowling down, bumping and jumping, after its send-off push. Some few -of them kept their feet, others slithered down on their backsides, like -boys on an ice-slide, some in their effort to keep upright tumbled head -over heels; one, a wag, went down, rolled round in a ball, hands locked -under knees, in a series of somersaults. - -No one was hurt, and the girls peering after them over the top, laughed -and danced in delight as the medley of arms and legs and bodies -reached the bottom, and a scrum for the prize ensued. It was finally -carried off by Olver Lovel, who, it was averred, crept in between the -scrambling legs and fetched it away in a moment when the object of the -race was forgotten, and only the fun of the scrimmage remembered. - -No one quite knew in what spirit to take Olver’s success. It was too -unpopular for congratulations to ring genuine, so most of the party -turned aside and pretended to be busy with other things, sooner than -betray their disappointment,--for they were kindly folk,--and to spare -themselves the necessity of smiling to Olver. In fact, it was felt -that a slight chill had been cast over the afternoon by the simpleton -getting the better of the cheese. - -As for Olver he was quite happy with his cheese, which was large and -round, and beside which he sat at a little distance on the grass, -occasionally patting it and stroking its smooth cool rotundity. Clare -let her interest stray from the platform, in order to observe him; like -most of the others he had put a wreath of sorrel and grasses round his -hat, but whereas the others acquired thereby merely a merry-making, -country appearance, Olver was made to look crazy and erratic, and twice -as simple as usual. He sat now on the grass making a daisy-chain to go -round the belly of his cheese; his legs were stretched out childishly -straight in front of him, and his shovel hat with the waving wreath was -bent down over his occupation. - -Simple, thought Clare; but how quick and cunning were his fingers! that -was no unmixed simplicity. - -He reached out his daisy-chain to measure against the cheese; he was -engrossed and took no notice of any one or of anything. She wondered -whether Nicholas Lovel knew that Olver was up here; usually he kept his -brother away from any gathering of the villagers, lest he annoy them in -any way. She had already noticed that Nicholas was not of the party and -smiled to imagine him as one of that hearty gang. She even wondered the -more, so aloof did he keep himself from the rest of the village, that -he allowed his brother to join with them. But she remembered then that -he made laws for himself only, and did not expect others to keep them; -he was too indifferent, rather than too tolerant, for that. - -Clare thought that she would wait to see the broadstick contest, which -apparently was about to take place, and that she would then ride away, -for she knew that as the afternoon advanced, and especially as the -discreet twilight arrived to throw its veil over the passions aroused -by the prowess of the games, the party would become less rowdy, less -athletic, and more sentimental, more inclined to break up into couples -and to dispose itself thus about the grass, where no cover existed, -but where privacy was guaranteed by a tacit convention that all wore -blinkers. Clare remembered then,--what Martha Sparrow, gossiping, had -told her,--that Olver Lovel sometimes made himself very unpopular by -creeping up noiselessly behind some pair just as they were circling -round the most critical stages of their courtship, either to shout -loudly in their ears or else to tickle the backs of their necks with a -straw, so that it had even been discussed in the Waggon of Hay whether -he should be ostracised from the festival of the scouring. The threat -of ostracism, however, had not been carried out. They were all too -much afraid of Olver and of the tricks he might play in revenge on -them, worse than shouting in their ears, or tickling the backs of their -necks, or even than putting caterpillars up girl’s legs, which he had -been known to do; and in a less degree they were also afraid of his -brother Nicholas, not to mention the old mother, whom none of them had -ever seen, and for whose continued existence they had to take Nicholas’ -word for granted. - -Perhaps this fear of the Lovels, and of the queer powers they were -reputed to possess, weighed even more with the ignorant village folk -than the rough, kindly pity they felt for Nicholas in the affliction -put upon him. - -Clare was eager to watch the broadstick play, which she had never -seen; Martha had told her that those who had taken part were to be -seen going about for days afterwards with bandaged heads, and even -kept the bandage on for longer than they need, as a badge that they -practised the old sturdy sport, and that he who carried off the honours -was entitled to the respect of the men in the Waggon of Hay, be they -natives or strangers passing through, and that there wasn’t a girl -in the parish would refuse him her lips. Martha, quite carried away, -had given her these accounts with enthusiasm. Clare had teased her, -“I believe you remember a scouring when you were young, Martha,” and -Martha had blushed and bridled, and declared she saw no harm in having -once been as young as Miss Clare herself, and went on to relate that -once she had been to the scouring of the great White Horse of White -Horse Vale, where teams of the Wiltshire men met teams of the Berkshire -men at wrestling and broadstick, so that it was not the little family -affair of the King’s Avon White Horse, but a great celebration that -lasted two days, and included roundabouts and side-show booths. But -broadstick play was dying out, and young men were not so keen to get -their heads broken as once they had been, which was a pity, for it -showed up their manliness, in spite of what the parsons might say; -that was Martha’s view. - -Therefore Clare was especially anxious to see the play, for she thought -she might never have an opportunity of seeing it again. - -Just then she heard the trot of a horse on the turf behind her, turf -baked so hard that it rang hollow. She did not turn round, but sat -waiting for the horseman to come up beside her. “So,” she thought to -herself, as a little expectant smile parted her lips, “Lovel has come -after all to have a look at the scouring.” The trot slackened into a -walk, and the head of a horse came alongside that of her own pony. A -voice said, “Good afternoon, Miss Warrener,” and looking round she saw -a man with iron-grey hair in the act of lifting his hat to her; but he -was not the man she had expected. - -“Mr. Calladine,” she said, smiling after her first little shock of -surprise and disappointment. - -“So you, too, have come to look on at the scouring,” he began. -“Whenever I hear of a scouring in the neighbourhood I am enticed to -watch it, and every time I go home realising that I have wasted my -time. But, after all, as well ride here as anywhere else, and better, -if I am to have the good fortune of meeting you.” - -Clare was far too unpolished and simple to know how to reply to such -compliments. She only blushed, was angry with herself for blushing, and -stared the harder in silence at the party on the grass. Calladine saw -her deepened colour, and savoured to the full its unconscious charm; -he leant forward with a creaking of saddle-leather, his gloved hand -resting with the bunch of reins on the peak of his saddle. - -“Will you ride a little way with me? There is not much more to be seen -here, and I fancy they have noticed us, and are getting shy. Ah, it’s -too late, for here comes young Gorwyn to offer us a drink. We must -accept it, I suppose, and only pray that ’tisn’t in a cup they have all -been using.” - -Young Gorwyn, the master of the ceremonies, the son and apprentice -of the blacksmith, carried the cup of cider very carefully in his -immense hands, like a child carries a nest, as though he were afraid of -crushing it between them. - -“Farmer Morland’s brewing,” he said, grinning foolishly as he offered -it. - -Clare drank; it was clean and sweet, pure apple-juice and sugar. She -was then confronted by a difficulty with which she had no idea of how -to cope: ought she to offer the cup to Calladine after having drunk -from it herself? - -She had always the uneasy feeling in Calladine’s company that more -ceremony was necessary than in her dealings with other human beings, -conducted with perfect and unthinking naturalness. But Calladine, who -was so grave and courtly, and who looked at her so intently while -speaking to her, and again so intently while she replied, seemed to -exact a different standard of manners. - -In this case, fortunately, he saw her unhappy hesitation, and solved -the difficulty for her by stretching out his hand for the cup and -draining it right off. - -But Gorwyn was watching, and, kindled by the unusualness of the day, -winked broadly as Calladine drank, and said heartily, “There’s luck to -you both!” - -“I hope so,” said Calladine in a low voice. He glanced quickly at -Clare; she had either not heard, not noticed, or failed to interpret. - -“Admirable, Peter!” he said in a louder tone, as he handed back the -cup. “Tell Daisy Morland from me and Miss Warrener, that her father’s -brewing, which I suspect she superintends, is first class.” - -Young Gorwyn grinned again. “But you’ll stay to watch the broadstick, -now you’re here?” he said eagerly, since to him it was the great event -of the day. - -“Well, I think perhaps broadstick is scarcely a suitable entertainment -for a young lady,--eh, Gorwyn?” said Mr. Calladine. “Races, or even -wrestling, but scarcely broadstick,--a rough game, and usually -unpleasant to watch at the end. I think Miss Warrener and I will ride -away and leave you to your sports.” - -Gorwyn, who had at first looked astonished, opened his mouth to -protest, then a look of contempt came over his ruddy face, succeeded -by a sudden shyness; he mumbled something, and scampered back to his -companions. - -“Oh, but I wanted to see the broadstick,” began Clare. - -“My _dear_ young lady,” said Mr. Calladine, leaning sideways in -his saddle towards her, “may I, for once, stand in the place of -your father, and say that I am sure he would never approve of your -witnessing this rough display, and indeed would be most grieved if it -came to his ears that you had done so? May I beg you to have confidence -in my judgment? Come, now, let us ride away together, and if you can -obtain your father’s consent I will promise to escort you to some fair -where you may see the game,--will that content you?” - -Clare, greatly disappointed, was too young to question Calladine’s -decision. If he said her father would disapprove, then he must be -right; although, privately she thought that her father, mild and vague, -would have no views at all on the subject. Obediently, however, she -wheeled her pony after Calladine’s horse, and they rode quietly away -along the top of the ridge. She was thinking how sorry she was that he -had come instead of Lovel. She did not very much like Mr. Calladine, -although she was kind to him out of goodness of heart, because she -thought he seemed lonely; indeed, he never ceased talking to her about -his loneliness. - -He lived some way out of King’s Avon, right in the country; it must be, -she thought, very lonely in his small farm-house in the evenings, so -she sometimes persuaded her father to ask him to dinner. - -On such occasions, not knowing how else to entertain her father and -guest, she would play to them both such simple airs as she could -command upon the piano, and sometimes would sing, accompanying herself, -such little songs as she had picked up from Martha Sparrow or the -country people. Mr. Calladine would come then and lean over the top -of the piano, watching her in the candlelight in that intent way he -had. She did not like this either; it was part of his elaborate and -disturbing manner, but she had too much pity for him to ask him to -desist. He seemed to like her singing; he always clapped his fine hands -softly together and begged for more. On the whole, she did not much -enjoy the evenings he spent at the Manor House; they were strained and -difficult; or, at least, so she thought, although he appeared unaware -of this, perfectly content, and in no hurry to take his leave. When -he at last did so, Clare, whose country idea of hospitality involved -accompanying her guest to the front door to see the last of him, was -always slightly relieved when she watched him button up his greatcoat, -climb into his gig, gather up the reins, and drive away into the night. - -His horse paced now beside hers, and, riding with his beautifully -light hands, he restrained its paces to suit her pony’s, all with that -air of chivalrous deference which she found so subtly irritating. -It conveyed that she was not able to take care of herself, but that -he must do it for her, in a playful, tactful way, while allowing her -apparent liberty, and she felt now that he had taken her away from the -games as he might have taken a little girl. It made her inclined to -start her pony off into a gallop, but she reproved herself, remembering -that Mr. Calladine was very much older than she was,--he must be -quite fifty,--and that it was kind and condescending of one so fine -and cultured to desire her company. At the same time, she could not -help contrasting his manner with Lovel’s; Lovel was often brusque and -even rude to her; he lost his temper with her sometimes, and never -apologised afterwards; it was all the more insolent in Lovel, for he -was not the gentleman that Calladine was. - -But she never felt with him the sense of strain that she felt with -Calladine. It seemed to her as natural to meet Lovel upon the Downs as -it would have been to meet a flock of sheep, and it never occurred to -her either to mention or to conceal the fact to her father. Calladine, -on the other hand,--she knew that when she got home, some obscure -instinct would impel her to say, “Father, I rode with Mr. Calladine.” - -They had allowed their horses to follow their own course, which in that -open country was possible for miles, and Clare now perceived that they -were being carried in the direction of a group of Grey Wethers. She did -not at all want to go to these particular Grey Wethers with Calladine; -but when she tried to head her pony away he immediately said, “Do let -us ride on as far as the Grey Wethers, Miss Clare. We have never been -there together, and I have a fancy to go there with you.” Clare gave -way; it was not worth hurting his feelings, perhaps, for a whim. They -rode on accordingly until they came to the strange derelict stones, -where, at Calladine’s instigation, they got off their horses and sat -down side by side on one of the stones. Clare wondered what the object -of this pause could be; then, looking at Calladine, she saw that he was -nervously twisting his fingers together, and appeared by the agitation -of his manner to have something on his mind which he was trying to say. -She was not much surprised; she had often seen him break out under the -influence of some unexplained emotion, and waited quietly for what was -to come. She was not much interested either; but if it did him good to -speak, then, poor man, by all means let him speak his fill. Finally, -she prompted him, almost with mischief, “You seem full of disturbing -thoughts, Mr. Calladine?” - -“I have something to say to you,” he began. “An explanation, more than -a confession. What do you know of me, after all? Very little, beyond -that I am a stranger settled in these parts, living a lonely life in -a remote farm-house with one old servant and a groom. You know that I -have no regular occupation; that I read the classics in a desultory -way; dabble in archæology, and interest myself in the local customs and -topography. You know that my leisure is unlimited, and my means ample. -You appear to take me for granted, but then I never attributed to you -an inquisitive mind. Have you ever wondered where I came from, and -why? have you, above all, never despised me a little for my idleness -of a dilettante while all around you you saw other men work for their -livelihood?” - -“Perhaps I have despised you a little for that,” she said frankly. “As -for the rest, no, I don’t think I have wondered. I don’t see why you -shouldn’t lead the life that pleases you best.” - -“Nevertheless,” he said, “I should like to give you my explanation, -if you will be patient enough to listen. I loved a woman once,” he -said, in a low mournful voice, as though he were disinterring the -memory of the dead from his very bowels, and while he spoke he kept -his eyes averted from Clare and held his unseeing gaze upon the clump -of beeches on the high skyline; “she was wholly a woman, yet every -great quality of woman she lacked; I mean to say, that in every mood -of capriciousness and grace she was as wholly and divinely a woman -as any woman who ever enchanted man and coloured the loveliness of -his days, but under the test of all graver issues her fluidity turned -to falseness and she slipped between my fingers. I never held her; -no, though I held her in my arms she eluded me; even while I thought -to possess her, her soul slid away from me in some new protean -shape, and danced and laughed and mocked my pursuit. Oh, she was a -will-o’-the-wisp dancing across the marshes of my life. For my life was -indeed a marsh in those days; I sank in quicksands; I struggled out -on to a tussock; I trusted myself again on what I took to be firmer -ground, I sank once more, I was sucked back at every step, I was -tempted to let myself sink for ever from sheer weariness and despair. -But she,--she was at home among the treacheries and miasmas where she -had led me; that light, vain soul could skim where I could only sink. -Do you wonder,” he said, letting his eyes travel slowly round the clean -sweep of the Downs, bare of all softness, and bringing them at last -to rest upon her face, “can you wonder that I came to repair my life -in this old, hard country? You may believe me or not, as you choose, -but I got that image of the marsh so firmly fixed in my mind that to -this day I can’t bear to walk across a bit of swampy ground, or even -along a muddy lane. You have water here, in your country, that’s true, -and plenty of it; but it’s straightforward water: running rivers, and -dew-ponds up here on the heights.” - -“It’s true,” she said; “’tis an old, hard country; and such ghosts as -there are are bleached bones by now, dry and clean; there’s no decay -about them. Why, I think that the ghosts that walk among the stones -must be as stern as the stones themselves; and that’s my fancy.” - -“And mine too,” he replied, considering her; “and if anywhere the -uneasy dead return from their sleep,--though I am not saying that I -believe it to be so,--it should surely be hereabouts, for in the last -century there were enough tales current of witches and wise men, and -similar fascinations of the simple, to raise the longest-dead of old -Britons from his grave. But I scarcely think the local folk are much -troubled with such ideas. They come more readily to you and me, for I -am a stranger, as strangers are reckoned in country districts, where -the years only begin to count as they pass into centuries; the space of -time for an acorn to grow into an oak; and even you, who have been here -all your life long, are not native born. The spirit of this country -does not come to either of us as a natural right. We have learnt it, -and so must remain always more conscious of it than those to whom it is -as native speech.” - -She looked at him with the faintly puzzled expression of one who is out -of his depth. - -“Yes,” she murmured uneasily, looking down at the ground, and kicking a -lump of chalk into powder with the toe of her shoe. She deeply resented -this association of herself and him as strangers to the country; Lovel -would not have spoken so! - -“You and I,” he went on, for it caressed his soul merely to utter -those words thus coupled, “tread at least as reverent intruders among -the rings and barrows. We do not rest among them, as the shepherds -do, simply for shelter against the winds and sleets. I came to them -for healing; and you, even had you not been born with the capacity -for awe,--as you were, oh, as indeed I know you were!--would have -learnt it from that wise old man, your father. I have thought watching -him at that delicate fingering of his shards, how he had dealt out -to you the store of his scholar’s brain. To him, neat, tabulated, -chronological, precise, but filtering through to yours in a strange -jumble,--the painting of a bison on the wall of a cave, a man in thongs -and bearskins sharpening a flint, slow glaciers crawling over England, -kings buried on horseback in full panoply under a mound.” - -“And did you find healing?” she inquired, catching on to the remark she -could pursue with the least resentment. - -“Oh, I found it, yes, I found it,” he replied, morosely, “if I may call -that healing, which but exchanges one wound for another,--a poisonous -wound, let us say, for a clean sharp one. Yes, I may call it healing, -I suppose, for although my heart’s blood ebbs away through the fresh -wound, there is no longer any gangrene in my system. I am purified; -true, I may be dying, but at least I am purified. Yes, I found healing.” - -“Dying?” she exclaimed. - -“Oh, I spoke figuratively,” he replied with a toss of his hand; “don’t -be afraid, Miss Clare, that in the course of your rambles you will come -upon my body toppled down the side of a barrow,--though how should -that distress you, indeed, beyond the ordinary shock of stumbling -across a man recently dead? I am healthy enough of limb for a man of my -age. Fifty, I am, you know,--old enough to be your father. It was kind -of you to ask whether I found healing, and I am thankful to be able to -tell you that I did find it; the winds of my first winter, which nearly -blew my head off my shoulders and sent it bowling along these slopes, -blew away my noxious thoughts. I told you I was led into miasmas; well, -I brought them up here, clinging about me like a cloud, and the wind -blew them away.” - -“Yet you spoke of that woman just now with a good tang of bitterness,” -she said shrewdly. - -“Ah, well, I grudge the wasted years,” he returned, as though desirous -of dismissing it thus lightly. “You may take my word for it, Miss -Clare, that I have never bared that story to a soul except yourself; -and probably should never have bared it to you but for some foolish, -trivial reason I was anxious that you should hear it. Now that you -have heard it you shall not be troubled with it again, I promise you. -It is, moreover, an old story now; a score of years old, I should say, -though I have forgotten the dates, and in the ordinary way of things I -never think of it now. But people hereabouts have gossiped about me, I -know, as was only natural, and lest any story should come to your ears, -I prefer you to know the true one. You know it now; you know I am -neither a prisoner escaped, nor a deserter from the army, nor a hunter -of buried gold, nor any of the things which I have no doubt the village -has credited me with, but simply a man once disappointed in love, as -the saying goes, though Heaven knows whether those who coined that -saying knew what they were talking about, or to what tragedy they were -putting a name.” - -“All that’s said for my benefit,” said Clare sturdily; “you do think -on it now, and you haven’t forgotten the date; though maybe you will -cease to think on it, since you’ve spoken it out; and it’s no longer -simmering in your heart.” - -He was gratified that she should so readily have caught that inflection -in the voice which was meant to convey courage under sorrow, rather -than forgetfulness after the passing of years. - -“And should trouble come upon _you_,” he said very earnestly, “would -you place your confidence in me? I ask it as a favour,--as a slight -return. Whatsoever a duty a man might perform for you, will you call -upon me and no other? You cannot know how happy your promise would make -me. You are youth incarnate amongst these ancient hills.” He dared not -say more, but continued to gaze at her with urgent and beseeching eyes. - -“Why, I think I can promise that,” she said slowly, though puzzled -again and perplexed by his earnestness. “I think one could place -confidence in you, although you are so strange and unaccountable -both in your ways and talk. I think you would be as vehement in your -friendship as you seem to be in your thoughts. I think you would grieve -very much,” she continued, examining him, “if you were to fail in -carrying out a mission for a friend.” - -“For you,” he interjected. “My service is not so freely placed at -everybody’s disposal. You will have no rival claimant on my obedience.” - -“Well, I will give you my promise,” she said, “though I would have you -understand, Mr. Calladine,” she added with a childish importance, “that -I am not in the least likely to make any call upon you. I am very well -able to take care of myself, nor is any trouble, as you say, likely to -come upon me.” - -“Hush, don’t boast,” he cried, looking fearfully round, and half in -mocking he added, “Who knows what sardonic spirits may be listening to -your boasting? Anyway, you have given me your promise, and I should -like you to seal it. Give me your hand,--not so reluctantly,”--for he -had felt it struggle faintly like a caught bird,--“we are friends, you -know,--and for one who professes to have confidence in me, I declare -you give proof of having very little,--now lay your hand upon this -stone, and I will put mine over it,--now repeat this vow after me....” - -“No, no,” she said, frightened, and trying to draw her hand away; -“it’s profane; that may be a sacrificial stone for all we know....” - -“And so resent the invocation of a Christian God?” he completed for -her with a laugh, but the extreme agitation of his manner underneath -his laughter alarmed her. “Or is it of me, and not really of the -stone, that you are afraid? Surely you cannot think that your own Grey -Wethers would harm you? So it must be of me,--a bad beginning to your -confidence! Why, before very long you will be giving the same promise -to another man lest you should require defence against myself.” - -“I was never afraid of any one yet,” she said, flaming up, “Mr. -Calladine, and as a proof of it there is my hand; now do what you like -with it. I think that you are very bitter and wild, but I am sure that -you would not make the worse ally for that. And no woman would say less -than that you were wild and bitter, if she had heard you talk the way -I have often heard you talk; but that does not mean that I am afraid -of you, for I am not, nor of any one in this world,” she repeated, -challenging him to contradict her. - -“No, daughter of the Downs,” he said with much gravity, still holding -her hand in his own. - -She stamped her foot. - -“You laugh at me, Mr. Calladine; well, if you treat me as a child, why -exact such promises from me as the one you have just asked for? But I -am not a child; I am nineteen,” she said. - -“My dear,--my dear young lady,” he said, amending the endearment into -that conventional phrase, “it is only because you are, or soon will be, -so very much of a woman that I besought your promise. Come, solemnize -it without any further delay; swear, not by the Christian God, but by -the Grey Wethers themselves, by their age, and their mystery. You will -have the advantage of me if you can devise an oath more potent or more -occult.” - -He laid her hand, which he had not relinquished, palm downward upon the -stone. The stone was cold to her touch, but Calladine’s hand pressed -over her own was by contrast dry and burning. She swore as he had -commanded her to do, half in derision of his fancifulness, half still -in the lurking alarm she was too proud to betray. He appeared to be -satisfied, and released her, though not without reluctance at letting -her hand go, and for a moment he wished he had never taken possession -of it, when he noted the alacrity with which she took it back, and -the surreptitious rub she gave it on the side of her riding-coat. “So -that is how she feels about my touch!” he said to himself, but only -a greater gentleness stole into his manner as he thanked her for her -compliance and held her stirrup for her to mount her pony. She sat -easily, boyishly, in her saddle, looking down on him, and a certain -melancholy, that was not without its solicitude on her part, and its -wistfulness on his, overcame them both in reaction to the overcharged -scene which had taken place between them. - -“I don’t want you to be unhappy,--indeed I don’t,” she said, “Mr. -Calladine; and please do not think it impertinence on my part to -assume that you are. I know of course that I am too young to pry into -your affairs; I haven’t the wisdom necessary; in fact I haven’t any -qualification except sympathy, and I do ask you to believe that I have -that. We have been friends for such a long time,” she said, looking -down at him as though she felt a passing though true impulse to come -closer to the bitterness of his spirit. - -His hand resting on her pony’s neck, he looked up with a rueful -gratitude, by no means displeased that she should use the words “wild” -and “bitter” about him, or treat his sorrows with so much veneration. -He had not the heart to break her illusion of her own kindness with -scornful words, but gave her a smile, which cost him a greater effort -than he would have cared to acknowledge, and which he hoped would be -adequate to reassure her. She smiled back at him, brightly; and with a -touch of the heel put her pony into motion. He watched her ride away, -along the ridge of Down, her slight figure swaying easily to the pony’s -walk; and presently he saw her break into a canter, and heard the beat -of the pony’s hoofs on the hard turf, until she was carried out of -sight and hearing over the curve of the hill. - - -It was so characteristic of Nicholas Lovel to keep away from the -Scouring! Clare thought how the rest of the villagers must dislike -him for his detachment. Not that he cared what the villagers said, -beyond wishing that they would leave him and his affairs alone as far -as possible,--a vain hope. Clare knew quite well that she could never -have inveigled him into making friends with her but for their very -early friendship when she was a child and he little more than a boy, -when, in fact, he could not fear a rebuff from her, and, meeting her -on the Downs, he had told her how to ride her pony, how to read the -signs of the weather, and a dozen scraps of country craft which she had -assimilated with great respect for his wisdom. They had drifted into -a curious, desultory intimacy. Because they knew each other only in -this detached way,--etherialised, as it were; stripped of the ordinary -routine of friendship;--because she knew nothing of his life, and he -nothing of hers; each knowing only the other’s Down-life; each admitted -only into the other’s solitude, a part of that solitude rather than an -intrusion; because they were really strangers to one another,--there -existed between them a complete ease and understanding. All formalities -were absent; they never thought of greeting one another when they met; -they never thought of talking except when they could continue the -current of their thoughts aloud. When they sighted one another upon -the Downs, they simply converged until their horses fell into pace -side by side. Often their first remark, spoken after long preliminary -silence, was without context or explanation, like a bubble rising to -the surface from what had been going on within their minds beneath. To -be together was like being alone. Clare never talked to Lovel about -her father, or about the Manor House; Lovel never talked to her about -his difficulties, or about his pursuits, legitimate or illegitimate. -At times their talk was purely practical, when he would show her how -to cast a fly, or how to throw a sheep for shearing, or how to twist a -rough basket out of osiers; at other times it was all theoretical, and -there was no puzzle, discontent, or aspiration they would not touch on -or thrash out. Quite abruptly, sometimes, he would break off and leave -her. She never thought of asking him, next time, why he had done so, -any more than she would have thought of asking the breeze why it had -dropped. There were weeks together in which she never saw him at all; -he came and went in her life like the rover that he was. When they -passed each other in the village, they gave no sign of recognition; -they had never alluded to this, yet each knew that the other was -amused by the tacit convention. She knew, of course, where he lived, -though the site, appearance, and actuality of his dwelling seemed to -her singularly unimportant. Half way down the village street stood -a house, small, but very massively built of grey stones, quarried, -in point of fact, barbarously from the monoliths that had been the -constant resource of the local builders. The front door, when it stood -open on to the street, showed to passers-by a long dark passage, -like a tunnel, at the further end of which opened suddenly the light -and glow of the square walled garden, with its brilliant green turf, -its one dark cedar, and its patches of sunlit flowers. The front door -was surmounted by a porch, resting on two round columns; along the -architrave of this porch was painted in neat black lettering the name: -NICHOLAS LOVEL. It might have seemed curious to a stranger that no -further indication should follow on to this superscription; there was -nothing to inform the ignorant whether Nicholas Lovel was by trade a -farrier, a joiner, a shoesmith, a tailor, or even the keeper of an inn; -whether one might enter by the open door, and, taking one’s seat at a -table within, rap against a glass and call loudly for the landlord. But -strangers were few and far between, and among the habitual population -of the village the circumstances of the Lovels had been threshed out so -often that you might have imagined the topic would fall upon wearied -ears. There were few trades to which young Lovel could not turn his -hand. He could plough a field,--and in straight furrows, too,--he could -build a rick, and thatch it when it was built, he could repair a waggon -or repaint a gig, he could get the better of a horse-coper at his own -job, or of a pedlar at his own chaffering, he could cure a sick ewe and -bring back to life a weakling lamb, he could cane a chair and twist -up a basket of osiers in less time than it takes to tell, he could -snare a rabbit and slip under the very nose of the keepers, he could -drink most men under the table and walk most men off their legs, and -amongst the girls of the village there was not one who at one time or -another had not set her cap at young Lovel, and got from him in return -neither a civil nor an uncivil word. Yet for all these, and other, -accomplishments, there was no one trade which he regularly practised. -Any man might call him in for a stray job, whether as a farm-hand, -a carpenter, or a shepherd, and many were the bribes which had been -offered to induce him to accept regular employment: he declined them -all. Gipsy Lovel, they called him in the village; whether on account -of his name, his looks, or his vagrant practising, was not defined, -probably all three. In appearance he was dark and lean; his Roman -features bronzed to a polish, so tightly his skin seemed stretched -over his bones; and with the brown corduroy breeches of an ordinary -yeoman he usually wore a dark red shirt, which accentuated his already -outlandish appearance. In speech he was reserved and sardonic, as might -be expected by those who knew,--at least by report,--the circumstances -of his life at home. Except by report, none could know them, for no one -was ever invited to cross that most inhospitable of thresholds. - -And further, there was Nicholas Lovel’s younger brother Olver, by the -kind-hearted given occasional employment on odd jobs of carpentering, -house-painting, and the like, for he was skilful enough as a workman, -and could be trusted to carry out his directions with the fidelity of -that kind of brain commonly known as “simple.” He might have passed -as a good-looking youth, with tight, chestnut curls and eyes of a -curiously pale blue, rimmed with black round the iris, but for the -oblique and cunning expression that was apt to cross his face like a -cloud drifting across the moon, and the slight hint of deformity that -clung about him,--a deformity so indefinite, that it was impossible to -say precisely where it lay, whether in his neck being slightly sunk -into his shoulders, or in his head being slightly too large for his -body, or in his hands being slightly too well-formed, too sensitive -for the hands of a workman, or in his tread being slightly too catlike -for one of his build and bulk. He had in the village the reputation -of slyness, a sudden shrewdness, that was disquieting and therefore -repulsive in one whom mere simplicity would have entitled to the -charity of all men. From this reputation of cunning the legend had -grown in the village, as such things grow always in that fertile virgin -soil of ignorance, the legend had grown into a variety of sinister -shapes, all ornamented with copious and more or less picturesque -detail: Olver Lovel’s grandmother had been burned for a witch; his -mother, who was kept in such seclusion now by the severity of Nicholas, -was a witch also; Olver himself practised wizardry; he went out of -his mind when the moon was full; he was mortally feared by all -animals,--this indeed was true, and a matter of common knowledge;--he -controlled his evil impulses only through fear of his brother, but -if his brother were to be taken away, then God help them all! These -were only a few of the things that were openly uttered about Olver -Lovel. Nicholas himself was not above suspicion. He had the same eyes -as his brother, of the palest blue with those curious black rims, -and the effect in his dark face, with his black hair, was certainly -very strange. But people did not fear Nicholas as they feared Olver. -Nicholas was a straight-forward man, reserved and uncompromising -because his pride had so much to suffer, and no doubt his endurance -too, living as he did between his two unusual relations; they had, on -the whole, a good deal of sympathy and respect for Nicholas. It was -no life, they said, for a young man. But who could help him? He would -let no one near him, either literally or figuratively; pride was the -hardest defence to deal with. A harsh young man; but he had much to put -up with. And if he was harsh towards himself and forbidding towards -other men, let them at least do him the justice to say that towards -dumb beasts he had the gentleness of a woman for a child; ay, and the -instinct too: the quick kind touch, and the certain remedy. - - -The villagers thought him lonely,--even lonelier than he actually was, -for they knew nothing of the friendship between him and Miss Warrener. -They knew, certainly, that he sometimes went fishing with her down -to the Kennet, but they thought nothing of that, for any young lady -might be expected to take a man to carry her rod and landing-net, to -fix her bait, and to deal with her catch. It wasn’t likely that even -Miss Warrener would care to dabble in a mess of worms, or to get her -fingers covered with scales, slime, and cold blood. No, nor to have -the troublesome job of killing a pike, who of all the animal creation -surely clung the most tenaciously to life. What they did not know of -was the Down-life shared by Clare and Lovel; for on those splendid, -solitary heights they could meet and meet again, unobserved by any save -the sheep, the larks, and the circling hawks, indifferent to the pacing -side by side of the two horses over the bitten turf. Various were the -avocations which took Lovel to the Downs, and if occasion required he -would call on Clare to lend him a hand, ordering her about, and she, -meekly, followed his directions as an apprentice. She had even been in -his shepherd’s-hut with him all day during the lambing season, when -a blizzard swept across the hills, and he had his hands so full with -his poor ewes that must be tended and sheltered that he had no time -left for niceties to spare Clare’s feelings. With set teeth she had -helped him that day, and had counted his brief comment at the end as -a well-earned reward. And she had ridden away in the evening with her -head held down against the driven sleet, and her pony’s mane blown -right across his neck with little lumps of ice in the rough hair, and -behind her the yellow light that shown in the window of Lovel’s hut had -grown smaller and more distant, and she had known that during the whole -of the night and of many days and nights to follow he would keep the -vigil attendant upon his trade, and would lay on the straw beside his -little paraffin lamp the poor weak new-comers into so unpropitious a -world. - -In all seasons and weathers she had known the Downs with him, and like -sailors at sea they had accepted the bad with the good, without thought -of avoidance. Like all English country people, they disliked extremes -of heat as well as extremes of cold; a high summer’s day, when the -heat winked along the ridge of the hills, held for them none of that -poetic quality it holds for the idle. Their point of view was sober -and practical; if feed grew short, they hoped for rain; if the corn in -the lowlands were flattened by rain, they hoped for fine weather; it -was simple. If the day were a holiday,--that is to say, if Lovel had -taken no job,--then they were as content as any other idlers to lie -soaked in sun upon the most exposed flank of upland they could find. -They would pull the long grass to nibble it down to the juice at the -end, or Lovel with a blade of grass drawn taut between his thumbs would -shrill the empty air with strange whistlings, or they would tease the -ants and small insects by walling them in with a circle of miniature -chalk cliffs. Their laughter spread with the song of the larks as -fresh and clear as water, and the great spaces lay all around them with -the cloud-shadows chasing one another down and over the slopes, and -creating in their overhead passage the perpetual variety of mood and -colour of the Down-country. - -Down-country, so temperamental; in halcyon days bright and blithe; -candid in its well-being, wholesome in its wind-cleaned delight; yet -keeping in the valleys and sweeping folds the deeper shadows which -gave it tone like the soberness of some latent melancholy. Upon the -heights it would receive the sun, and glitter and rejoice like a woman -in love, but the cup of the valleys was deep with a greater richness, -with remembrance, and foreboding. So, although simple and large in -outline, the country,--to Clare and Lovel personal, not inanimate,--was -not simple with a shallow or trivial simplicity; not the simplicity -of ignorance or emotional poverty; but with a wisdom that still -had the courage to be gay,--the reckless gaiety of the profoundly -tragic. No monotony was possible over that landscape of sunburnt tan, -of blue distances, and stains of a lowering purple. No monotony, -no sentimentality; the moods all visible at once over the range of -country, all definite and certain of their intention, whether the naked -sunburnt heights, or the brooding plunge of shadow. - -Only in winter that ever-present reminder of tragedy fulfilled -itself. In summer and in autumn it robed itself in peacock colours, -blue and bronze, a sorrow as sumptuous as the sorrow of a queen. But -in the winter the splendour was gone, only an austerity like stone -remained; grey disillusioned Downs, shaven by the winds, shelterless, -inconsolable. Then came the snow; and up here, where no trees but -the beech-clumps broke the white, where no hedges strove with their -little maudlin pretence of security to lessen the rigour of the country -towards the softness of man, here no flinching availed; grief was -naked as joy had been naked, to be met and fought with, until that -despondency should pass and the heights leap out once more into the -sun of spring, with only the reverberations of the storm rolling still -about the valleys. - -Lovel, who resembled the Downs themselves both in his exuberance of -spirit with the threat ever-lurking, and in his despair, which was so -extravagant and so profound when it overcame him that it seemed he -could never again lift himself out of the slough,--Lovel who for all -his thought and his reading had never looked into himself or named what -he would have found there,--Lovel who could no more control his moods -than the Downs could forbid the sun to burnish their gold-brown slopes -or the blizzard to rack them with a hell-ride of gale and sleet,--Lovel -came upon Clare standing in the sun knee-deep in a dew-pond on one of -the highest ridges of the Downs. - -Her patient pony, well-accustomed, strayed and browsed near at hand; -he snuffed the dry thymy turf; he plucked with disdain at a tuft of -grass fit only for sheep-pasture. This was not horse-pasture, this -bare beggarly brown turf up here in the glitter of the sun, beneath -the exposed and unsheltered windiness of the sky. Open country, open -country; no higher peaks to climb; miles of open rolling country -on every side. The clean and airy liberty of open country under a -blue-and-white heaven. Clare stood in the circle of the dew-pond -holding her skirts picked up above her knees. She was laughing; she had -seen first the ears of Lovel’s horse prick up over the rim of the hill, -then she had seen Lovel himself, not looking to find her, then the -shoulders of his horse, breasting the sharp climb, then the complete -slim silhouette of horse and rider and two dogs at heel. And she had -hailed him; a shout of laughter mingled in with his name; she had -hailed him. At the top he had drawn rein, shading his eyes against the -sun, and looking down he had seen her, standing down in the bowl of the -dew-pond. He had caught her in the act of hesitation, afraid lest she -should venture out of her depth. Capless, she stood in the dew-pond, -holding up her skirts, and her white legs disappeared just below the -knee into the water. She laughed up at him, holding her head a little -on one side in the way he knew well, which gave her a fleeting and -elusive appearance, so that her mouth and eyes seemed to slant upwards -with a fugitive and sylvan air, which materialised but rarely,--or -when, as now, he caught her at an angle,--but which always hovered -there, not always willing to be revealed, but ready to glance out at -the right summons, to whomsoever should hold the shibboleth to produce -it. - -He drew rein, looking down at her, and her pony whinnied a recognition, -and strayed loose to join Lovel’s horse. - -“Not deep!” he called to her. - -She ventured a few steps further. - -“You have seen it empty,” he rallied her. - -“Do you know the secret?” she asked, stopping. The water, disturbed by -her advance, rippled round her knees. - -“Very few know it,” he replied cryptically. - -“Ah, but you, Lovel, you know all those secrets. How do they puddle the -clay? How, to hold the water? I am sure you know it, Lovel! Are you a -dowser, too? they say so, in the village. They say you can pace over -the country until the hazel-twigs jump in your hand. Is it true?” - -“They say a lot of things in the village,” he replied laughing. - -“Does it matter to you what they say?” - -“Not when I’m up here,” he replied, tossing his head, and his horse -tossed his head too, and the bridle jingled. - -“Well, but tell me the secret of how they make the dew-ponds,” she -persisted, kicking with her foot into the water. - -“The secret would soon be a secret no longer,” he answered, putting -her off. “And I never said I knew it.” - -“Ah, but you do,” she said; and thought that those who knew the secret -of the dew-ponds got their knowledge in a straight line of tradition -from the earliest inhabitants of those regions. “Oh, I do envy you, -Lovel,” she said, forgetting that she stood in water and stamping with -her foot so that it splashed up round her, “I do envy you all the queer -things you have got behind you,--they all seem to run into your fingers -with your blood.” - -He laughed again,--he seemed to be in a good humour to-day, and well -he might be, with the bright grass glistening round his horse’s feet, -and over his head the bright blue-and-white spaces where the kestrels -hovered like little specks, and the green pattern of the fields far, -far below. He leant over in his saddle to pat the neck of Clare’s -muzzling pony; they were very much alone up there, with the two -horses and the two dogs, and the clouds racing by. She stood in the -dew-pond with that fleeting look still upon her face, as though she -were a nymph,--a nymph of English uplands, of so fresh and candid and -sky-mirroring a thing as a dew-pond. The olive and the myrtle were -alien to her; the pony and the sheep were her beasts, not the goat; -the round pool of water at her feet shone like the fallen shield of a -young Amazon. He looked down at her; she looked up at him; they both -represented their own particular aspect of romance, each to the other. -“Lovel!” she said, happily. They shared well-being; their own physical -well-being, and the wholesome cleanliness of the Downs and sky. - - -It was some days after this that Clare received from Calladine an -invitation to visit him at Starvecrow. Although she was immediately -aware that she would not reply with a refusal, she felt a shiver of -chill as though she had been beckoned in from the warm sunshine to a -cold and cavernous place. The impression was alarmingly vivid both -in generality and detail. She had met the groom coming up the short -carriage-drive of the Manor House, and after reading Calladine’s note -looked up at the gaunt, raw-boned animal that the groom was riding, at -its ugly quarters, and long melancholy head; she looked into the basket -in which Calladine had sent her an offering, and saw the trout lying on -their bed of long grasses, neatly ranged, pointed nose alternating with -forked tail. The gift seemed to her gruesome and faintly absurd; trout, -cold, plump, and dead. Yet on the evenings when she had gone fishing -with Lovel under the willows, the trout as they laid them in the long -lush grass had seemed gleaming and iridescent, cool from the water, and -together they had examined the scales on the meshes of the landing-net. -Lovel had lifted up their gills with his fingers, and had compared -them to the under-side of a mushroom. But these trout of Calladine’s -were merely dead; their eyes protruded; their gills were closed. She -glanced up at the groom, and fancied that a despondency clung about -him as about his horse, an absence of joy; and then she thought that -this gloom came upon Calladine’s possessions because he revelled in -having it so; the very name of his house, Starvecrow!--had he taken the -house for the sake of its name! had he bought this horse because of its -starting bones and dejected droop? engaged the groom for his sallow, -unshaven appearance and lank hair? dismal envoys that he might send in -reminder from Starvecrow out into a cheerful world? - -She turned slowly towards the house, carrying the basket of trout on -her arm. She had sent back a message of thanks to Calladine with an -intimation that she would visit him on the following day, and already -the prospect of this visit was hanging over her, damp and chill. -Listlessly, when the afternoon arrived she put on her muslin frock and -her big straw bonnet, listening meanwhile for the sound of wheels on -the gravel; she saw her own reflection in her mirror, saw herself cool -and outwardly serene, but the picture gave her little pleasure. This -with Calladine was one of the few appointments she had ever made in -her free life, and it irked her curiously. From the first moment of -her waking in the morning she had felt tied. Like a hobbled colt she -wanted to kick herself free. That her afternoon should be restricted, -ordained in advance,--in the midst of her resentment she had laughed -at her childishness, had been ashamed of her egoism. What would become -of her were she suddenly to find herself bound for life? She had been -content to look after her father’s innocent wants; she had not shown -herself selfish towards him; she could absolve herself from that -charge; but then, he had not encroached on her comings and goings; she -had given freely from love what she might have refused from duty. This -appointment with Calladine was a duty; now she was tied; she could not -take her pony or her fishing-rod this afternoon if the whim seized -her. No, she must wait obediently for the arrival of Calladine’s gig; -she must climb into it and sit meekly beside the sallow groom while -he drove her to Starvecrow. Arrived there, Calladine would be waiting -for her, and his pleasure would be her irritation. The appointment -which had been a restraint to her would have been only a delight to -him. A sulky child, she stared out of the window for the approach of -the gig. She heard it now; the scrunch of the wheels, the clop-clop -of the horse’s trot, and now it came into sight, the familiar high, -ramshackle affair, gaunt horse and all, clanking up the carriage-drive -and stopping in its abrupt, dislocated way in front of the door. Clare -went down. Martha Sparrow was in the hall; she crooned over Clare in -her lilac-coloured gown. “A flower come to life, my pretty child....” -Mr. Warrener came out of his study; he saw Clare standing in the -shadowy hall with Martha fingering round at her flounces; he pushed his -spectacles on to his forehead. “Why, Clare, where are you going?” “To -Mr. Calladine, father, I told you.” “Ah, to be sure, to be sure; well, -he has all the luck; you’re a pretty thing to see.” She kissed him, -laughed, sprang up into the gig, it started off clumsily, swaying from -side to side, and the Manor House was lost to sight behind the trees. - -The gaunt horse spanked along the lanes; Clare did not talk to the -groom, who drove with a serious concentration which promised no -unbending. She wondered whether all the servants with whom Calladine -surrounded himself were as unprepossessing. She was often more than -a little impatient with Calladine for his deliberate mournfulness; -but, more especially since he had told her in so strange a manner the -history of his life’s passion, she had tried to school herself into a -reverent sympathy. She felt that she was very young and consequently -ignorant, and that he was old, sad, experienced, and entitled to her -respect. Instinctively she folded her hands in her lap, and sat demure. -But in a moment she was again laughing at herself, and, although she -tried to reprove herself for the levity, at him. The vexation of the -appointment was lifting from her; her spirits rose, now that she -was out in the lanes and could watch the caterpillars hanging from -the oaks; she would not be affected by Calladine’s gloom, by his -soberness, his measured smiles. Of what use could she be to him if -she allowed herself to become as repressed in his presence as he was -himself? Turning to the groom, she began to talk to him, persevering -until she got a response, and even some growls of information about -Mr. Calladine’s stable; as Clare uncovered her own knowledge, the man -became less grudging, and presently as their argument developed along -lines of expert interest he was impelled to say that Miss Warrener -evidently knew a horse when she saw one. Clare laughed merrily, and -valued the compliment extremely. What she knew, she replied, she had -learnt from experience and from Gipsy Lovel,--for she was glad of an -opportunity of pronouncing his name. Ah, that was a chap for a horse, -he said; or indeed for anything that went on four legs; that was the -chap to go to a horse-fair with; Miss Warrener would never be cheated -if she had Gipsy Lovel to give her advice. He seemed to have a feeling -about horse-flesh; no need to pull their mouths open or run his hand -over their fetlocks. He, the groom, wondered that Lovel didn’t set up -as a horse-dealer himself. He would guarantee that Lovel could take -in most men in the county; yes, and the whole West of England, for -the matter of that. Clare triumphed in his sudden loquacity. Even -the gaunt horse seemed to be sharpening its pace,--though possibly -that might be only because they were drawing nearer to Starvecrow. -The groom laid the whip across its withers, and it broke into a sort -of bundling half-canter which rocked the gig up and down and obliged -Clare to cling on to her big hat; she was amused, because she thought -that this was the effect of Lovel. They had come now to a particularly -deserted tract of country, along the foot of the Downs; and, after -climbing the slope a little way, they saw a group of buildings upon an -eminence, sheltered,--if shelter it might be called,--by a thicket of -wind-blown thorn upon the easterly side. Other trees there were none, -nor any other houses within sight, nothing but the tan rolling of the -Downs and the road that climbed the hill and was lost to sight over the -other side. She descried Calladine there at his gate, waiting for her, -exactly as she had expected to find him. “I hesitated between coming to -fetch you myself, and remaining here to welcome you when you arrived,” -he said, as he came forward to help her out of the gig. - -She knew at once how pleased he was to see her. There was no -affectation about his pleasure. It was a tremendous event for him -to receive her at his house, and he conducted her with infinite -solicitude, and a half-hesitation which, she knew, was intended to -give her the opportunity of noticing and commenting upon every detail. -By a curious process now all the naïveté of her childishness and her -upbringing dropped from her, and she became as delicately gracious as -any skilful woman; she remained a little aloof from him, receiving -his deference as though it were her due, rewarding him in exchange -with her friendliness and her interest, smiling at his eagerness with -an amused and sympathetic smile, placing here and there the word of -approval he most desired, and bestowing upon his possessions the -appreciation or the gentle derision which for ever after would advance -them in his eyes. He had never before seen her in this mood. He was -bewildered and charmed. He had known her delightful and inconsequent, -wayward and perplexing; he had seen her as a child, he had thought -of her as a spirit, he had never yet seen her as a woman. Her very -gestures, he thought, were different; quieter, more secure; and yet she -had not lost that fugitive air of hers, that shy grace; the combination -enchanted him. He followed her into the house; he was sure, now, that -Starvecrow was pleasing her; he need not have been so apprehensive. To -rest his eyes upon her in his little hall, so cool in her lilac frock, -filled him with the deepest and most disturbing joy. It was he, now, -who grew tremulous and at a loss, while she remained so exquisitely -self-possessed. Seeing that he scarcely knew how best to carry on his -hospitality,--for he seemed incapable of anything but of gazing at -her,--it was she who led the way into the inner room, and touched his -books and looked at the pictures on his walls, and at the view out of -his window. Had he but known it, she was thinking Starvecrow worthy of -its name, a desolate place, in a situation without the grandeur to -compensate for its austerity, and without the comfort to excuse its -meanness. - -“You should plant some cottage roses against your house,” she said, -“and some bushes of Old Man’s Beard.” - -“It shall be done,” he replied, without taking his eyes off her. - -She sat down in his worn old leather chair, took off her hat, and -hung it on the chair-knob. She seemed to him to light the room by her -presence, the room which was dingy if not actually poor, and which had -never before had in it anything so delicate and fresh as Clare with -her muslins and her small yellow head leaning against the chair-back. -But he was afraid almost of speaking to her, lest he should scare her -away, so like was she to some small shy animal which by wary gentleness -he should have enticed into his home. “You are wearing all the colours -of the dawn,” he said, “lavender and primrose,” and ceased because he -dared not go on to the blue of her eyes, that he thought like the blue -of the early sky. - -She smiled at him. “You have made no garden here, in all your twenty -years,” she said. “You should build a wall round a square enclosure, -and fill the beds between your paths. The wall would protect you -against the wind and you should grow lupin and iris and tulips, -honesty, sweet sultan, and snapdragons, and a path down the centre -between cottage lilies and China roses.” - -She was speaking against her own convictions; she infinitely preferred -her Downs uncultivated; but her instinct, strangely indulgent towards -Calladine, told her what would most comfort him. - -“I have no heart to do such things,” he replied, “but since you order -it I will set about it immediately.” - -“Mr. Calladine,” she said, leaning forward, “when you answer me so -gravely, are you indeed serious, or are you laughing at me in your -sleeve?” - -“Serious! you can have no idea how serious,” he exclaimed, tempted to -speak out his whole heart, as he had never before been tempted, by the -sight of her earnest eyes; and he got up, and walked about the room. -“Don’t you know, that your caprice would be my only interest? my only -law? You are the only person,” he said, recollecting himself, “that has -taken an interest in my poor concerns,--cared whether I steeped myself -in sorrow or dragged myself out into the wholesomeness of a new life.” -(“Ah,” cried Clare’s conscience within her, “how little I have cared!”) -“But for you,” he went on, “I should have continued in my dejection; -only your encouragement, lately, has revived me, and I have realised -that I was not the old and finished man I had resigned myself to be. If -you order me a garden, I will turn gardener at fifty,--if you, that is, -will be my critic and my adviser, if you will command me to do this and -do that.” - -She saw, then, how easily swayed he was, and how an idea could take -possession of his mind, for beyond an occasional kindness she could not -be said to have interested herself at all in his concerns or to have -encouraged him to forsake the gloomy ways of retrospect or his solitary -habits of life. Still she was very glad that his imagination should be -able to thrive on such meagre nourishment; it did her no harm, and she -was glad if it might do him good. - -“You have surely thought for long enough about the past,” she said idly. - -Again he seized upon her words, and she reflected with some amusement -that she had never imagined any one so susceptible to suggestion. - -“I will act on what you say,” he exclaimed. He went across to his -writing table and took from his drawer an etching of a woman, slightly -tinted, with coarse curly hair, cruel eyes, and a large beautiful -mouth. Calladine tore it into fragments; he flung the pieces on the -ground and stamped on them. “I never had the courage to do that -before,” he said, staring at Clare and breathing heavily; he looked -really frightened at what he had done, and she knew that he wanted -her to reassure him. For her part she wanted to laugh, but knew that -she must not. “You should have done it years ago,” she said sensibly, -“instead of living in the house with that locked into your drawer.” - -“I used to take it out in the evening and pore over it until it nearly -came alive,” whispered Calladine. He kicked the fragments with his -toe. “You are my angel,--my guardian,” he said, turning passionately to -Clare. - -She saw that the contradictory being was greatly shaken by what he -had done. “He will regret it, and be glad,--be glad, and then regret -again,” she thought shrewdly to herself. She wondered whether she had -done wisely in not stopping his hand: would he be freed henceforth, or -would he be haunted? “Now burn those pieces,” she said with authority, -“or I shall think of you trying to piece them together again, when you -sit alone here in the evenings.” The idea was half-frightening to her, -and half-absurd. “Burn them,” she repeated, pointing to the grate. - -There was no fire, but Calladine obediently gathered up the fragments -and burnt each one separately, holding its corner to a lighted match. -Clare watched him, thinking how familiar must once have been to him -those shredded features, how he must have kissed that beautiful mouth -and imagined that he sought for truth in those narrow eyes which only -returned him mockery. He knelt beside the grate, burning carefully, and -crumbling the charred paper between his fingers, piece by piece. She -felt sorry for him suddenly. - -“You must not be lonely without your picture,” she said with great -gentleness. - -“I hated it,” said Calladine; “let it go; you have delivered me. You -saw her, didn’t you, before I burnt her? you saw her exactly as she -was: I was no match for her.” Clare thought that he could probably -say this without exaggeration, and that, had she herself met the -other woman, few words would have been necessary between them for the -understanding of Calladine. How deep was the confederacy of sex! she -had never thought of it before; she smiled at Calladine with a detached -pity. “I have no longer any past,” he went on, “only the present, -hourly more lovely. Shall we go out for a little and leave the dust of -the past to settle in this room?” - -Clare was glad to go out, for the room was making upon her a sad and -cold impression, but she found little comfort in the exterior of the -house, ungarnished as it well could be. She began to talk to Calladine -again about the garden he must make, for not only was she really -distressed for his own sake by the bleakness of his dwelling, but -annoyed, almost, in a feminine way, by the man’s incompetence to deal -with his own existence, and not unflattered, either, by his submission -to her directions and the attentiveness with which he received every -word that came from her lips. She saw that he clung to her as his -salvation; she became more autocratic, with a pretty tyranny. She would -transform his patch of desert into an oasis; she, over at King’s Avon -would think of this Starvecrow as blooming into gaiety and colour by -her orders. Calladine watched her, and she knew that he watched. But -she never allowed him to speak of herself, keeping him rigorously -to the business of his new garden; her laughter rang out, and she -rallied him, awaking almost against his will the rare smile on his -melancholy lips. At moments he thought, as he followed her about, that -he must stretch out his hands and cry to her “Clare! Clare!” No one -ever treated him as Clare treated him; other people always took him at -the valuation he set upon himself, composed their faces to a becoming -sobriety as soon as they perceived his own, and quitted his grave -company with relief. He chose to construe their acquiescence into a -grim sort of flattery. But Clare was privileged; Clare might assume -whatever mood she would; he would endeavour to follow her, perhaps -clumsily, for he had lost,--or liked to think that he had lost,--the -habit of lightheartedness; still, she should teach it to him again and -he would renew his youth. - -He had come to the age when the sense of passing days induced a panic. -Clare had youth, Clare had a reserve of youth on which he could draw -without impoverishing her; he felt that she gave him life as surely as -if he drank it at her breast. - -She seemed, as she stood in the centre of the square she had designated -as his future garden, to be all the flowers which should blow there -presently at her command. He said this to her, in that courtly -artificial manner he had of saying such things, with so much froth of -emotion underneath. It was the first personal remark he had made to -her since they had come out of the house, and it gave him relief. But -she only laughed again, and this time he could have shaken her with -rough hands for her laughter, and for her holding off the words which -would stifle him if they remained unspoken. “Clare,” he said violently. - -She glanced at him with that new self-possession; she was maddening -him, though not with the purpose he would have attributed to any other -woman. How she eluded him! how she would perpetually elude him! and so -hold him forever. He knew himself to be fastidious enough to esteem -only that which he had lost, or could never hope to seize. “Clare,” he -repeated, this time with a genuine despair. - -They went back into the house, where tea had been made ready; she noted -his preparations, the honey, the girdle-cakes, the fruit and cream. -He deprecated them, “A bachelor’s house....” “What could be better?” -she replied; and had slipped from him once more. She ate heartily, -borrowing a handkerchief to wipe the cream from her lips, unaccountably -a child again, and a new bewilderment to him. He now felt that what -he might have said to the woman of whom he had had a glimpse, he -could not say to the child who trusted herself in his house, and he -thought with baffled anger, how ably she managed her alternative of -weapons. A spoonful of honey in one hand, and a cake in the other, -she leaned forward, talking to him, he more helpless than ever, and -she more completely in control. He dared not think of his house when -her presence should have gone out of it; he wondered whether he would -suffer least pain by returning to his sitting-room directly the gig had -driven away, by going for a walk on the Downs and returning only after -dusk, or by driving her himself back to the Manor House. The idea of -her going at all was intolerable; perhaps he had been unwise to ask her -to come; perhaps he had only been at his favourite trick of turning the -knife in the wound. But she was speaking, she was saying, “I shall come -again to see whether you have prepared our garden against the autumn.” - -By her movement he saw that she was about to take her leave; he leapt -out of his own chair and stood over her, saying wildly, “Don’t go, -Clare, don’t; how can I bear your going? don’t leave me again, stay -with me a little longer, I can’t face the loneliness without you,” and -a stream of incoherent ejaculations flooded from his lips, while his -hands fumbled towards her, yet with a remnant of soberness he strove to -restrain them. Clare looked at him calmly, with wondering eyes. “But I -must go home if my father is not to be kept waiting for his dinner,” -she said. - -Calladine stepped back instantly and released her. “I am sorry,” he -said. “The loneliness, perhaps, gets a little on my nerves.” He passed -his hand across his eyes. “You are the first visitor I have welcomed -here for many years, and your presence threw me off my balance.” He -tried to speak lightly. “Come, I will take you to the gig,” but still -he lingered, looking to see whether she had left anything behind, -in a last attempt to delay her. “Shall I drive you home?” he asked -desperately. - -“No,” she said, not wanting his company at all, “stay here and begin to -dig the garden.” She smiled. She was anxious to get away. Not until she -was out in the lanes would she again breathe freely. She went without -any appearance of hurry, thanking Calladine, who tore from his solitary -rose-bush all the branches he could crowd into her arms, and climbed -back into the gig as she had come. He saw her go, despair and joy and -anguish rending him. - - -The strain and anxiety of being with Calladine drove her, as always, -towards the wish to be with Lovel. “Brother,” she could have called -him, from the ease of his companionship. She could have put her hand -into his, simply for the trust she had in him. But she knew too well -that the indifference of his greeting would repulse instantly any -such movement of confidence on her part; he would glance at her, when -they met, and his glance would take her back into the assurance of -their old intimacy, but there would be no softening of sentiment in -it. Never that; a challenge and a bracing, but never compassion or a -caress. Could she ever go with a trouble to Lovel? Her instinct leapt -up into an affirmative; he would listen gravely, would understand -without commiserating, would counsel quietly, and would fortify her -with a sense of his reliance in her trustworthiness. He would trust -her to behave always as he would expect that she should behave. She -would endure anything rather than disappoint Lovel. More: even in his -absence, even though he should know nothing of it, she kept herself -constantly up to the level of his standards. She winced at any thought -of his possible disapproval. She had not for him, nor could she imagine -herself having, the indulgent and,--school herself to reverence as -she would,--contemptuous pity she had for Calladine; what had she -told Calladine to do? to grow lupin and iris, tulips and honesty, -sweet sultan and snapdragons, in a walled patch of what had once been -Down-land! to _wall_ the Down? was it possible that she had told him to -wall in the Down? what gulf she must divine between him and herself, -between him and the Down-country in which he had elected to live, if -she could tell him to wall in the Down. Yes, even a square, a stray -square of Down, forgotten between a lane and Starvecrow’s farm-house. -What would Lovel say, if she told him that? True, Lovel himself was -sometimes set on to plough the Down, and willingly proceeded with the -task; but that was different: that was the old struggle between man -and the soil from which he wrested his daily bread; Lovel would tame -the Down to grow barley for man or roots for his cattle,--a poor crop -at best, extorted from the recalcitrant soil, like charity from an -irreconcilable spirit, a poor crop, flaunting red poppies for its last -flag of insubordination,--Lovel would plough the Down for that purpose, -and relish the tussle, meeting in mutual understanding an adversary as -stubborn as he himself; but for his mere pleasure he would not wall in -a square to grow the effeminate flowers of decoration. They would blow -and curtsey, Calladine’s flowers, until a wind swept over them from the -angry Downs and laid them low,--but stay, what had she said?--“The wall -will protect them against the wind.” Yes, and protect Calladine too: he -could not stand up against the winds from the Downs. So, in her heart, -she pitied Calladine and was disposed to see him protected? What had -he done to deserve from her the insult of that charity? She had seen -Lovel go out into a snowstorm on the heights and had not feared for his -discomfort or his danger, any more than he feared for hers. Calladine -she would have prevented with kind, firm words on the threshold of the -door. - -And it so happened, at her first meeting with Lovel after her visit to -Starvecrow, that she, riding, sighted him in the distance following -a plough-team over a curve of hill. He was not at work in one of the -folds of the lower reaches, the favourite position for the rare stains -of cultivation. He and his team were in outline against the sky, -following the slow and classical progression of the furrow over the -curve; the hempen reins looped slackly from the horses’ heads to his -hand; the man, the horses, and the plough pursued their way, disengaged -from all but the essentials of their labour, with the old inevitable -simplicity. Clare rode towards the brown patch and, reaching Lovel, -rode at a walk beside him up and down the freshly-turned furrows. -The bright share cut cleanly into the sod, turning it over. They -both watched it, as it slid through the sod, with a professional and -satisfied criticism. “Poor soil,” Lovel said once; otherwise they had -not spoken. She liked to watch him plough, appreciating his dexterity, -and the jump of the plough-shaft under his hand; she liked his voice -ringing out to the horses at the turn. The slow rhythm soothed her. -“Who are you ploughing for?” she asked. “Morland,” he said briefly. -“Shall you be finished by six?” she asked, looking across at the -westering sun; and he nodded. “I’ll wait,” she said, and getting off -her pony, she slipped the reins over her arm and stood watching Lovel -without impatience. - -At six he unhitched his team and came across to her, the horses -slouching along behind him. “An ungrateful job,” he remarked, staring -resentfully at the stony furrows; “they never put me on to the loam; -always the chalk for me.” “I wish you had a bit of land of your own,” -she said. “Ay, I’d get the better of it,” he replied, suddenly eager. - -His team stood patient, heavy and shining compared to her small pony. -The curious light of sunset began to creep over the Downs, turning -their tan to a rosy orange. “Fine weather,” nodded Lovel. He turned -to his horses, and began to adjust a bit. The rooks were settling on -the patch that he had ploughed. He stooped down, and picking up a lump -of earth, crumbled it between his fingers. Clare, observing his fine, -bony, downward-bent face, knew that he was reflecting. Sure enough, he -raised it to say, “How would you bring them up, if you had children?” - -“Have you been thinking about children?” she asked, amused. - -“It’s thinking about children,” he replied seriously, “that shows -you the things we base life on. There’s money, there’s humbug, and -there’s death. What do we say over and over again to children? ‘Don’t -touch that, you’ll break it, it’ll cost money to replace.’ ‘Be -polite,’--that’s humbug. ‘Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself,’--that’s -death, really, or at any rate the fear of injury. A child doesn’t see -much difference between being alive or being dead. As for money, or -for time, which is the same thing, it takes him years to get his brain -round those two things. It’s a fine and careful system we’ve got, -haven’t we? While I was following the plough, I was having an imaginary -conversation with a child. ‘If I was dead,’ said he, ‘I shouldn’t know -that I was dead, so what would it matter?’ And I couldn’t find an -answer in my head.” - -“But if you had children of your own,” said Clare, “you would find -yourself bringing them up in the same way.” - -“Oh, perforce,” he replied, “but that’s the end of all theories. We’re -chained by necessity; it’s the wire across the path that brings the -horse down in mid-gallop. We’ve got to teach our children caution,--the -fear of death,--merely to keep them alive until they grow up. And all -that we should enjoy teaching them is obscured by the don’ts and the -shoutings-out to keep their limbs whole and our crockery unbroken.” - -“Well,--and humbug?” she said. - -“That’s civilisation. ‘What’s polite,’ asks the child, and ‘what’s a -lie?’” - -“Would you like to have children of your own?” asked Clare. - -“Yes,” replied Lovel briefly, and changed the subject. “I have to bring -a handful of sheep home for Mr. Morland from the fair at Marlborough on -Tuesday. Will you be going to the fair? Horses, mostly.” - -“I’ll go with you,” said Clare in delight, clapping her hands. - -“Better meet me there, as ’twere by chance,” said Lovel, suddenly a -little grim. “‘Miss Warrener taking up with gipsies,’--I can hear them -talk. No, meet me there, make out you’re interested in a pony, and -fetch me to have a look at him.” - -“But we can ride home together?” said Clare crestfallen. - -“We’ll meet outside the town and come home over the Downs. I don’t want -all the gig-wheels in amongst my sheep.” - -She laughed suddenly, seeing how practical he was, and liking it. - -He slipped the reins of his team from off the gate-post where he had -hitched them, and hoisted himself, sitting side-ways, on to one of the -great elephantine backs. He sat there, slack and swaying to the horse’s -tread, in the manner of all carters, and the other two horses lumbered -after him, their hoofs going plop-plop in the thick dust of the road, -and the hair round their fetlocks flopping as on spaniels’ paws. Clare -followed him, light on her pony. They did not become him well, she -thought, those great horses; he demanded the slimmer, swifter animals -of creation, hares, Arabs, or deer. But it amused him to play the -plough-boy. How indifferent he seemed, she thought,--scarcely looking -at her, riding on with his gaze held towards the sunset; how different -from Mr. Calladine’s eagerness to propitiate her; and a tiny sore of -feminine vanity was pricked. Then she laughed at herself, immediately; -what was she expecting from Lovel, her Lovel? expecting him to be -different from himself? she would not like it if he were. And she knew -that he was content to have her there, even though he never troubled to -look around. - -Lovel set off in a practical mood for Marlborough fair. He was thinking -of the sheep he had to buy and bring home for Farmer Morland; in a way -the farmer’s trust provoked in him a sort of contemptuous pride, and, -poacher and free-lance though he was, he would have scorned to make -a penny’s profit for himself out of the transaction. The commission -was given him to execute; the farmer relied upon his honesty and his -knowledge; the thing was simple: that was a trust of which he would not -take advantage. On his lawless expeditions, he was betraying no man’s -confidence; the keepers all knew him, and, meeting him unprofessionally -in the lanes, would exchange with him a grin and even a wink of -understanding. They stood for the law, and he for the skill that would -defeat the law; they knew it, and he knew that they knew it; that was -a frank challenge, with sport in it on either side; but as for Farmer -Morland’s sheep, a mere matter of money, he would never demean himself -to a bargain with the middle-man, and the farmer’s interests, for the -moment, were his own. He might next week be snaring the same farmer’s -ditches; that was a separate matter. - -At the back of his mind, as he rode ambling along on the strip of grass -at the roadside towards Marlborough, he retained the knowledge that he -had arranged with Clare a meeting at the fair. The knowledge lay there, -like a warm patch in his consciousness, and he enjoyed keeping it just -out of sight, while he directed his thoughts on to the sheep, and noted -the farmers, shepherds, and cattle-men who streamed along the road in -the same direction that he himself was taking, some on horseback going -at a quick trot, some in their high spanking gigs, and some crawling -in farm-carts with pigs and calves bundled up under a net. All the -pastoral population of the district seemed to be streaming towards -Marlborough along the great arterial road, and Lovel had no doubt that -they were streaming equally towards it along the road on the further -side of the town, and not along the main road only, but converging -upon Marlborough by all the lanes and lesser roads, from Devizes and -Savernake, from Ogbourne St. George and Ogbourne St. Andrew, from the -Winterbournes and the Hintons. He surveyed them as they passed him; -they were known to him for the most part, solid men and honest enough, -their faces as broad and open as the country which had bred them; -and the shepherds, who with their slow, limited movements seemed to -resemble the animals committed to their care, contented in not having -a preoccupation beyond the recurrent business of the animal year, -with its breeding, shearing, and dipping; and the old wiseacres, who, -although they no longer bought or sold, made a practice of attending -all the local fairs where their fat cobs would carry them, there to -criticise and shake their heads over the methods of their juniors. -Lovel watched them all go by, feeling himself slightly alien, as -though he had been all the while conscious of his darkness beside their -ruddiness. - -Gig-wheels rattled and hoofs spanked crisply along the ringing road, -and Lovel watched them go by, the stream, like life itself, hurrying -past him. That old road had known the traffic of the past and present, -and,--although there was not much to tempt his reflectiveness in -the wide airiness of the light-coloured summer morning,--he said -to himself, addressing his thoughts to the rubicund pre-occupied -agriculturists, that after all the hair-splitting and tangle introduced -by love, malice, envy, ambition, or their kindred, were cleared aside -and done with, the main business of life was nothing more than the -maintenance of life, else why all this buying and selling, this labour -and breeding, this system which produced tilled fields and stout -farmers trotting to market, cattle-pens in Marlborough market-place, -and booths with headstalls and shovels? so that nine-tenths of the -population were so taken up with the business of living that it was -time to die before they had ever had leisure to take a look at life at -all. Lovel, thinking thus, looked at them in his detached way with a -little envy, a good deal of sarcasm, and a complex wistfulness, failing -to find any meaning in the conclusions his logic had led him to. A lot -of pother, just to keep alive; and for what purpose? - -All over the civilised world, on which Marlborough was a speck, they -were doing it; but they would not understand Lovel if he told them so, -and he knew better than to diminish his reputation of being a practical -man. - -And now in spite of all his thoughts which bore him away on absences -of speculation, his horse, which had been carrying him more soberly -along, brought him in sight of Marlborough, and he saw the concourse of -gigs, from which the horses had been unharnessed and led away, standing -parked with the shafts stuck upright in the air, and beyond them the -lime-whitened hurdles which penned up the tossing sheep; he saw the -gaitered legs moving among the open spaces; he heard the barking of -sheep-dogs as they rushed excitedly round, he heard the cries of the -vendors and the lowing of the puzzled cattle. A cattle-market and horse -fair was to him no novelty; he got off his horse, and, not thinking any -more now of the cumbersome system of civilisation which had gathered -all those men and beasts together from their homes to the same spot at -the same hour, he walked round surveying with as shrewd an eye as any -farmer there the merits and demerits of the goods and livestock offered -for sale. The principal business of the sale was not yet begun, but -a good deal of private bartering and haggling was going on, and the -sellers at the opening of their booths were crying their wares, whether -wooden baskets, hay-rakes, tarred twine, leggings, hedging gloves, -chaff-cutters, milking-stools, scythes, sickles, carters’ whips, -churns, shears, or in fact any of the smaller articles necessary to -pastoral or agricultural existence. The whips hung up in heaves made -gay with scarlet braid; the wooden goods were displayed along the front -of the booths, clean and newly-planed, showing the honest grain of -the wood and smelling fresh of sawn edges and rosin; and on some of -the booths, fluttering like flags, were hung coloured petticoats and -shawls to tempt the men to bring home a remembrance to their women. -There were tinkers too, selling shining saucepans, and gipsies with -bead necklaces; a dancing bear ambling along on a leash; hokey-pokey -carts, and a hurdy-gurdy; and outside the town, in a field, was -encamped a travelling circus, with a roundabout and a set of swings, -that awoke in its progress shrieks of terror and ecstasy all over -rural England. Among the various attractions, Lovel moved quietly and -alone, his two dogs at his heels, as self-contained as their master. -Several strangers threw curious glances at him, for his quiet step, -which they thought stealthy, and the darkness and leanness of his air, -which so differentiated him from the fair sturdy weight of the crowd -of countrymen. Interrogation by these strangers evoked a glance and a -reply, contemptuous in intention, yet respectful in its immediate hint -of mystery, “Egyptian, they do say ... queer tales.” But Lovel, if he -noticed these rare enquiries, paid no attention; he was accustomed to -feel himself shunned and dreaded, and his dogs seemed to share his -loneliness, for they never crossed the road to nose another dog, but -kept to Lovel’s heels, and woke to interest only when there were sheep -or steers to be shepherded, in the same way as the man was scornful -and kept himself aloof, but spoke keenly and with authority when any -question arose relating to his various professions. - -Amongst the cries and distractions of the market Lovel tried to keep -his mind fixed upon the sheep business which had brought him there, -until that should be despatched, but there was another business which -kept his eyes straying round, and that was the hope of perceiving -Clare, a small and merry figure, with her pony’s rein slung over her -arm. He did not shirk, in his own mind, the desire he had to catch -sight of her, or the sudden relief and satisfaction that sight would -bring him. So long as she was there, Heaven might pour and thunder; -but all would still be well. So long as he had not seen her, the sun -might shine; there would still be a darkness at his heart. Lovel long -since had faced this truth with resolution and a complete despair; but -with no attempt to delude himself or to minimise. It lay quietly at -the bottom of his heart, a quiet patch of certainty, which shouts and -jostlings and an alert scrutiny of the frightened herds were powerless -to disturb. It was there, like a thing he must put out of sight for the -moment, but to which he would have to turn presently, when his business -was finished; he would have to turn to it,--not reluctantly, but in -due course, like returning home,--he would have to attend to it, -grapple with it, decide what was to be done. - -He found that his eyes strayed round increasingly, looking for her; her -continued absence produced an emptiness, in which all things seemed -meaningless and noisy. Then he saw her, standing at a little distance -chatting to the landlord of the Royal George Inn, and a great calm -spread, lake-like, over him. She was at hand; nothing else mattered. He -proceeded quietly to transact his business, having all his faculties -now undistracted about him; he did not even want to look at her, now -that he knew that she was there; she would wait for him and though they -both stood talking to other people, without betraying the consciousness -of one another he knew that they were really converging, that their -two lives were really converging upon the same moment when they would -join up and turn to leave the market-place, without a word spoken, -together. Sure enough, next time that he looked up, she had drawn a -little nearer; he was glad; he felt his absolute silent unity with her, -without any question of command or submission on either side, an almost -sexless unity, and one that had grown up without any agreement spoken -in words. - -“Those’ll be father’s sheep, Lovel?” said a voice ingratiating, at his -elbow. - -He looked down, and saw Daisy Morland, the farmer’s daughter, her large -freckled face raised amiably to his between the puffed red ringlets. -Lovel disliked Daisy as much as Daisy liked him; he avoided her company -as pointedly as she sought his; the fact that he was for the moment in -her father’s employ no doubt encouraged her to think that she had a -certain claim on him; and now especially when his mind was bent upon -Clare she seemed to him more than usually aggressive. - -“I’ll help you drive them home,” she exclaimed brightly. - -“No need, I have the dogs,” said Lovel, and added, “thanks,” which he -was far from feeling. - -“No trouble, you know,” said Daisy, giving him a look full of meaning. - -Several of their neighbours were watching the scene with amusement. - -“Best let me take them quietly,” said Lovel; “and anyhow,” he added, as -though that settled the matter, “I’m riding.” - -“Oh, but I’ve got the cob!” cried Daisy triumphantly. - -“Best not,” said Lovel, for he could think of nothing else to say. - -“But I say yes,” said Daisy. “Come, Lovel,” she persisted in a coaxing -voice, “my own father’s sheep? You wouldn’t stop me riding alongside -you?” - -Lovel felt himself beaten; he had, indeed, no reasonable objection to -raise. - -“I shan’t be taking them by the high road.” - -“So much the better,” said Daisy. - -A clear voice said beside them suddenly, “Lovel, I have a favour to -ask; I don’t like riding alone in such a crowd of people, may I ask -your escort back to the Manor House when you go?” - -He turned upon Clare, who had come up unobserved, and saw the mischief -beneath the request so formally and demurely proffered. - -“Of course, Miss Warrener, I am at your service,” he replied instantly, -and they stood, for a moment, the two of them together, looking at -Daisy, whose freckled face had grown suffused with an unbecoming red, -that clashed with the red of her hair and spread patchily round her -throat down to the opening of her gown. - -“Forgive me for interrupting you, Daisy,” said Clare serenely. - -Daisy mumbled a “No matter, miss,” class triumphing over sex. - -“Can I get your pony for you, Miss Warrener?” said Lovel to Clare -politely. - -“I will wait till you are ready,” said Clare politely to Lovel! - -Their eyes met. - -“Let us go,” said Lovel irresistibly. - -With the clamour of the market all round them they manœuvred the little -flock of sheep out of their pen into a side-street, leading their -horses till they should be clear of the town. The cries of the market -place died away behind them,--the market place where Daisy still stared -after them with a stare of dull, revengeful anger, too stupefied to -care as yet that the whole of Marlborough should have witnessed her -humiliation. But, having no pride, she minded this less than the loss -of the ride she had promised herself with Lovel. Miss Warrener had got -him, taken him coolly away from under her very nose; they had drifted -away together without any fuss as though they belonged naturally to -one another. Miss Warrener! Who would have thought of meeting Miss -Warrener at a cattle-market? It was not the first time, either, that -Daisy had seen Lovel and Miss Warrener together, not by any means the -first time, since she was not above following Lovel secretly and spying -upon him up there on the Downs when he thought himself safe. But who -could have thought that the girl would have come to Marlborough fair -for the purpose of meeting Lovel? for Daisy had no doubt that that had -been Clare’s intention; and so cool about it, so lady-like, “Lovel, -I have a favour to ask” indeed! “Lardy-da!” said Daisy to herself, -mincingly, as she angrily imitated Clare’s manner in her own mind, -affecting to despise it, while really envying it as she would never -have acknowledged. - -She woke to the realisation that the market was still proceeding, -with its shouts, its jostlings, and its huddling of beasts, round her -immobilised figure, and, bestirring herself, she went in search of the -fat cob, meaning to follow (at a distance, and keeping out of sight), -Lovel and Clare on their ponies, who, she calculated, must by now be -driving the little flock before them over the crest of the hill. - -And she saw them go, with the eyes of a jealous woman, and knew that -during the two succeeding days, while Lovel kept the flock at pasture, -Miss Warrener joined him again, and sat with him on the Grey Wethers; -she saw all his length stretched on the grass at Miss Warrener’s feet, -and saw their fingers close together over some cat’s cradle that they -were playing. But she saw no more than that, though she watched so that -there wasn’t much that her eyes could have missed. - - -Lovel rode slowly away along the back of the Down, the woolly flock -tossing and huddling along in front of him, in a hurried, senseless -way, controlled by the barking of the two sheepdogs, who were swift to -chase up a straggler, or to straighten out any unseemly bulge at the -side of the flock,--that same flock that he had bought at Marlborough -fair for Farmer Morland. Lovel, knowing he could trust his dogs, rode -in an abstraction. The afternoon sun cast fitful, fan-shaped gleams -down through the thin clouds, like sunbeams passed through a sieve, or -seen through a veil of the finest rain; it produced an effect of shadow -and wet gold familiar to him in his comings and goings over the Downs, -but now for the first time it occurred to him to compare the outside -world with his own life; and, while his meetings with Clare might -stand for that wet gold, the shadows fell mournfully into a yet more -inevitable analogy. - -He came down into the village by dusk, regretful as ever to exchange -the heights for the hollow. Up there he seemed to shake off for a -little the burden of his life, which as soon as he re-entered the ring -of the village he resumed. He was, however, too well-accustomed to this -sensation to pay any particular attention as he passed through the -gap of the embankment. “Charmed circle,” his mother had often croaked -to him, but he always shrugged disdainfully, knowing well that his -imagination was all too ready to be led away along such lines, and -being determined to keep his good sense wholesomely about him. The -tossing woolly backs of the sheep preceded him now in a long wedge, -four or five abreast, down the narrow road; they bleated uneasily, and -tried to break through the hedge on either side. “Poor silly things, -ye don’t like being penned up any better than the rest of us,” Lovel -said to them, as he bent from his horse to open the gate into the -field, and called to his dogs to head off the flock, which crowded back -helter-skelter through the gate and then dispersed themselves in a -sudden browsing content in the field among the monoliths. - -Lovel called off his dogs and pulled the gate shut again, with the -crook of his riding whip. He surveyed the sheep for a moment over -the gate: they were already grazing, dim shapes in the dusk, on the -comparatively rich pasture after the short turf of the Downs. “A -good lot,” Lovel thought professionally, “and all for the butcher -to-morrow,” but he had no sentiment to waste over the fate of the -sheep. He rode on into the village, leaving the circle of the -embankment with its few naked trees, behind him; ahead of him, the -church spire rose up against the sky, and presently as he turned the -corner the village street came fully into view, with all its necessary -provisions for the conduct of existence: houses for folk to be born in, -shops where they might purchase the paraphernalia of daily life, the -tavern where they might be merry, the church where they might worship, -be christened, married, or buried according to their passing needs, -and the chapel where, if they were so inclined, they might differ as -to their faith with their fellow-men. Church and Chapel Lovel ignored -altogether, a work which his mother had begun for him by refusing -flatly to have him made a Christian. “You’ll call him Nicholas Lovel -for all that Parson don’t souse him,” she had said, arms akimbo, to the -indignant deputation of the parish. - -John Sparrow was turning into the Waggon of Hay as Lovel rode past it. -“Come join us, neighbour?” he said half in mischief; the wits of the -village lived in constant hope that some day, some day, a liquor potent -or sufficient enough should be found to loosen the lips of Gipsy Lovel, -and what secrets they would hear then! Lovel was briefly tempted, then -he shook his head, and passed on: his mother and brother would be -waiting for their meal for him, too helpless to begin without him since -he had said he would be home by four. At that moment the Church clock -struck six: he was two hours late, two hours he had idled away with -Clare. He strung himself up to endure the reproaches with which he knew -he would be greeted. - -He left his horse in the small paddock at the back of the house, and, -carrying the bridle and saddle over his arm, returned to the street and -went into the house by the front door. The passage within was dark, but -by long habit he found the hooks on which to hang up his gear, and at -the noise he made in doing so, and the tread of his riding boots on the -flagged floor, his brother came eagerly out into the passage, carrying -a candle. - -“Oh, Nicholas, is it you? Why, you promised to be home by four, and it -is gone six; where in the world have you been all this time? I have -been three times down the road to look for you.” - -“I wish you would do nothing of the sort when I am late,” Lovel said -curtly. He hated his brother at that moment, he hated the dark house -and the implied reproach; his two hours with Clare flooded over him. -“Is supper ready, at least?” - -Olver whined, “I had forgotten about supper,--I thought only of -you,--don’t be angry with me, Nicco,--I know I should have set it out.” - -“It does not matter,” said Lovel: if he got angry Olver would cringe, -and whine the more. “Give me the candle, I will see to it.” He took -the candle from Olver’s hand, and Olver’s strange eyes gleamed on him -in its light with questioning timidity. The grandfather’s clock ticked -loudly out of the dark recesses of the passage. “I hope you have kept -the fire going,” said Nicholas, opening the door into the living room. -Olver followed at his heels with the dogs. - -The living-room was dark and low, lit redly by the logs in the open -fire-place, and because there was neither paint nor paper on the -walls the great stones of the masonry were visible. The eye looked -down instinctively to find a floor of hard-trodden mud,--and was -disappointed, for the floor here, like that of the passage, was formed -of flag stones. There was little furniture: a centre table, which -served for meals, a few chairs of cane and wood, a tall dresser reared -against one wall, containing on its shelves the crockery for everyday -use, and a shelf above the fire-place, on which stood a row of china -fruits in bright, shining colours,--this comprised the sum total of -furniture and decoration in the whole room. Lovel scarcely noticed -what was in the room and what was not; he liked the stone walls, and -would not have them covered up, but them he liked for the sake of their -tradition and of the quarry from which they had come. - -He now set the candle on the table, and got from out of the cupboard -under the dresser a loaf of bread, some cheese and butter, and the -necessary knives and plates. He did this menial work mechanically; he -had long ceased to expostulate with his brother, or to induce him to -mend his neglectful ways. He supposed, when he thought about it at all, -that till the end of his life he would continue to serve and provide -for his mother and his brother. He was their provider, their protector, -their victim, their master, and their slave; that was his function, and -he did not complain against it. A servant he would not get, even could -he have paid the wages ten times over, because of the tattle carried -to the village. He saw, then, in the simplicity of his mind, no other -course open to him than to perform all the duties himself. - -He set aside upon a tray a cup of tea, when he had made it, and a bowl -of gruel for the bedridden old woman upstairs. This he gave to Olver, -telling him to carry it up carefully, and stood himself at the foot of -the stairs holding up the candle for a light. He heard the door open -above, and his mother’s querulous voice. He smiled grimly to himself as -he thought of how long she had been waiting for her tea, and of what -she would have said could she have known the cause, and have seen the -two figures of himself and Clare standing in the sunlight on the Downs. -This radiant vision of Clare crossed his heart in a flash; it hurt him. -_Had_ his mother seen them? he never knew himself the true extent of -the powers he must not allow himself to think about, because he was -afraid of them. Gipsy Lovel, he knew they called him in the village.... - -Olver came down again, and still his eyes sought his brother’s face -to find whether he had been forgiven. His brother’s servility and -excessive devotion to himself exasperated Nicholas. He sat over his -supper tossing bits of food to the dogs, and trying to pretend to -himself that Olver with his searching eyes and anxious face was not -sitting opposite to him in mute beseeching, hanging on to his looks and -gestures. Nicholas despised himself for his churlishness, but to-night -his home, his brother, were violently intolerable to him. He could not -breathe, he was being stifled; he rose nervously and kicked the logs -into a blaze; in the middle of doing this he swung round. - -“Why do you follow me so with your gaze?” he asked impatiently. - -“You are angry with me, Nicco, for having forgotten the supper, but -indeed I thought only of you, and you are all I have in the world.” - -Lovel said, not unkindly, “Well, you wasted your anxiety: I am better -able than most to look after myself. I am not angry any more,” but in -spite of his words he still felt that the house oppressed him, and -that a restlessness, usually kept under control, was gnawing at him. -He knew well whom to blame: it was Clare, who appeared to him the -personification of all he had abjured. He had had Clare for two hours -before his eyes, the sight of her stirring him as the wind stirs a -bell, and now in the place of Clare he was returned to the monotony -of his sad home; in the full determination not to think of Clare he -crossed over to the fire where his dogs already lay sleeping, filled -his pipe and lighted it, and forthwith began to dream of nothing but -Clare as he sat gazing into the heart of the red ashes. - -She was so little known to him; he liked to picture,--yet his -bashfulness made of it a fearful pleasure,--the ordering of her room, -of her clothes laid neatly in drawers; he thought of her ribbons; he -knew that in the evenings she discarded her gauntlets and her cap and -wore soft coloured silks--he had heard Martha Sparrow say so. He had -never seen her in these; was never likely so to see her; he trembled -at the thrill of so seeing her: her arms would be bare, her throat -rounded and white, with red corals up it. Yet he was not sure that he -desired to see her thus, save as an experience, for thus the difference -between them would be most emphasised; when he met her upon the Downs, -and their ponies fell into step side by side, then she was at her -closest to him, seeing the heavens and the hills with the same eye, -knowing the same things as he knew, reading the signs of the weather, -picking up the same landmarks familiar to them both; but such was the -tremulousness of his mind that he wavered between the preference of -knowing her at her closest, or at her most remote: the one caressed -him infinitely, but the other mystified and tempted him, and made his -pleasure into a rapturous pain. What hope had he of ever beholding -in the flesh that wraith which his fancy evoked? he, Lovel, sitting -over the fire with his two rough dogs and his mazed brother, and at -the end of a day’s shepherding, while she dined at the Manor House -with her father in the warmth of lamplight and the quiet dignity of -pervading scholarship? She was gracious enough to him when they met on -the hills; there, the closeness of their age and pursuits made them -forgetful of their other disparities; the same rain made them both -wet, the same wind ruffled their hair; but with her nod of farewell, -kindly though it might be, they were instantly severed: he sank, she -rose, and drifted out of his reach. He was indignant that an accident -of fortune should be the mean occasion of parting them, an accident of -fortune, not of birth, for by lineage the Lovels, although so fallen, -had, in the pride of their Egyptian blood, no comparison to fear. Then -he remembered that a deeper irony kept him apart from any woman. He had -before him constantly the sight of his mother and brother to uphold -him in the resolution that with the three of them the race must end. -Such blood must not be carried on. But because the primitive instincts -were deep and intractable in him, the renunciation roused his anger; -his animal birthright was to beget sons, and he rebelled against the -chance that cheated him of it; and in the same train of thought came -the image, whose lovely audacity appalled even while it enraptured -him, of his children and Clare’s; he saw their strong limbs and heard -their laughter, an image vivid and actual, and--he swore to himself--of -a wholesome inspiration. He must see and think no more of Clare! But -as he came to this conclusion, Olver, who had been squatting on the -opposite side of the hearth, stirring the ashes and shooting furtive -glances from time to time at his brother, said, “There came for you a -message while you were away, from Mr. Warrener, to know would you go -up to the Manor House to-morrow, to fix shelves for his books. William -Baskett came with the message, and says, Mr. Warrener is impatient, and -though the books have been stacked up on the floor for over a year, -must needs have the shelves ready to-morrow now that he had at last -taken the idea into his head.” - -“I cannot go,” said Lovel moodily. - -He gave no reason. He thought that the effort was being made -unnecessarily hard for him by this chance intervention. True, he -might not set eyes on Clare, but even so the Manor House would be so -redolent of her as to trouble him to the soul. She might be absent; -but, again, she might come into the room and stand over him while he -sawed and planed, chattering to him in her fashion, at once grave and -light-hearted. “I cannot go,” he said, afraid for himself. - -Olver shuffled across the hearth and knelt at his brother’s feet, -looking up into his face. - -“There is a weight on your mind, brother. Oh, yes, no use in shaking -your head: I always know. Won’t you tell Olver? You don’t know what -powers I might have to help you,--no, no, nothing that you disapprove -of,” he added hastily, seeing Lovel’s face darken, “but you know, you -often say I’ve a kink of wisdom, and so I have,” he went on, carried -away, as he readily was, by his vanity. “Only you cannot appreciate it, -brother, or you would trust me more.” - -Lovel would have given much to be left in peace just then in order -to pursue his quarrel with his own heart, but he was incapable of -slighting his brother’s demonstrations of affection, so he put his hand -on the head pressed against his knee, and, without speaking, caressed -the curls in a manner he hoped was not too obviously perfunctory. He -felt Olver’s instant yielding under the caress, and the creature’s -pathetic dependence only increased his melancholy. “It costs me so -little, and means so much to him,” he thought, and continued to soothe -Olver’s temples with the tips of his fingers. - -They sat in silence for some time, a silence disturbed only by the sigh -of a tired dog in his sleep, or by the falling apart and flaring of a -log. Presently Olver said, in a meditative tone, without moving, “You -hated me, Nicco, when you first came in and I asked you where you had -been. Yet I have often asked you that, and you have not been angry.” - -“You knew where I had been: driving sheep for Mr. Morland,” replied -Lovel mechanically. - -“Yes,--and meeting Miss Warrener.” Olver gave a great chuckle. “Oh, -yes, I know,” he continued, “because the first time I went down the -road to see whether you were coming I met Miss Warrener, riding on her -pony, and she stopped to ask me how I did, and said that she had seen -you. She carried a bunch of gorse slung at her saddle, which she said -you had cut for her. Is that how the land lies, brother?” - -“No, no,--simple boy,--never hint such a thing.” Lovel was angry, and -extraordinarily distressed. - -“_I_ know,” said Olver, nodding sagely. He rambled on, “Daisy Morland -has seen you together, and because she wants you for herself her -eyes are sharpened. I found her in Farmer Morland’s barn, cutting -mangolds for the cattle. She asked me to help her. Very soon I was -cutting mangolds alone, and she was lying in the hay watching me. She -said, ‘That brother of yours is a sly dog,--hoity, toity with us poor -girls,--too good to speak to a Christian,--and all because he fries -other fish in secret.’ I asked her what she meant. She tossed her head -and said it was not for her to give away your secrets to me. So I -stopped cutting, and threw her down on her back in the hay, and tickled -her till she promised she would tell me. She was soft to tickle; she -squealed and wriggled about. Why don’t you like her?” asked Olver. - -“Go on,” Nicholas answered. - -“Then she said she had been hiding behind a rick somewhere up near -the Grey Wethers, and she had seen you come riding along with Miss -Warrener. She said you got off your horses when you came to the -Wethers, and sat down on one of the stones, and stayed there till the -sun began to sink; then you caught your horses and rode away, very -close together. She said you had talked all the time as though a week -was too little for all you had to say. She said she had seen you both -at Marlborough market, too. Then she began to cry; she cried so loud I -was afraid Farmer Morland would come in to see what was ado, so I held -my hand over her mouth until she stopped. She said you were breaking -her heart, and she cared nothing what became of her. She said she was -reckless. What’s the meaning of it all?” - -“Jealousy,” said Lovel, with suppressed fury. - -Olver said nothing, but his conviction remained sagely the same. He was -sorry he dared not tell Nicholas the rest of the story, but Nicholas -was inexpressibly severe and prudish; he would not have approved of -the scenes in the barn, neither of the knock-about scene of tickling -and squealing amongst the hay, nor of the subsequent scene, when -Olver had laid his hand over Daisy’s mouth, and, half-strangled, she -had spluttered against his hand, and the wetness of her mouth had -mingled with the wetness of her tears to inflame his rustic senses, -and in the indifference to her misery she had not resisted him. He -smiled to himself as he remembered, but he knew better than to tell -this to Nicholas. Only once had he seen Nicholas really violent, on -one occasion when he had come artlessly to his brother with the tale -of his first exploit; Nicholas’ explosion of anger was a thing Olver -had never forgotten. It remained lurking, a thing which at any moment -might flare up again. He kept such stories now for his mother’s ear -alone; the old woman, enchanted at this surreptitious alliance against -Nicholas’ hateful authority, would cackle in sympathy, and, making -her hand a trumpet to her ear, invite Olver to pour out in a whisper -details increasingly succulent, and so passed hours, Olver with an eye -constantly on the door, lest Nicholas should unexpectedly return, but -turning always again to whisper to his mother, who with her “Hee! hee! -and did you so? good lad!” and similar ejaculations, would puff him -up to thinking himself a man where he was most an animal. Lovel was -thinking only of how he might best delude his brother’s shrewdness, -and how discover whether the girl was scattering this gossip broadcast -over the village. He had always disliked the girl,--her red hair, pale -blue eyes, loose mouth, and freckles,--nor was it likely that he would -turn to civility now in order to coax her into discretion. He was -inexpressibly concerned, perplexed and discouraged, and the longer did -he remain brooding over the fire, the more convinced did Olver grow -that Daisy’s hysterical theory was the true one. - -They heard the rapping of their mother’s stick on the floor overhead; -it was the signal that she needed something. The dogs raised their -heads and began to growl. Lovel, wrenched back to the actualities of -his daily life, said, “Go, you, Olver.” - -He sat on after Olver had gone, but he was not allowed to pursue his -reflections, for the sounds of violent quarrelling reached him from -overhead: his mother’s voice raised to a scream, and Olver’s to an -indignant bellow. He knew that he must go up and separate them. The -cause of their quarrels never transpired; the outburst was puerile, -violent, and senseless, and came to an end with the same childish -suddenness as it had begun. Lovel never knew which he dreaded most, -and which most filled him with anxiety and distaste: their alliance or -their hostility. - -He rose, and taking the candle he went upstairs to his mother’s room. -He went with an extreme weariness and repugnance, feeling that the -burden he had to carry was too heavy when private sorrow was added to -it, and wishing for once, strong though he was, that he might lay it -down and be seen no more in that country. The sound of the quarrelling -voices continued as he made his way along the upstairs passage, but -they fell into an abrupt silence in the presence of his authority. He -stood in the doorway and they looked at him guiltily. The old woman, -huddled in her chair, muttered something under her breath. He took in -the squalid disorder of the badly-lighted room. - -“Go down to the kitchen, Olver,” he said. - -Olver slunk away. Lovel came forward, and patiently began setting the -room to rights; although he was too practical a man to indulge himself -in the fastidiousness which might have been his by nature, he was often -sickened by the loathsomeness of the many tasks he had to perform for -his mother: he was sickened now. She was utterly without regard for -decency; but for her son, she would have wallowed contentedly in the -squalor of her room; it was amazing to him how, helpless though she -was, and able to travel about only by propelling herself in her wheeled -chair, she yet contrived during his short absences to reduce the room -she inhabited to the appearance of a hovel. - -“Can Olver not fetch away your supper, but you must start quarrelling -with the lad?” he said. - -Immediately she broke into a torrent of grievances, in the high, shrill -voice of her petulance, which Lovel knew so well; and he regretted that -he had not let the matter pass uncommented, since it was irremediable. -He waited until she had finished, then bent over and said with his -usual gentleness, “Come, mother, let me help you to bed.” - -She allowed him to raise her from her chair, first throwing back -the old miscellaneous shawls and coverings, and, half lifting, half -carrying her across the room, he deposited her on her bed. She kept up -meanwhile a continual grumble: where had he been all day, that he had -so neglected her? Since early morning he had not been near her; she had -been dependent upon Olver for her food and her company; but Olver was -a good lad; he did not go off all day like Nicholas did, wenching, no -doubt,--Nicholas pressed his hands tightly together, to keep himself -silent,--Olver had sat with her that afternoon, and they had talked; -where would she be, without Olver for company? - -During this complaining and muttering Lovel had busied himself with -making her comfortable in bed; he covered her over, arranged her pillow -for her, placed a glass of water within her reach,--she always wanted -matches too, but was not allowed them;--he now looked down upon her -as she lay, her helpless form under the shapeless heap of bedclothes -and her scant grey locks straggling over the pillow. She had the same -eyes as her sons, in what must have been a fine bony face; and the same -cunning look frequently stole into them as stole into Olver’s. - -“I hope you have not again been filling the lad’s head with the rubbish -I have so often forbidden,” said Lovel anxiously in reply to her last -remark. - -“A nice way for you to speak to your mother!” she croaked. “Olver -doesn’t speak so to me; forbidden, indeed! Never you mind what Olver -and I have been saying. If I had only been given Olver to myself I -could have made him into something better than a mere simpleton, as -you all dub him; but no, I wasn’t to have Olver to myself: there was -always Nicholas between us, with his ‘forbidden’ ... forbidden.... -Anyhow, Nicholas hasn’t won altogether,” she muttered, not quite daring -to speak too distinctly; “there are hours every day when Nicholas isn’t -at home.” - -“I can always get Olver to tell me the truth,” said Lovel, “and if I -find you have been at your tricks I shall have to keep him away from -your room.” - -The old woman laughed; a grating and unpleasant laugh, between fear and -amusement. - -“And to do that you will have to stay at home, and then where will the -money come from, my pretty boy?” - -“True,” said Lovel, “I am obliged to go out to work to make money for -you and Olver, but Olver can come with me, and so he shall.” - -“And leave me alone here to die, if so be,” said the old woman, -beginning to whimper, and she snuffled into her bed-clothes, and said -that Nicholas was a cruel son to her. - -“The remedy lies with you,” he said quietly; and then, straightening -the clothes for her again, he told her that he would not take Olver -away from her unless she obliged him to. “But I am responsible for -Olver,” he added, “and we are ill enough looked upon in the village -already; you know, mother, that I must keep Olver in order, and his -brain is too weak to be trusted with dangerous matter.” He wondered -why he took the trouble to say this, since he knew that it was useless -attempting to appeal to the old woman’s good sense or better feelings, -as she had neither. - -She only laughed again. He paused beside her for a moment, but there -was nothing more to say, and wishing her good-night he took up the -candle and left the room. Out in the passage he heard her voice calling -him back. - -“Matches, Nicholas: let me have the matches to-night.” He shook his -head in refusal. “Cruel to me, Nicholas; and my own son too: cruel and -hard; he bullies us both....” Lovel shut the door and went downstairs, -but the mumble of her complaining pursued him still. - -Olver crouched by the fire between the dogs, his curls almost as matted -as their pelt. He eyed his brother from under his brows, as though -he expected to be scolded. Lovel however only said quietly, “I shall -remain at home to-morrow, and if you choose you can go to the Manor -House for me.” He let fall this remark in the midst of his occupation -of clearing the room before going to bed; he let it fall so casually -that no trace appeared of the effort it cost him. “But if you should -see Miss Warrener,” he added, “you must breathe no word of the folly -you uttered to me. I must have your word on that, you have never yet -broken your word to me.” - -“I will not tell Miss Warrener,” said Olver. - -Lovel was satisfied. - -Olver set out early on the following morning, carrying his basket of -tools slung on his back, and a number of clean new planks, smelling -of resin, under his arm. Nicholas stood at the door to watch him go, -envious, regretful, but sturdy in his determination. Olver walked -quickly up the village street; the morning was bright; he felt good and -competent this morning, and full of importance: not only had Nicholas -trusted him to do his work, but he was full of a private intention to -spy out the land at the Manor House; if Nicholas wanted Clare, why, -then Nicholas must have what he wanted; it seemed to Olver quite simple -and direct. He turned in at the gates of the Manor House, pleased by -the pretty garden and the cool house with its long windows and open -shutters. The lowering mood which was usual to him receded further and -further; it was pleasant to feel so good; he looked all round him as -he walked, smiling. The door was opened to him by Martha Sparrow in a -clean cap and apron; he wanted to kiss her soft old face, which looked -as though it smelt of soap, but instead of doing that he pulled off -his cap very civilly and said that he had come to fix the bookshelves -since his brother was unable. Martha Sparrow looked at his tight curls -and thought with surprise that he was an agreeable-looking lad; telling -him to wait a moment, she left him on the doorstep and went to Mr. -Warrener. “Young Lovel, sir,” she said, “have sent the zany in his -stead.” - -Mr. Warrener had forgotten all about the book-shelves; he pushed his -spectacles up on his forehead and stared at Martha. - -“Sent the zany, Martha? What for?” - -Martha respectfully and patiently reminded him. - -“To be sure, to be sure.” He turned and surveyed with a helpless -resentment the books piled up in a corner of his room. “Bring him in, -Martha,” he said, resignedly. - -“You’ll have him in the room, sir, then?” said Martha dubiously. - -“Why not? why not? to be sure, he has to put up the shelves,” replied -Mr. Warrener, scenting disapproval. - -“These gipsies, sir ... and the zany as naughty as a magpie?” - -“I’ll stop with him, Martha,” said Mr. Warrener, who before the rebuke -of his old servant instantly became a great coward. - -He could not, however, endure the noise of sawing and nailing which -began as soon as Olver had spread out his dust-sheet on the floor, but -took his bee-hive hat and stole quietly away from the room. He greatly -preferred that Olver should do the work wrong, or even that he should -pilfer in the room, than that he should himself have to remain at -hand to supervise or to furnish any further directions. He therefore -retreated to a bench at the remotest corner of the garden, hoping -that Martha would not detect him, where, taking his book from his -pocket, he gave himself up to his interrupted reading, to the pleasant -accompaniment of the bees busy in the limes, and of the distant small -noises of a summer day. He had soon forgotten Martha’s remonstrance, -and vaguely relied as usual on Clare guessing his wishes, as indeed she -always seemed to do, and seeing to it on his behalf that Olver Lovel -made no impossible mistake over the shelves. - -Before Olver had been at work very long he became aware that Mr. -Warrener was no longer in the room. He sat back on his heels and -examined his surroundings. The soft carpet and deep chairs especially -took his fancy, and he was much impressed by the spacious writing table -littered with so many papers, and the number of reference books, held -open at a special page by various incongruous objects, this one by a -piece of flint, that one by a ruler, and yet a third by the shoe-horn -brought down from Mr. Warrener’s dressing-table. Olver rose to his -feet, and tip-toed about, looking at the books and at the specimens -of pottery, bones, arrow-heads, and what not, in the show cases which -composed Mr. Warrener’s little museum. Arrived at the chimney piece he -came to a pause, for here he discovered an object which pleased him -more than anything he had ever seen, namely a small circular mirror, -mounted on a handle, which by reason of its convexity had the property -of reflecting everything in a slight distortion,--small, brilliant, -precise and peculiar. He was so fascinated by this toy that he ventured -to pick it up; first he looked at his own face in it, and laughed -childishly to see the widened cheek-bones, the slanting and Puckish -eyes; then he turned it this way and that, to make it reflect different -corners of the room; and finally he got a tiny picture of the garden in -it, seen through the windows, with a miniature Mr. Warrener sitting on -a bench, slightly out of focus, in the background. So absorbed was he -that he did not notice the entrance of Clare; she came in, wearing a -dress of sprigged muslin, and swinging her hat by its ribbons from her -hand, and she entered with just that degree of nonchalance which would -have led a shrewd observer to the certainty that she expected to find -in the room some person other than the person she actually found. So it -was that they both appeared, and Olver gaped at her, very much taken -aback at being discovered on the side of the room opposite to his work, -and with the mirror in his hand. - -“Why, I understand Martha to say that Lovel was here,” Clare said -inconsequently. - -Olver seemed to find no reply; he stood, holding the mirror, and -scrutinizing Clare as though he beheld an unbelievable vision, and -yet wished to be certain of recollecting that vision in every detail. -In the diversion of the mirror he had momentarily forgotten not only -his work, but also the ulterior motive for which he had come. He -now remembered both. So this was the lass that Nicco wanted! Olver, -envisaging such desires with the utmost crudeness, was not in the -least surprised. He would not have cared for the lass himself,--she was -too limber of build for him,--but he could see her very well as the -complement of Nicco, his swarthiness and her fairness side by side. - -“He could not come; I am here for him,” he replied at last, thinking -himself very artful for saying “he could not” instead of “he would not.” - -“Was he busy?” asked Clare. - -“No,” said Olver heedlessly, for he was now thinking of the mirror and -wondering how he could dispose of it before she should observe it in -his hand, “he has stayed at home.” - -“Oh,” said Clare. She saw the mirror. “Why, what are you doing with -that?” she asked, amused, and she looked brightly and interrogatively -at him. - -Seeing that she was not angry, he gave a shy smile and looked into the -mirror once again, laughing delightedly at the little picture of his -own face, and glancing at Clare. - -“Do you like it? you may have it for your own if you like,” she said, -partly because he was simple, and partly because he was her friend -Lovel’s brother, and she knew that he would show it to Lovel. - -“For my own? But can you give it to me?” said Olver, clasping his -treasure and grinning. - -“Yes, it is mine, so I can give it to you. Would you like it?” - -“But this is Mr. Warrener’s room.” - -“Yes, but the mirror is mine for all that--_was_ mine, I should say, -since it is yours now.” - -“Really and truly mine? to take home with me? to break if I like?” - -“Really and truly yours; but you must try not to break it: a broken -mirror brings bad luck on a house.” - -“There is bad luck enough on our house already without that,” said -Olver, suddenly gloomy. - -“Bad luck,--how do you mean?” - -“I don’t know; Nicco says so sometimes, when he has a black fit on him.” - -“Nicco?” - -“My brother.” - -It was a little shock to her to find that Lovel, whom she knew only as -a figure so detached and self-reliant, should own a childish name. It -seemed to make him suddenly human; her eyes softened. - -“Does he often have a black fit on him?” she pursued, but as soon as -she had spoken the words her loyalty repented of them, and she said, -“No, you should not tell me.” - -“There is no harm,” said Olver, thinking that he saw a chance to -interest her; and he went on, steering away from direct allusion to his -brother until he should see a chance to draw round again insensibly to -that subject. “My mother says always that our house is unlucky, and, -according to her interpretation, ’tis because of the stones that built -it,--sacrificial stones, you know they be, Miss Warrener, angered at -the desecration. So says my mother, and she should know, seeing that -her mother was hanged for a witch, as is common talk hereabouts, and -for once the common talk is true. But for my part I have never been -able to see that our house was unlucky; we have enough to eat, and -a fire to warm ourselves by, though, indeed,” he added, as though -the idea had but just now occurred to him, “that is thanks to my -brother, and I do not know how my mother and myself would fare but for -him,--hee! hee!” - -Clare was far too honest to wish to play the spy upon Lovel, yet she -was so much impressed by this suggestion of the half-wit youth and his -bedridden mother being left to their own devices, and feeling moreover -that the most scrupulous conscience could not accuse her of spying upon -Lovel when she was to hear something to his credit, that she did not -forbear from encouraging Olver, “I have heard that his devotion to you -both was extreme.” - -Olver needed no encouragement. - -“Without him, I should die. It is true that sometimes he is stern, and -he sits staring into the fire, and I can get no word from him, but I -have learnt that at those times he is unhappy. But he is so gentle, -Miss Warrener, you would not believe; at one moment he will seem -withdrawn and angry, and the next moment he is all pity. He gives his -life up to us; he does not say so, but I know he does. Once when I was -a child the village boys threw stones at me, as they might at a dog, -but Nicholas he came and beat them all with his fists and carried me -home in his arms, and never left me till I was mended.” - -“He has a great affection for you,” said Clare, not knowing what to say. - -“Oh no,--that is quite impossible,” Olver replied naïvely, surprised at -the suggestion. - -Clare was touched by his humility, so obviously genuine. It seemed to -him, indeed impossible that the demi-god who in his eyes was Lovel, -should stoop to any feelings other than pity and obligation towards -a poor contemptible burden like himself. Clare began to catch the -infection of this idealisation of Lovel; she saw him through Olver’s -eyes: humane where he need only have been conscientious; generous where -he need only have been just; yet preserving always that aloofness and -detachment which safeguarded him from all true contact with sordid -things. When she had met him on the highway, or on the Downs, she had -not wondered much about the background of his life; she had accepted -him as an isolated and romantic figure, organic with the Downs -themselves; to her, he was the rider on the skyline, the shepherd of -the folds. - -“There’s a girl in the village would give five years of life for a kind -word from Nicholas,” Olver pursued, considering himself meanwhile in -his mirror with an air of great detachment, “but Nicholas has no eye -for girls. Oh, see,” he broke off, pointing at the mirror, “my face is -like seen in water,--stretched wide. I often saw it so in a spoon, but -I never dreamt of so pretty a toy as this. Has it magical properties, -do you think? It should have, to match its freakishness. Could I look -into it, do you think, in the moonlight, and see the picture, all pale, -of what you were doing, Miss Warrener, in the face of the mirror, round -like another little moon itself?” - -Clare was startled by his outburst, and the laughter that accompanied -it. Until then she had almost forgotten that he was reputed mad. - -“I’ll ask my mother,” he added, forgetting his prudence in his -excitement. “Nicco does not like my learning of her, so we have to -whisper it when he is away from the house, and you could not believe -the things she tells me. And shows me, too. Why, I can make an object -travel towards me, without touching it; and I have seen visions in a -pool of water. It is our secret. Shall I show you? Watch the curtains: -I will make them belly out, though no wind blows them.” - -“No ...” said Clare, stretching out her hand. “If you love your brother -as you appear to,” she said rapidly, “don’t do what he disapproves; -don’t, Olver Lovel. I am sure he is right to disapprove; I am sure he -is wise. Respect him. I am sure he deserves your respect.” - -She spoke with energy. “Why?” said Olver suspiciously. “Do you know -anything of such things? Would you not like to see the curtains move -towards me? My mother says, that with a hair from the head of a person, -she could bring that person, willy-nilly, to her. She has tried it -with Nicholas, but she could not bring him. He is too strong. He is so -strong, that, if he gave his mind to it, he could bring any one; yes, -Miss Warrener, he could bring you. He could bring you to him on the -Downs, at midnight or when he would.” - -“For pity’s sake, Olver Lovel!” cried Clare. - -He came close up to her. - -“Don’t fear my brother, Miss Warrener. There are powers in our -family,--but he does not practise them. I think he does not believe. -He is scornful,--and busy. Oh, he is a fool; that girl I was telling -you of, he turns away from her and half a dozen more. A dandy lad, they -say, and are angry. But that is not the reason. I could tell you the -reason, if I would. But I shan’t. No, Miss Warrener, I keep my counsel.” - -He leered at her. “Give me your hand,” he said, catching it, “and I -will show you something.” - -“No,” said Clare, trying to draw it away. “Look at your bookshelves,” -she added, to distract his ideas, “you are leaving them unfinished, and -my father will be in presently, to ask why they are not done. If he -takes it into his head to be annoyed, he will complain to your brother.” - -“Nicholas won’t listen to complaints about me,” Olver returned -loftily. “He may curse me within our own doors, but no one from outside -may say a word against me. If Mr. Warrener complains, he will only tell -him not to employ me again. We don’t care whether we are given work or -not, Nicholas and I don’t.” - -“You forget,” said Clare, “that my father sent for your brother and not -for you.” - -“Ah, but he wouldn’t come, would he?” said Olver, highly amused. She -was relieved to see that he had got out of his sinister mood and was -again prepared to laugh and be childish. “You don’t know, because you -didn’t see him, Miss Warrener, how he sat glowering at the fire last -night, and ended by telling me that I could come here in his place. You -don’t see him at nights, when he comes home tired and has to be patient -with our mother. He’s patient with her, yes; but he’d get on better if -he humoured her more: he’s too unbending.” - -“How shrewd you are, Olver,” Clare was surprised into saying. - -“Hoi, hoi,” said Olver, wagging his head. “I know my Nicholas; he’ll -break sooner than bend. I told him he could come, and take the chance -of not meeting--the person he didn’t want to meet; but he wouldn’t -have that, not he. He’s stayed at home, to dig in the garden. Time and -again, he takes a day or an afternoon off to do that, for he’s mighty -fond of the garden, and that’s queer, seeing that his days are spent -on the bare Downs, whether or not his business sends him there, where -nothing grew that I ever saw, but sorrel and poor grasses.” - -Clare wondered how she could best end the conversation, in which Olver -hovered evidently around some topic he might not broach, but she did -not forbear from smiling when he mentioned Lovel in his garden; she had -often seen the garden at the end of the long, tunnel-like passage as -she turned down the village street; and the little picture of Lovel’s -affection for it was like discovering a patch of sun in a thunderous -landscape. Olver meanwhile had turned back to his planks and tools; he -was fingering the latter; the little round mirror he had put carefully -into his pocket. “I am a good carpenter, you know, Miss Warrener,” he -said, as though he were letting her into a secret, and she saw that his -attention had changed its object. - - -Nevertheless she wondered greatly at Lovel’s refusal to do work at -the Manor House. She wondered whether she had inadvertently offended -him, but could recall nothing; their last meeting had been as friendly -as ever, nor had his manner in any way betrayed anything amiss. He -was, however, so strange and fiery a creature, so unaccountable in -his moods, that some chance word of hers might well have rankled, -grown during the night, and borne fruit upon the following day. She -went carefully in her mind over their recent conversations, which, -happily inconsequent and spasmodic, were a little difficult to -recollect in detail; but she achieved this feat, smiling again with -a little heartache over Lovel’s remarks about children,--ah, what a -good friendship it had been!--but her sifting of their talks revealed -nothing. She went about the house, still wondering after Lovel. What -if she had imagined the whole thing? What if he had been genuinely -prevented? the hints that Olver had let drop might well be the progeny -only of that sickly brain. Revived by this idea, yet apprehensive of -its allusion, she sought out William Baskett and sent him off to Lovel -with a message. “Say to him, William, that I have a small repair to be -done to the cupboard in my room, and beg him to come with his bag of -tools as quickly as may be. Say that it is a neat job I require or I -would not otherwise disturb him. Say that it is in my room, and for my -own particular use.” - -A quarter of an hour later William returned: Lovel must ask Miss -Warrener to excuse him, he was busy and could not come. - -At that Clare flamed into anger. What! she held out an olive branch to -the man, over some imaginary affront, and he rejected it? Very well. -Let him nurse his grievance; he should not be given another chance. She -was all the angrier with him because she was angry with herself for -having sent a verbal message by Baskett; the story, conceivably, would -be repeated at the Waggon of Hay, in which case it would be all over -the village; she ought to have written Lovel a note. The whole of her -day was spoilt by her resentment; it pricked her constantly through -all her occupations; she dared not go outside the gates for fear of -meeting the offender; she hated him for thus disturbing her peace of -mind and inconveniencing her movements. One thing at least was clear by -now, that he was deliberately avoiding her. He should not have cause to -complain that she sought him out. - -But by the next day her mood was already softened and her conscience -again at work. She was sorry to think that she might, however -unintentionally, have hurt him so deeply. Poor Lovel! his position and -his family made her over-sensitive. She would not willingly add to his -burden. Perhaps he was already regretting a too hasty refusal. But how -to approach him as it were by chance? for she felt she would sooner -lose his friendship altogether than send a second message to his house. -There was one very obvious course open to her: she took her pony and -rode up to the Downs. - -But although she rode up to the White Horse, and down again to the Grey -Wethers, and round by Lovel’s hut, and skirted most of the valleys -where there was likely shelter and pasture for sheep, she saw no sign -of Lovel. She was again angry with him for not being there, nor did -the fact that he followed many trades besides that of a shepherd do -anything to soothe her annoyance. She came back, entering the village -on the farther side to avoid passing his house. She felt as though -something whose value she had never realised while she still possessed -it, had gone out of her life; and here again she found cause for anger -with Lovel. - -But she could not remain angry with him for very long together. She -wondered what he was doing; whether he missed her as much as she missed -him; whether his mood had passed by now into a sulky childish obstinacy -that was determined not to make the first advance, but that, if it -were dragged out of its corner, could be willing enough to be coaxed -into making friends. Clare smiled fondly as she thought how well she -knew him. She thought that she had only to meet him face to face for -laughter to spring into his eyes,--laughter both at the relief of their -reconciliation, and at himself for his past foolishness. - -In the meantime she fell to dwelling upon his occupations, and -recalling all the gossip she had ever heard on his account, the stories -of his skill, and of his almost miraculous cures performed upon ailing -animals; of his breaking-in colts in record time; of his more illicit -career as a poacher. There was something in her which enjoyed this -train of thought and the pictures it evoked. She liked to think of -Lovel moving as stealthy as a cat through the woods at midnight, a -snare in his hand and a game-bag across his back. She liked to think -of him thus alone with the woods, the night, and the slinking animals, -his foot cautious upon the leaves; she thought that he must be happy -thus. She even liked to think of him bending over his victim, and of -the warm, smoking blood spurted over his hands. Although he hunted -them, he had a kinship with the animals. When he crouched, motionless -as a hare, at the approach of a keeper, he, the hunter, was suddenly on -the animals’ side more truly than the keeper, who was there to protect -them. There was something ridiculous in the idea of a keeper protecting -the animals against Lovel; even the rabbit squealing in the noose must -know that only by chance was Lovel out for its capture,--an enemy of -superior force, merely, rather than anything so utterly removed as a -man. - -All this dwelling upon Lovel, which sent her absent-minded about the -house and garden, did not bring her any nearer to making her peace -with him. She was now no longer angry, but sore and puzzled, and she -was sure that he must be unhappy too, although she knew that even -after their reconciliation,--ultimately inevitable, to her mind,--he -would never own to this. The necessity of this reconciliation seemed -to her so simple and so obvious that she never thought of questioning -her pride. Daily she rode upon the Down, and daily as she returned -disappointed she contemplated in greater detail the possibility of -sending, after all, a second message to Lovel. She could even send -it in her father’s name. But he would not come. She was convinced he -would not come. That was not the method to adopt. She must take him by -surprise; she must startle him; appear suddenly before him, so that he -would smile before he had time to remember his grievance, and, having -once smiled, it would be too late to resume a severe face. - -In the midst of this pre-occupation, she almost forgot Calladine, that -theatrical man, and the excitability of his manner recently towards -her. She had not seen him again, for which she was thankful; she -could not have met him without embarrassment. The idea of marriage -was incongruous and slightly absurd. She belonged to herself, and to -herself only; and the suggestion that Calladine or any one else should -wish to capture her was not serious but merely laughable. It had not -occurred to her that he, as well as Lovel, might be unhappy on her -account; such a thought would have distressed her exceedingly. It was -entirely without thought of Calladine, save for an occasional fleeting -hope that he might not have chosen to ride in the direction as herself, -that she roved over the Downs in search of Lovel. A fortnight passed -before she found him. She could, doubtless, have met him long before -by simply walking down the village street, but that would not have -been at all to her purpose, and she had in fact been at pains to avoid -any such encounter. At the end of a fortnight, having ridden up to -the White Horse, from where the widest view was to be obtained, she -discerned a long way off, up by the clump of beeches on the horizon, a -flock of sheep accompanied by a shepherd. Unhesitatingly, even gaily, -she started off in his pursuit. She was happy to think that their long -estrangement was drawing to its end. She skipped in her mind over the -preliminaries which must be got over before they could take up their -friendship again on its old easy terms. She, with a mind impatient -of all but essentials, would preferably have dispensed with these -preliminaries, explanations, upbraidings, and possibly abuse. She -wanted to waste no time; there were so many things she wanted to tell -him; she wanted to tell him how her pony had gone lame from picking up -a stone in his shoe; she wanted to tell him again of the melancholy -effect produced upon her by her visit to Starvecrow; she wanted to -ask him to splice her trout-rod and come with her one evening down to -the quiet pool of the brook. Her eagerness grew with the seething of -these small schemes as she urged her pony across the grass. She was -approaching Lovel by a devious way, going down into the valleys, where -she would escape his notice, until she could strike directly up the -hill and top the crest suddenly before his eyes. Her own eyes sparkled -over the precautions she was taking. She thought that she had now gone -far enough along the low reaches of the valleys, and set her pony at -the hill; they mounted the long, steep incline, like going upon an -adventure. - -On the breeze came the tinkling of the sheep-bells, as the flock moved -cropping. - -She had calculated her distance well, for when she finally reached the -top of the hill, she found that she had exactly hit off the flock of -sheep cropping beside the clump of beeches. Close by them lay a bundle -of osiers, hastily thrown down, and several wattled hurdles, with -fresh osiers threaded into them for repair; a knife, the sun shining -on its strong, curved blade; and a small bundle tied up in a red -pocket handkerchief. There were all these signs of the recent presence -of the shepherd, but he himself was nowhere to be seen. Clare looked -round in perplexity. The sun was strong, the breeze fresh, the grasses -glittered and curtsied, the shadows of the clouds bowled down the hills -and ran up the opposite side, the view was broad, but it revealed no -Lovel. With all that open country lying spread out, he must have taken -refuge in the small beech-wood,--watching her, perhaps, from behind -the trunk of a tree. She was almost amused by this childish game of -hide and seek, and in any case was determined not to be baffled by him -now that she had come so far; she could not now turn and ride away in -acknowledgment of defeat. Swinging herself off her pony she knotted -the reins loosely and let it turn away to snuff the grass, while she -herself entered the little wood, brave though tremulous, her optimism -ebbing as her obstinacy increased. The tree-trunks were not very close -together, so that she could look through the clump from one side out to -the other; she often went into these clumps of beech, and lay down on -the bare ground, looking up the smooth grey trunks, watching the sun -glint its shivered rays through the branches, and listening to the wind -among the leaves; she had even been into them with Lovel, and he had -knocked the warts off the trunks and carved them into frightening faces -with his knife to amuse her. - -She paused with her hand upon the tree. “Lovel!” she cried. “I know -you are here, don’t hide from me; come out, Lovel!” There was no -answer, and after a little hesitation she went deeper into the wood. -She saw him then; he was not hiding, he was standing there perfectly -motionless, in the midst of a small clearing in the trees, standing -very quiet, like a man who after a long pursuit sees himself finally -brought to bay. He was looking straight at her, as though he knew the -direction in which she would come. - -Now that she was confronted with him, a little of her self-confidence -went; he had, for a long fortnight now, inhabited her mind only, and -her vision not at all; and in her mind their meeting had run always -on the lines she devised for it, but here she had Lovel himself of -untested inflexibility, to trip the running of her programme. She gazed -at him beseechingly, but he still stood, in an attitude of expectant -resignation, waiting for her to open the attack. It came into her mind -that even now she might turn away, without a word spoken, having learnt -all that there was to be learnt from a single look. Instead, she went -up to him, saying “Lovel?” and upon an impulse she held out her hand. - -He remained unmoved, examining her with a sort of abstracted interest. -She thought that she had never seen him so much like an animal, -pausing even while poised for flight, and a despair overcame her when -she remembered her own conceit that she could tame and bring to heel -again a creature so wild. She was ashamed when she remembered that she -had pitied him, had assumed that he must be unhappy, had smiled to -herself when she thought of keeping up his pretence of temper like a -sulky child. That smile had had in it much that was tender, much that -was maternal; had she then forgotten Lovel, or had her imagination -so metamorphosed his image, that she could have persuaded herself of -his need for tenderness, tolerance, or pity? He had need for none of -those soft things; she had been mistaken in thinking that he in any way -needed her; he needed no one; he stood alone. Nevertheless, she would -not retreat without some struggle; he might, still, prove to be no -worse than angry and hurt; if he insisted on remaining so, it should, -at least, not be owing to a lack of good-will on her part. “Lovel,” she -said, “Lovel, have I offended you in any way? See, I have come here -deliberately to ask you and to say that I am sorry for whatever I may -have done; how can I say more?” - -Still he did not reply, but turned his head slightly and uneasily as -though looking for escape. He still had that air of being poised in -the clearing of the trees, alienating him from her as if she had come -upon him in the midst of some secret rite which he only awaited her -departure to resume. She felt inclined to cry out, “We were so close -to one another, once!” and the pain of the loss stabbed her sharply, -but instead she pleaded again with him, “Lovel, if you would only -speak to me we could put this misunderstanding right.” Where was the -smile she had so confidently hoped to startle into his eyes? He had -never shown himself so aloof or so forbidding; she felt herself small, -insignificant, and importunate; if she had found him in the open, she -thought, he would have been more vulnerable, but here among the trees -he seemed curiously protected. - -He had not moved a step ever since she came up with him; was he rooted -there, a tree himself, or a sapling? she did not know; and a panic -began to spread over her at his fancied communion and alliance with -nature. He was as brown as the earth, his clothes were the colour of -dead leaves, his shirt was red like a robin’s breast. She remembered -again the tales she had heard of him, and her own fancies that had -followed him at the poacher’s trade, and this time she was afraid. She -wove them together with the ignorant tales of the witchcraft among -the Lovels. Could there be any truth in these fantastic notions? a -secret of harmony in nature which entitled the initiated to powers -inexplicable to the uninitiated? why did all animals so dread Olver -Lovel? so trust to Nicholas? what of her own intuitions? her sudden, -reasonless terrors? her mingled love and fear of the sarsen stones and -of trees? her constant phrase, uttered half in jest, that some day she -would be fetched away? And how was Lovel concerned? what part was he -to have in the fetching? If only he were not so brown, brown as earth, -lithe as the saplings, his shirt red as a robin’s breast; if only his -eyes were not constant pilgrims to the horizon. - -She turned to leave him; at all costs she must get out of this wood, -where she felt the old threat closing in round her, and in which Lovel -was so mysteriously implicated. She turned slowly, not to betray her -panic, still with the half-hope that he would speak and thereby break -her spell. But when he spoke, it only deepened. - -“There is no misunderstanding,” he said. - -She wheeled round again upon him. - -“Then why have you so avoided me?” she said passionately. “A fortnight -ago we met by the Grey Wethers, we had no quarrel, we parted friends. -The next day you were sent for to the Manor House, you would not come, -you sent your brother. I sent for you later myself,--a special message. -You would not come. I thought I had offended you in some way. Do you -know that I have looked for you all over the hills to ask you for your -reason? A fortnight I have spent in looking for you.” - -“I know,” he said. “I have seen you.” - -Her voice died away; she had thrown herself against his defences and -bruised herself. Her indignation had made a tiny uproar in the wood -without detracting from the calm of the trees or the dignity of Lovel. -She made a small gesture of abandonment; her one desire now was to get -away. “There is nothing more to be said.” - -“Set your mind at ease,” he observed unexpectedly. “You never offended -me. Believe me, you could not do so even if you tried; believe me, you -are too sweet and gentle to do such a thing. Put all the blame on to -me. I am capricious and wayward, you know; any one in the village will -tell you as much and a dozen worse things besides. You must believe -them all. You have my word on it that they are all true. But as for -blaming yourself, never dream of doing so. Think only that I am not fit -for you to associate with, and let me go my way without looking for me -any more.” - -“Is this your only reason?” said Clare. - -He hesitated. He was still standing motionless and every moment she -felt that he was being farther and farther withdrawn from her. - -“No, it is not my only reason,” he said at last, “but it is the only -one I choose to give to you. It is enough surely. I come of a family -with a very ill-name, and I myself would see the inside of a prison -over and over again if the guardians of the law were as cute at their -work as I, perhaps, am at mine. I think it is sufficient reason.” - -“Have you robbed, or even murdered, Lovel?” she asked. - -“Would you be convinced if I told you that I had?” he replied with idle -curiosity. “I have robbed crowded coverts, if you call that robbing, -but as for the rest, although I have taken the lives of pheasants and -partridges, I have not taken the life of man or made away with the -property of any of my employers while it was in my charge.” - -“Your reason is a very insufficient one,” she said, “you are telling me -nothing that I did not know already. Will you come outside the trees? I -cannot talk to you in here, I feel trapped.” - -“No,” he said, retreating a step. “I came in here to avoid you, but -since you have followed me we stay in the place I chose. And my other -reason is fully adequate,--oh, fully, fully!” he said with great -feeling, “so now leave me, Clare, and think of me as harshly as -you can. If you meet me anywhere, pass me by; I ask that of you as -earnestly as ever a favour was asked.” - -“You ask me to pass you by even on the Downs?” she said slowly. - -“I do,” he replied. He rushed on, not looking at her, “I must not -make friends. I want to be alone. You stole my friendship, and I have -resented it. Call me ill-mannered, even brutal; call me ungrateful, -boorish. I was angry when I saw you riding to-day. It is better that -you should know the truth, and it cannot hurt you, coming from me. What -am I to you? a peasant, a gipsy, a Jack-of-all-trades. I have nothing -to do with your life or you with mine, so leave me alone,--leave me -alone,” he said. - -All her pride was lashed alive now; she was utterly astonished, and, in -her simplicity, convinced. “I have forced my friendship upon you,” she -stammered. “Yes, yes,” said Lovel, driving it home. She stared at him, -lovely in her distress. But even in her humiliation she was generous. -“Forgive me,” she stammered again. She turned and fled out from amongst -the trees, aware,--but not knowing how truly,--that she had left there -something which she would never regain. She came out by the osiers, -the hurdles, and Lovel’s knife lying upon the ground. The sight of -it, in its familiarity, stung tears to her eyes. If he had not wanted -her, why had he carved faces from the warts of the beech-trees for her -amusement. Why had he tired so suddenly? rebelled so wildly against -the slight tie of her friendship? She swung herself on to her pony and -galloped away, not seeing where she was going, but only mad to put the -greatest possible distance between herself and that wood whence she had -escaped indeed, but only with her life. - - -Calladine meanwhile, who knew nothing of Clare’s friendship with Lovel, -and who would have stared had he heard it mentioned, had lived in a -torment ever since her visit. She had come and gone again, and he felt -as though during her brief sojourn she had stirred round the sluggish -atmosphere of his house with a wand. His eye became more critical as he -surveyed his surroundings from her point of view. He tried to imagine -what she would say were she to take his house thoroughly in hand, and -began to introduce such alterations as he thought she would approve; -he rearranged his books, he re-hung his pictures, he ordered patterns -from London and had his leather chairs covered with a flowered chintz. -His servant Mrs. Quince was at first at a loss to know what had come -over her master, but after she and Martha Sparrow had put their heads -together they arrived at the obvious conclusion. “’Tis a woman’s house -now, Martha,--dimity in the windows, and what do you think? dried rose -leaves and spices among the linen!--though as yet there’s no woman to -live in it.” Calladine shut his mind obstinately to the curiosity he -knew he must be awaking in Mrs. Quince; he daily informed her of his -wishes while inviting no comment, and she, on her part, took advantage -of his new mood, and of the good-humour in which, she argued, he must -be anxious to keep her, to ask for an extra pair of hands for all the -new work she pretended he was creating. “There’s that girl of Farmer -Morland’s, sir, casting round for a place.” Calladine agreed at once, -without argument or enquiry. Let Farmer Morland’s girl be engaged by -all means; and Daisy, with her red head, her freckles, her pale blue -eyes, and her frilled Sunday muslins, was installed in the attic. -Calladine, in so far as he noticed her at all, disliked her at sight; -she dropped a curtsey to him the first time she met him, and tried -to ingratiate him with a smile. But he was too deeply bent upon his -own concerns to pay her more than the tribute of a passing distaste. -Clare had been to his house, his room had contained Clare, her voice -had vibrated through the air he breathed, her hand had rested on his -door handle, her foot had trodden his stair. She might come again--but -such was his fantasy that he all but dreaded lest the return of her -presence should disturb the perfection of his memory. He was almost -content, for the moment, that he might remain at Starvecrow, doing her -service. A garden, she had said; and he toiled at the obstinate soil -till his hands lost their refinement and hardened in the palms, and he -smiled to see his broken nails. Mrs. Quince observed him sarcastically -from the windows of the house, hands on hips. He had thrown aside his -coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. “But he’ll need to do away with -those silk shirts if he’s to go in for pick and mattock,” she grumbled, -between tenderness and scorn. Calladine was indeed an incongruous -figure, spare and delicate of build, with his greying hair that gave -him a slightly eighteenth century appearance, and his long back bent -over the stones and flints of that untilled hillside. He thought, -sometimes ruefully, when he stood up to stretch his back and to survey -the little progress he had made, that Clare had set him a harder task -than she knew. He began to invest it with characteristically romantic -properties. It was like scaling the Hill of Glass, or separating the -wheat from the millet, or travelling to the ends of the earth to bring -back a jet bottled from the Singing Fountain. If he could transform -this strong wilderness to a blowing curtseying garden, might he, having -accomplished his task, present himself to claim his prize? And what -would she say, she the distant, she the all-unconscious, when she came -to inspect the results of his labours? Would she praise? would she -deride? he swung his pick again with an unconvinced jeer at himself for -the fabric of symbolism he was creating. - -“The new mistress’ll have nothing to say to my old-fashioned ways,” -Mrs. Quince observed to Martha, suggesting that it was she herself whom -she thus slightly derided. Martha, simple soul, was taken in. “Likely -enough, Mrs. Quince, she has a rare eye to the ordering of a house.” -Mrs. Quince smiled on one side of her face. “She took over from me when -she was fifteen,” continued Martha in perfect good faith, “and I wasn’t -able to call my dusters my own. Look what she has made Mr. Calladine do -already; the house isn’t the gloomy place it was.” - -“What he has done was Mr. Calladine’s own choice,” said Mrs. Quince -tartly. - -“But you may be sure she put him up to it,” Martha replied. - -So for hours they talked round and round the central subject, avoiding -always the crux of the discussion, which was that Martha, with the -match-making instinct, longed for the day when she should let Clare -pass from her hands as a bride, and that Mrs. Quince, who had governed -and mothered Calladine (in so far as so uncomfortable and so unreal -a man would allow himself to be mothered) equally dreaded the day -when another woman should take over from her the reins of Starvecrow. -Calladine himself remarked her altered manner. “Will you be taking -your lemon and hot water the same as usual at night, sir?” she asked -him, and when in surprise he said, “Why shouldn’t I, Mrs. Quince?” -she replied in a voice full of vague and sinister suggestion, “Well, -I thought as things was so changed, and likely to be more changed in -future, that that might be going overboard with the rest.” - -Because Mrs. Quince could not keep off her idea, which buzzed in her -head as tirelessly as a mosquito, in between Martha’s visits she began -to throw out dark hints to Daisy Morland. Daisy absorbed them with the -intelligence she brought to bear only on questions connected with the -sexual relationship of any two persons. She was careful not to betray -too much of her interest to Mrs. Quince; only a modicum sufficient to -keep the housekeeper going; and thus judiciously she was able to give -the impression that she took in only about half of what was said, so -that Mrs. Quince loosened her tongue to her more than she ventured -to loosen it to Martha Sparrow, and presently, encouraged by Daisy’s -ejaculations of sympathy and admiration, she fell into the habit of -speaking her mind freely as to the vexatious prospect of having a young -mistress in the house, “With her notions and her fandangles, upsetting -folk that knew their work inside out long before she was born.” Daisy -echoed the complaint; but inwardly she devoutly favoured the scheme of -a marriage between Mr. Calladine and Miss Warrener. A parallel plan -was maturing slowly in her brain, that she would turn Mr. Calladine’s -name to her own advantage. She recalled all too vividly the faces of -Miss Warrener and young Lovel as she had seen them upon the Downs, -when, as she had expressed it in a bout of jealous despair to Olver, -“a week wouldn’t have been enough for all they had to say to one -another.” It was true that she had not seen them touch so much as each -other’s hands, which seemed remarkable to her ideas, accustomed to the -loose, inarticulate, indiscriminate rustic fondling, but this, with a -sneer, her instinct working less subtly than it might have worked, she -attributed to Miss Clare being “gentry,” and to Lovel fancying himself -“gentry” too, though every one knew in what poverty he lived, for -all his ancestors and his book-reading. But, she reflected, with the -satisfaction of reducing even “gentry” to a least common denominator -with simple folk like herself, in the end it came to the same thing -for everybody; and there was only one way of begetting children: -no amount of gentility was able to refine _that_ away! She put it -crudely to herself, and grinned. But a thought struck her: what if -young Lovel in that high-handed way he had with him, should actually -succeed in getting Miss Warrener before Mr. Calladine had spoken? -Mr. Calladine was a gentleman,--she couldn’t call him a man, no, but -a gentleman he certainly was, and she was even a little overawed by -his gentility,--who would take a long time in coming to the point; -he would dawdle the thing out, just for the sake of tickling his own -feelings; she could tell that merely by looking at him. Oh, he might -have made up his mind long ago, but that wouldn’t prevent him from -dallying with a girl, seeing her often, teasing himself and her with -doubts, wondering whether he would want her quite so much once he had -got her, and preferring to live on the whole, in the uncertainty of -courtship.... She could see through Mr. Calladine; that was one effect -being “gentry” had on people. She had nothing but scorn for men like -that. Look at him now, digging up a patch for a garden, and all to -please Miss Clare,--Mrs. Quince had said so,--and not as though he had -been a poor man digging over his potato-patch against the day when he -would have to keep a wife. Lovel wasn’t like that; and therein lay both -her fear and her respect. She tried to console herself by thinking how -preposterous was the idea that Lovel should ever hope to get Miss -Warrener, he, a village boy when all was said and done, with an old -bed-ridden witch for a mother and a daft hobgoblin for a brother; but -her own feelings for Lovel stepped in to destroy this consolation: -wasn’t he a proper strong young man, as difficult to catch as a colt -turned loose on the Downs, with his wild dark air, enough to touch the -fancy of a girl? She couldn’t tell herself why she had so set her heart -on Lovel, if it wasn’t for that air of his,--so set her heart on him -that she was ready to take on the zany and the old witch and all, if -only she could get him. He had never looked twice at her, for all she -had tried hard enough to attract his attention; yet she preferred him -to any young man in the village, even to Peter Gorwyn, the smith’s son, -with his muscular six foot two, with whom she had made so merry on the -day of the Scouring, or Job Lackland, who played the fiddle and whose -appearance of fair girlishness was so misleading. They were all very -well, either of those two, for a one day’s fooling; she reckoned them -at their proper worth, just as they reckoned her; Lovel alone was the -serious business. She supposed that she could get Peter Gorwyn to marry -her; he was a decent boy, and his sense of decency would certainly get -him as far as the church,--and suddenly, in her mind, she saw quite -complete the scheme by which she would decoy Lovel. - -She brooded over this for some time, perfecting its details, with -little gusts of excitement. There was as yet no very great urgency; -she could afford to wait a week or two. Olver, moreover, whom she met -one day that Mrs. Quince had sent her on an errand to King’s Avon, -informed her that his brother seemed very moody of late and short -in the temper, from which she deduced that he was either not seeing -Clare or that something had happened to cloud their friendship. The -information reassured her, and she cheerfully completed her purchases, -passing the time of day with her acquaintances and even accepting a -glass of stout at the Waggon of Hay from young Gorwyn, of which she -knew that Mrs. Quince would not approve; she looked at young Gorwyn -over the rim of her glass as she drank, and wondered whether the day -would ever come when she could tell him what she owed him: perhaps on -the occasion of some future Scouring, when he and she were left behind -among the old folks of the village, to dodder and dither in the sun of -the street, perhaps she would tell him then, and a fine astonishment -and a good though quavering laugh, he would get out of it. It was funny -to look at him now, handsome enough as he lounged beside the bar, and -to think of him bent double over a stick; funny, too, to think of what -had been between them and of what it was perhaps to lead to. One never -knew how things were going to turn out.... She set down her glass -on the counter, thanked him, and gathered up her parcels to go. He -offered to accompany her, but she declined the offer; she had plenty to -think about in her walk home over the Downs. “You’re mighty pernickety -to-day,” he twitted her, rather relieved to be let off the consequences -of the offer gallantry had prompted, and went with her as far as the -door, and the old men sitting with their pipes in the chimney corner -commented, “A hefty pair.” - -She took the road which led out of the village on the western side and -which presently ceased to be a metalled way and dissolved into one of -those broad green tracks that all over the Downlands of England mark -the course of the ancient paths. She had a good three miles to walk, -but her numerous small parcels of groceries and haberdashery were not -heavy, and her mind was occupied with the account she had heard of -Lovel. She could think it over at peace while it was still fresh in -her memory; at Starvecrow, Mrs. Quince would hustle her, and she would -not have time to sort her impressions until she went up to her attic -for the night, when she would be too tired for anything but sleep. It -had been clever of her to refuse young Gorwyn’s suggestion, although -it went sorely against the grain with her ever to decline any man’s -company. Still, she had done well; this was the very place to think -out ways and means, with the peace of evening falling and only the -distant bleatings of sheep to disturb a body’s thoughts. So Lovel was -moody, was he? something had gone wrong, and according to her shrewd -and simple creed nothing could go wrong enough to provoke moodiness in -a man who had no crops or beasts of his own to worry about except his -dealings with a woman. Had Miss Warrener given him the cold shoulder at -last? she wouldn’t wonder, and was maliciously glad that Lovel should -have met at last with a match in his own hoity-toity ways. That would -show him, what it felt like. But she perceived that, although she had -hitherto only congratulated herself over his discomfiture, it was in -reality full of danger, for where was the danger to equal the danger -of a reconciliation? She must, she saw it now, shoot her dart before -Lovel and that hussy could make it up. But how to meet him? how to get -so soon after this expedition, an afternoon’s leave from Mrs. Quince? -Besides, there was the circus soon visiting King’s Avon; she didn’t -want to imperil her chance of getting leave to attend that with her -father and mother. She paused, cogitating, her finger pressed against -the side of her nose. She looked around for inspiration. Nothing but -the emptiness of the rolling country oddly broken by a few stray -barrows and tumuli; a little farm half-hidden in a clump of trees; a -water-mill slowly revolving with a recurrent flash from the setting -sun; a hay-stack standing in a wattled enclosure by the side of the -track. “As well look for an idea as for a needle in a bundle of hay,” -she muttered to herself. The very thing! the very idea she wanted! -Glancing cautiously round to see that no one was in sight, she bestrode -the hurdles and thrust into the dusty depths of the haystack the most -urgent and necessary of Mrs. Quince’s many commissions. She would get -a sound rating for her forgetfulness, but she would surely be sent -back next day to King’s Avon to repair the negligence, and then, if -she could not contrive to find Lovel, might she be called a fool for -ever after! Chuckling over her own ingenuousness, she hurried on her -way. She had no eye for the beauty of the late summer evening, that so -dusted with gold the hills that they might all have been one rolling -field of standing corn, but hurried on, her mind full of her own small -and artful schemes, and dwelling with relish on the thought of Clare -and Lovel estranged within a stone’s throw of one another in the -village she had left behind her. - - -Her gauge of Mrs. Quince’s irritability had been very accurate. The -other parcels duly handed over, Mrs. Quince had demanded her thread, -of which, she declared, she had not a morsel left in the house. She -inveighed against Calladine, who was so impatient that he daily -enquired when the new curtains would be finished, but she inveighed -still more against Daisy, who, she exclaimed, must be bereft of all -ordinary sense to forget any item of so careful a list as she, Mrs. -Quince, had herself prepared. Well, there was no help for it: back -Daisy must go, and that no later than to-morrow, for besides the -curtains there was all the mending to be done, and if she got a corn or -a blister tramping the extra six miles she would only have herself to -blame. - -Daisy made no complaint. She was beginning to feel herself a match for -them all, for if she could outwit Mrs. Quince, who was a woman, how -much more easily would she be able to outwit Lovel, who was only a man? - -Accordingly she started out on the following day, ostensibly penitent -but inwardly triumphant, and slung down the hill, leaving on its -height Starvecrow with its blown thorn trees and Calladine swinging -his pick in the garden. The only thought which pre-occupied her, was -where to find Lovel, for as she knew, his occupations took him in many -various directions, and he was just as likely to be driving a herd into -Marlborough to market as watching sheep on the Downs. Olver, however, -she could be tolerably certain of finding in the village, and he, at -least, might know his brother’s whereabouts. On the way she retrieved -the packet of thread from its hiding place in the stack, since she was -too thrifty a soul to waste her own money in buying a new lot from the -shop, and as she climbed rather laboriously back over the hurdles, she -saw Lovel himself riding idly towards her up the green track. - -He was alone; he had not seen her, for his head was sunk and he rode -with loose reins as a man profoundly dejected, not caring whither he -went. Daisy stood watching his approach, superstitiously encouraged as -to her ultimate enterprise by her initial good luck. Not only would -no time be wasted, but she would be spared quite a mile’s walk, for -they were a good half-mile out of the village. How slack he rode! had -she not been a woman in love with him, she would have pitied him. His -horse slunk along as dejected as he, with drooping head and careless -stumbling foot. They came up the track towards her at a walk, the -reins swinging loosely from side to side, but even though he sat so -lackadaisical in his saddle she noted the easy give of his body to the -horse’s gait, and the light touch of the hands that would tauten to an -instant check should the animal start or shy. Shy indeed it did, as -Daisy stepped suddenly out from the side of the track to intercept it, -and Lovel was startled into instinctive vigilance, raising his eyes -under the brim of his wide hat to see what stood in the way. But not so -much life as even an expression of annoyance crept in his mournful eyes -as he saw Daisy; he lifted his hat civilly, and would have ridden on, -but that she detained him. - -“Not so fast, Gipsy Lovel, when I’ve walked all this way from -Starvecrow on purpose to see you.” - -She tried to make her tone arch rather than threatening; it was her -habit to coax men rather than to coerce them. She might have known -that no woman, not even Clare, could coax Lovel when he was in the -opposite humour, but the manner was too habitual for her to discard. -“Won’t you get off your horse,” she said, “and sit down on the grass -beside me while I say what I have to say to you?” - -She sighted the hay-stack, out of which a section had already been cut, -and thought in her cheap and common mind that if only she could get him -to rest there with her, leaning back against the warm dusty hay, she -would find greater ease in bringing him round to her point of view, for -she was a staunch believer in the influence of physical comfort upon -the tempers of men. “See, here’s a nice place,” she invited him, but -with a cold patience he surveyed her from the height of his horse and -begged that she would say her say with the utmost possible brevity and -allow him to pass on. - -The corners of her mouth began to go down ugly and sulky, as the -first obstacle thwarted her on the path which had hitherto been so -surprisingly smooth, but she hastily lifted them again, for it would -not do to let ill-humour creep into their relations. - -“Oh, well, I’ll begin,” she said as brightly as she could, “and if you -feel like coming down from your grandeur half-way through, just stop me -and I’ll give you a breathing-space.” - -Lovel waited gravely, the shadow of his hat heavy across his eyes. - -Now that Daisy was face to face with him, she was at a loss how to -begin; she could not just blurt out her story and ask him to marry her; -and anyway, he made her feel so insignificant, sitting there on a great -horse like an idol, or like one of those soldiers she’d seen pictures -of, in a steel helmet and a leather jacket and an upright lance in his -hand. She told him this, and he listened unbending, silhouetted for her -against the sky, mollified neither by her archness nor by her genuine -confusion. “Oh, well, if you will have it up there,” she said at last -in despair, “I’ll have to shout it up to you, but surely a poor girl -never told a story in such a gawk of a position.” - -She began then, but, disconcerted, she began as she had not meant to -begin, by saying “Do you recollect the Scouring this year?” and then -hastily correcting herself, “No, no, I don’t mean that at all, what I -mean is, your young brother Olver....” - -“No, I don’t mean that either,” she said, seeing that his expression -had become, if anything, a little sterner at the mention of Olver’s -name. “It’s like this,” she said desperately, “I’m over to Starvecrow -now, at Mr. Calladine’s, but it’s a question how long I’ll be able to -remain in the place. And I thought that you, Nick Lovel, being a decent -man in spite of all your pride, would be the last one not to help a -poor girl when she had no one but you to turn to, and afraid to face -her own parents, and not so much as a married sister she could go to, -or a penny of money saved, seeing Mr. Calladine’s is my first place -and Dad never paid me for the work I did on the farm, but a bit now -and then to buy myself a pair of new shoes or a ribbon, and anything -I had went on muslin for a dress to the Scouring, which I made myself -instead of taking it to the dressmaker in Marlborough same as Annabel -Blagdon. And it isn’t for Mr. Calladine’s getting married that I do -be afraid of leaving the place, but for my own trouble, and that’s a -thing that Mrs. Quince is bound to find out sooner or later, and the -only wonder is she hasn’t started asking questions already, but now -every time she opens her mouth I’m feared it’s coming that I do feel -my cheeks going all patchy, red and white, same as sometimes in the -spring ’mong boys and girls. But I knew if I came to you, you would see -it in the Christian light, and I could give in my notice and say I was -leaving to get married, and ’twould be all envy and bless-you-Daisy, -and Come-and-see-us-when-you’re-a-married-woman, instead of -Out-you-go-you-wanton-sheltering-behind-a-proper-gentleman’s-name.” - -“What in God’s name are you trying to tell me?” said Lovel. - -“I’m trying to tell you I’m going to have a baby,” replied Daisy, -beginning to cry in good earnest. - -“Well, that’s no affair of mine; what is it you want of me?” said -Lovel. “If it’s money you want, you’re welcome to anything I can -spare,--if you will only let me go my ways now,” he added inaudibly. - -“What good would money be to me,” sobbed Daisy, “when I haven’t a home -to go to or a man to give me his name? My father’d turn me out, I know -he would,--he wouldn’t give me a corner of his barn or a truss of his -hay for my baby to be born on, he wouldn’t, and my mother wouldn’t give -me my own long-clothes to clothe its nakedness.” - -“You must get the fellow to marry you,--is he a native of these parts?” -asked Lovel, perfunctorily, aware only of the overwhelming oppression -of his own spirit and his urgent longing for solitude. - -A cunning look came into her eyes when he mentioned marriage, and for -the first time she recovered a little of her direction, which she had -lost in her floundering to and fro. - -“Ah, so you think he ought to marry me? Well, so do I,” she said. -“You’d think ill of a man who could let a girl go down and her child be -nameless save for the name of a woman, which isn’t a name at all?” - -“Yes, yes,” said Lovel, fretting to be at an end. - -“Supposing I told you,” she proceeded, slowly now and with caution, -“that he couldn’t marry? wasn’t fit to marry?” - -“Not fit to marry? if he’s fit to be the father of your child he’s -surely fit enough to marry,” said Lovel. - -“Well, but there might be other reasons,--ill-health, mightn’t there? -or he might be married already, let’s say....” - -“In any case, it doesn’t concern me. I’m sorry,” said Lovel, “but -you’re talking to me of things you’d better be talking of to another -man.” - -“Are you so sure of that?” she asked, coming up to him and putting her -hand on the neck of his horse. She was aware that her eyes must be -all puffy and blubbered after her recent crying, but the crisis being -at hand now, for good or for bad, she was not going to delay it until -another occasion when she should have had a better chance of setting -herself to rights. “Are you so sure of that?” she asked, in a tone she -tried to make impressive. - -“Sure?” echoed Lovel, looking at her in disgust at the implication that -he himself could ever have touched her. He even gathered up his reins -as a sign that he definitely wanted her to release him now. - -“Not so fast,” she said again. “There’s such a thing as responsibility -for other’s actions, whether you like it or no. And it’s a -responsibility I’m not in a position to let you off. I have to think of -my baby as well as of myself, you see, and so long as he gets the name -of Lovel I’m willing to overlook him not getting it from the proper -quarter. Though why I talk of my baby as he, I’m sure I don’t know,” -she added with a giggle, “for it’s even chances it’ll be a girl.” - -“What in the devil’s name are you saying?” ejaculated Lovel -contemptuously. “Name of Lovel? is your trouble sending you out of your -senses?” - -“No, it’s brought me to them,” she said tartly. “I may have been a fool -in the past, and taken my pleasures too light where I found them, but -that’s over now, and for the future I’m going to look after myself and -my baby. And if you don’t take the proper steps, and the only decent -steps, and the steps I want, there’s not a soul in Wilts and Somerset -but shall know the scandal of that daft beast you let roam about at his -own free-will.” - -“What ...” began Lovel, aghast. - -“Yes,” she cried shrilly. “’Tis all very well for you to be sitting -up there so grand on your horse, with your eyes looking out over -your nose, while your brother Olver who ought to be in Marlborough -lock-up--and so ought you too, you poacher, for that matter--skulks -about in dark barns taking advantage like the beast he is of poor girls -on a scatter of straw. And I saw you, yes, I saw you, not only coming -home from Marlborough fair, but often, quite the gentleman with Miss -Warrener, and where had you two been, I should like to know? and it -made me so mad seeing you that I didn’t care what any one done to me, -whether it was Olver Lovel or another. I was crying after you all the -time, if you want to know, so as I scarcely noticed a thing. And now, -since even _you’d_ scarcely see me married to that hoddy-doddy, you’ll -just have to marry me yourself, and pass off your nephew as your son -for the rest of our life, and have only yourself to thank. And you -needn’t think you’ll be losing your Miss Warrener any the more, for -she’s been promised to Mr. Calladine this many a week back.” - -“Promised to Mr. Calladine?” said Lovel, starting. “How do you know -that?” - -“Every one in the village knows it but you,” she jeered, “and if you -wasn’t too proud to consort with your equals a bit more you’d know it -too. Ask Martha Sparrow or William Baskett or any of them. Ask Mrs. -Quince over to Starvecrow. Ask her if the house isn’t being done up -all grand against the lady coming. Ride over and see if Mr. Calladine -isn’t picking up a patch of garden with his own hands, forsooth. Ask -parson if he hasn’t had notice yet to call the banns. We’ll have ours -called the same Sunday. ‘Richard Calladine and Clare Warrener, Nicholas -Lovel and Margaret Morland, all of this parish.’ That’ll be a fine -sit-up-and-take-notice for the congregation.” - -“I must speak to Olver first,” said Lovel dully. - -“Then you’ll do it?” urged Daisy. “If you find that what I’ve told -you’s true, you’ll do it?” - -“Oh, yes, I’ll marry you,” said Lovel, tonelessly. “But I’ll speak to -Olver first,” he added, “and you’ll see the doctor.” - -“Oh, there’s no mistake, you’ll find,” said Daisy, bursting into a -hysterical laugh. “And I’m not so bad as you think me, Lovel. I’m -thrifty in a house, and I’ll make you a good wife, and I’ve loved you -truly this long time, as well you know.” - -“For God’s sake, spare me that at least, for God’s sake spare me that,” -said Lovel in a voice of such anguish that even Daisy in the midst of -her relief and jubilation was struck silent and ashamed. - - -The gossip of Mrs. Quince and Martha Sparrow had not taken long to -reach the Waggon of Hay through the medium of John Sparrow. Blowing his -old frame out with importance, he had hastened off to this favourite -resort with the intelligence as soon as his daughter had whispered -it to him, fearful lest any might have forestalled him, and he be -greeted with derision as a bringer of stale news. But he need not have -feared: he was the first direct link between the Waggon of Hay and -Starvecrow, and it was to a gratifying inquisitive audience that, after -due mystification, he finally made his announcement. Mr. Calladine -to marry Miss Clare! Well, here was good health to them both, and a -strapping posterity, and a bumper went round. The topic took its place -in popularity with the continuance of the dry weather (which was -spoiling the roots), and the imminent arrival of a travelling circus, -already advertised on hand-bills and posters all over the village. John -Sparrow sat in the chimney corner with his pipe and his mug, and by -recurrent reminders kept the fact green in the memory of his companions -that, but for his connection with the Manor House, they would not yet -have been in possession of the news. (And indeed, had they best known -it, they were in possession of it even before the two persons chiefly -concerned.) Every fresh arrival had to be told--“Well, now, Job, or -Luke, or William, what sort of surprise do you think we have got for -you?”--and laughter of the most elementary sort stirred the cobwebs -about the rafters at every, “Well, to be sure, now, who would have -thought it?” and the expressions of good-will to Miss Clare were many, -though it was wished that she might have chosen a man who was a bit -more of a man than Mr. Calladine. - -One listener there was, who had received the information with anxiety, -though without raising his voice in comment. Olver Lovel, for some days -now, had haunted the Waggon of Hay, tolerated though not encouraged -by the rustics. So long as he did no harm, made no noise, did not get -drunk, and got in nobody’s way, they would not object to his slinking -round, surreptitiously finishing up the dregs out of other people’s -glasses. They were a little surprised to see him there, for they knew -that in the past his brother (who, let them do him justice, saw to -it that the zany gave as little annoyance as possible), had put the -Waggon strictly out of bounds for Olver. Olver knew it too; he knew -also, what they did not know, that the embargo had never been removed, -and that the Waggon was as much out of bounds now as it had ever -been; but Nicco had been in so strange a mood of late--so strange, -inattentive, and lenient a mood--that Olver was ready to run the risk -of taking advantage. He did not know what had come over Nicco. Money -and food seemed plentiful, although Nicco rarely went out poaching -now; he would break into the savings-box and not seem to mind; he had -even given Olver, on a bare request, enough money to buy a new smock; -and their mother was allowed the matches at night now, for all the -world as though Nicco no longer cared whether the house was burnt -down about their ears or not. Olver had rejoiced greatly in this new -order of things. Day by day he had grown more daring; little acts -of insubordination passing unnoticed, he had at last achieved the -supreme defiance of creeping down to the Waggon one evening, and had -stayed there drinking up the dregs and listening to the conversation, -half of which was to him unintelligible and half a source of awe and -admiration, until ten o’clock at night. Still Nicco said nothing; did -not ask where he had been; did not even comment on his absence from -supper. Olver was full of contempt for this new, lax Nicholas--full -of contempt, but determined to make hay while the sun shone. No doubt -the day would come when Nicco would fly into a rage, recover the -matches, give Olver a thrashing, take away his new smock, and the old -redoubtable order would be re-established. Somewhere, perversely, -secretly, Olver hoped for that day; at present he felt himself a little -like a horse allowed his head down a slippery hill. But this small, -perverse and secret hope he did not admit even to himself. What! -deplore the new system which permitted him to go to the Waggon almost -every evening, to beg a twist of tobacco, to sit on the floor near the -fire in the chimney corner, to listen, and to look--to look through -the tobacco smoke at all the different-coloured spirits in the range -of shining bottles, which reflected the tap-room rather in the same -distorted way as his own little round mirror; at the steel handles on -the bar-counter; at the coloured picture of the Queen and the late -Prince Consort; at the photograph of the landlord standing beside a -giant eight foot high--how could he deplore a system which permitted -these delights? - -And now in this same tap-room he had picked up the one piece of -information he wanted. He knew now what was the matter with Nicco: Miss -Warrener was promised to Mr. Calladine. - -His gratitude to Miss Warrener doubled: not only did he owe her the -mirror, which was incomparably the dearest of his few possessions, -but he also owed her, indirectly, his new smock and his visits to the -Waggon of Hay. He owed her all Nicco’s sad indulgence. His mother owed -her the matches placed beside her bed every night. What benefits had -Miss Warrener not conferred upon Olver and his mother! - -So for a long time his feeble mind played round his debt to Miss -Warrener, before it dawned upon him that Nicholas, to be so changed, -must be very unhappy. His involved but absolute devotion to his -brother flared instantly; he might deceive Nicholas, he might have -fretted once, not so very long ago, beneath his severity; but in his -eyes Nicholas was nevertheless God. At the mere thought that Nicholas -might be unhappy,--might even now be sitting over the hearth at -home, not angry with Olver because he no longer had the spirit left -in him to be angry with anything or any one,--at these thoughts, -which reached Olver’s poor brain in a more or less confused form, he -scrambled to his feet, much to the surprise of the company, which had -been sitting quietly smoking and talking around him. He stood up by -the bar, a wild and startling figure; ashes from the fire had blown -into his hair, which moreover stood straight up on end as he ran his -fingers despairingly through it. He burst into abuse, unmistakably -directed against some woman. “Here, here: order!” cried authority, -stepping hastily forward, but before it became necessary to eject the -disturber, he had vanished of his own accord out into the street. - -Olver ran as fast as he could go down the street towards his own home. -A light burnt behind the ill-fitting shutters both upstairs and down; -that meant that his mother was not yet gone to bed, and that Nicco was -at home. He irrupted violently into the kitchen; Nicco was sitting -there, just as he had imagined him; doing nothing, staring into the -fire. There was no sign of his having had any supper. Olver rushed up -to his brother and threw his arms about him. “Nicco, I know it all now, -the bitch, the baggage, but you shan’t lose her if you want her. I’ll -get her for you,--trust Olver,--I’ll get her out on to the Downs with -something she gave me,--or I’ll lend it to you to get her yourself if -you like. I once told her you could if you were so minded. You shall -have her. They said down at the Waggon that she was promised to Mr. -Calladine. But she shan’t go to him, she shall go to you.” - -“Olver,” said Lovel quietly, “why did you never tell me about yourself -and Daisy Morland in the barn?” - -Olver began to stammer; he said, “I did tell you,--I told you she had -seen you with Miss Warrener,--I told you I held her down and tickled -her till she squealed,--I did tell you, Nicco.” - -“You told me half,” said Lovel. A hope pricked at his heart that -Daisy’s story might be false. “She has told me herself,” he added. - -Olver was quite sure now that his brother would kill him for this and -for going to the Waggon of Hay,--for the two things together. He looked -at Nicholas with his shifty blue eyes so oddly rimmed with black, and -shuffled one foot over the other, but Nicholas’ eyes held him and asked -for the truth. - -“Well ...” he muttered. - -“You had her?” said Lovel without mercy. - -“And why not?” burst out Olver. “All the boys do,--yes, and brag about -it. Look at Peg Lackland, going....” - -“All right,” said Lovel, with the same quietness; “I’m not blaming -you.” Not blaming him? had the world stopped going round? “Only if you -ever tell any one this I shall kill you,--do you quite understand?” - -Olver stared, but with Nicco’s threat stability and familiarity seemed -to be returning in some degree to his world. He nodded his head. - -“I’m going to marry Daisy Morland myself,” added Lovel, still fixing -him with his eyes, “and I can’t have it said that she has ever gone -with my brother. You understand that, don’t you?” - -“Going to marry Daisy Morland? but Miss Warrener ...” began Olver. - -“Miss Warrener is going to marry Mr. Calladine,” said Lovel steadily; -“that has nothing to do with me, except that she was always civil to -me when I met her on the Downs. I know my standing, and Miss Warrener -knows hers. She marries a gentleman, and I marry a farmer’s girl; -that’s as it should be.” - -“So Daisy will come to live here?” said Olver, completely amazed now. - -“Yes,” said Lovel brutally, “she will come to live here. She will be -useful looking after our mother and keeping the place a bit better than -you and I can keep it. And if ever it gets out that she once went with -you, I break your head.” - -“Yes, Nicco,” said Olver humbly. - -“You can tell all the village, if you like, down at the Waggon, that I -am going to marry her,” said Lovel. - -“Yes, Nicco,” said Olver again, not fully grasping the implied -sanction. “I’m sorry I went with her,” he added out of his confusion. - -“That doesn’t matter,” replied Lovel in his old weary voice. “Poor -Olver, what does it matter? We’re all so greatly to be pitied, what’s -that the more or the less?” - - -Calladine announced to Mrs. Quince that he was dining at the Manor -House. Daisy rejoiced at this piece of news, for ever since her return -to Starvecrow she had been nervous lest Lovel and Miss Warrener should -meet and Lovel discover that she, Daisy, had in one particular exceeded -the truth in her assertions. She hoped,--and would have prayed, but -that her superstitious faith feared the possible blasphemy,--that -Calladine would no longer delay his avowal, but would return after -dinner that night a betrothed man. Indeed, for all she knew, he might -be secretly betrothed even now, not merely contemplating betrothal, -and she thus have spoken the truth after all, albeit inadvertently to -Lovel. Luck had been so much upon her side, that perhaps it might have -favoured her also in this instance. - -Never did lover set out accompanied by more earnest wishes for his -success than Calladine that evening accompanied by the wishes of his -housemaid. - -Calladine found Mr. Warrener alone. - -“I don’t know what has become of Clare,” said the old gentleman after -greeting his guest; “it’s unlike her to be late for dinner, especially -when she knew you were coming. Perhaps I allow her too much liberty,” -he added, peering into Calladine’s face to read whether he found any -condemnation therein. - -“Miss Clare,” said Calladine, speaking gently, for he knew Mr. -Warrener’s occasional uneasiness, “is not a young lady whom it would be -judicious to confine.” - -“Um,--wild, you think her?” said Mr. Warrener, rubbing his chin. - -“Not wild,--only free....” Calladine breathed. - -“She is a very great responsibility,” said Mr. Warrener, perplexed. - -Calladine smiled. Who were they, two cultured and scholarly men pacing -a lamplit study, to be disposing of the freedom of that airy spirit? - -But he was gentle to the old man, for in many ways he loved him. - -“Your safeguard, sir, lies in her trustworthiness.” - -“A happy word,” said Mr. Warrener, immensely relieved, and they -continued to pace the room, talking of other things, until Martha -summoned them to dinner. - -The candles between them, they dined. They spoke the same language, and -the suavity that reigned was not only the suavity of the room. Almost, -Clare’s absence was a relief; always, her elusiveness was a slight -trouble, like a breeze in the room. Even now, she was present in their -minds; their eyes flickered towards the door; where was she? dancing -after what Will-o’-the-Wisp? - -She came, more vivacious than Calladine had ever seen her; so lively -now, that he thought her feverish, now drooping silent and listless, -rousing herself to Mr. Warrener’s “Clare! Clare, you don’t hear what I -am saying,” with a startled smile,--Mr. Warrener, in excellent spirits -and full of discourse. Calladine watched her covertly, between the -candles on the dinner-table. He would speak to her to-night; speak, -lest he should lose her for the sake of a fancy. He could not wait, -until the garden which she had ordained should be finished. - -Yet, what haunted her? What wild grief lay beneath her gaiety? - -But there was Mr. Warrener to reckon with, eager and garrulous -to-night, and oblivious to the fact that Calladine wanted to stray out -into the garden through the French windows with Clare. Calladine was -enraged with impatience against the old gentleman, in whose trained -and scholarly mind he usually delighted. Having wondered whether Mr. -Warrener realised that he came to the Manor House as a suitor for his -daughter’s hand, to-night he crossly decided that the idea had never -once entered Mr. Warrener’s head. Otherwise it was impossible that he -should be so obtuse ... scrupulously courteous as he always was, and -considerate the moment he recognised the need for any consideration. -Calladine nearly laughed for his irritation, as Mr. Warrener, who was -at work upon a new theme, brought out diagram after diagram, specimen -after specimen, in his zeal to prove his point, dropping dates and -facts into place like the cubes of a patterned mosaic. But to-night -the facts and figures seemed to Calladine only brittle and dry, when -life was waiting for him in the shadowed corner of the room. Clare -sat there, in her rose-red dress, and now that she believed the eye -of neither of the two men to be upon her, Calladine could furtively -observe that she had relaxed the strain of her attention, and sat -limp with her gaze fixed upon the dark garden through the window. The -tight bodice moulded the extreme youth of her form; her hands lay -idly clasped in her lap. His egoism vanished before the pathos of -her attitude. She became a child in his eyes: a child broken by some -unexplained sorrow,--yet what sorrow, what sorrow could have come upon -her in her free yet sheltered life? And because, however genuine his -sentiment, he must always attitudinise to himself, he saw himself a -sage and tender protector, the guardian of this too-emotional child -against the fancied ills,--for how should they be otherwise than -fancied?--that beset her. He realised then that he had lost count, -as much as Clare herself, of what Mr. Warrener was saying, and saw -to his relief, as he tried to make a flurried return to archæology, -that Mr. Warrener was no longer addressing him, but had drifted into -a soliloquy, according to his wont, with the little flints and shards -ranged upon his desk. - -“May Clare and I go out, sir?” said Calladine softly. - -They wandered into the garden, Calladine tall and grave, Clare with the -rustle of her silks and the little crunch of her heels, racing beside -him up and down the garden path. She had been afraid, for a moment, -that he was about to ask her to play or sing: music, with him leaning -towards her over the piano.... Reprieved from music, it was indifferent -to her what she did. They paced the path; an owl whooped softly from -the cedar; was answered, from afar off, out on the Downs. - -Through the lighted windows they saw Mr. Warrener, his lips still -mumbling, bent meticulously over his shards. - -Clare, with the rustle of her silks and the tap of her heels, and the -private knowledge of her mind, looked away from Calladine. - -He examined the words that she flippantly threw out, looking for -bitterness, but no bitterness escaped her, looking for cynicism, -but her lips were innocent of it. And nothing came to him but -matter-of-fact questions, “Where had you been, Miss Clare?” and the -like, which she answered civilly, though he knew that where her body -had been was of no import, the only thing of import was the adventure -of her spirit, and that he could never seize or follow. She was a -stranger to him, irrevocably, and he savoured all the full pain of that -phrase. “Where had you been, Miss Clare?”--oh, empty enquiry! what -could she tell him, that would bring him nearer to her? but at the same -time in a sudden frustrated rage he thought that were she ever to be -his he would not let her out of his sight for a moment. Revengeful, he -was; petulant; snatching,--and she so detached, cool, tantalising. - -He called himself back; Clare made him lose his sense; he could put -out his hand now and touch her bare arm, touch her flesh; such contact -would be reassuring, would chase from his mind all ideas of her -elusiveness; he could handle her roughly, if he would; drag her up into -his arms, mutter angrily against her lips,--but even so, would he hold -her?--and the old despair came back upon him. She made him angry; -there was no happiness for him, even in winning her, yet win her he -must, and was determined upon it, for he was an obstinate man, with -room in his head only for one idea once it had taken hold of him. - -But he must be gentle with her, or else she would blow away from him -like thistledown. - -And while he was wondering how he might least scare her, he was shaking -with his rage and his desire and his anxiety. - -It was quiet in the garden; he liked the security of gardens, he liked -the gentleness of these little grey West-country manor-houses such as -the Manor House of King’s Avon; they shut out the wild; they ignored -the great pale Downs, and the rovings of such dark people as Gipsy -Lovel. And he began to talk, murmuring much of what he had obscurely -felt, “A pastoral country,” he said, “fair and straightforward, a -stranger might think; and yet we who live in it know better, we know -its dim hauntings, we know how present are the dead, we know the little -countless tragedies,--the rabbit squealing beneath the stoat, the -blackbird pecked by the sparrowhawk. We know the perpetual enmity that -goes on under the apparent harmony.” And,--what possessed him?--he -spoke also of Lovel. “That dark, supple fellow,--he knows as much as -anybody of the secrets of the woods; he’s got a quick eye and a sure -hand, and a glance like the glance of an animal ready to spring away; -it’s a wild blood they have in them, the gipsies, whether they live -in a house or move their hearth about with them,--a strong stain of -blood, that never gets washed out. Look at that fellow, now,--he never -takes a regular job,--he strays from farmer to farmer, when he isn’t -sneaking on his own concerns. And it’s all the gipsy blood in him, Miss -Clare,--untamed he lives, and untamed he’ll die. But he understands the -country, I dare wager, as well as any hare or kestrel that hides or -flies, taking its chance of life and death.” - -It struck him as absurd that in this hour when all his faculty was -bent upon so different a matter, he should be discoursing idly of the -country and the vagrant fellow he was accustomed to sight sometimes -upon a distant skyline; but he knew that some connection existed in his -mind, and traced it down to his constant uneasiness about Clare. It was -all very well for him to speak airily, confident now in the security -of the Manor House garden,--outside the garden lay the Downs,--and -where had Clare been? where did Clare spend all her days? Demure she -paced beside him, and the black cedar spread its flat branches above -the lawn, and within the lighted windows Mr. Warrener poked among the -shards on his desk; secure! secure! but danger lay behind the pretence, -danger in confederacy with Clare. Demure she paced beside him in the -summer night, drawing her lace scarf close about her shoulders, so that -one pale gleaming hand lay against her breast, holding the lace, but -she was silent, shut away with her uncommunicated thoughts. - -He trusted himself abruptly to the direct question. - -“Clare, what is the matter?” - -She was too big, too simple, to defend herself with the ready-to-hand -artifice of denial or evasion. - -“Nothing is the matter which you can help, Mr. Calladine, thank you, -and nothing that I shall not recover from.” She spoke the truth as far -as she knew it. “I own that I have been vexed,--even hurt, perhaps,” -she put her head up as she made the admission. “But I could scarcely -hope to go through life, could I, without meeting some vexation by the -way? and now that I have met it, I must take it, mustn’t I, without -losing my sense of proportion?” - -He smiled, in the darkness which secured his smile from her -observation, at the phraseology of her piteous wisdom. - -“But why not confide it to me?” he said, bending down towards her. -“I am older than you, you know, and a trouble shared, they say, is a -trouble halved.” - -“My God, no,” she breathed. - -He was shocked at such an expression on her lips. Had something or some -one then really driven the child up to the bounds of her endurance? -Was she too readily driven to such extremity of feeling? or was the -provocation she had received sufficient to justify it? alas, he had -no experience of her capacity for emotion. But he thought, from what -he knew of her, that she must be indeed profoundly troubled before she -would betray her distress. - -“If any man has hurt you,” he burst out, “only tell me his name.” - -She opened her mouth and stared at him as though she were about to -utter a name as he bade her, so strong was in her the habit of childish -obedience, but with the name ringing, although not for expression, in -her head, she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. -He was appalled at the passion of her crying. She had sunk down upon -a bench, and he knelt beside her, trying to pull her hands away from -her face, but she shook her head and turned away from him, isolating -herself in the grief she was not yet accustomed to and could not yet -understand. She could not understand it, and, tormented, desired only -an escape from its weight and astonishment. “I am crying because -you made me cry,” she said, at last to Calladine; “I have not cried -before,--I promise you I have not cried before,” and at the thought of -Lovel, absent and unconscious that she was weeping, unconscious of the -fruit his harshness had borne, she wept afresh. - -“Clare, Clare,” said Calladine, pulling at her wet hands, “don’t you -remember, up by the Grey Wethers, a promise you made me? that if ever -trouble came upon you, you would come to me for help? Don’t you -remember,--the day of the Scouring? Where’s your promise gone now? I -would have held my hand in a flame that you would never break your -word. Perhaps you thought it was fancy on my part; I was never more -deadly serious. Isn’t this the moment to give me my chance of serving -you?” - -She was so much surprised by the reminder that she took her hands away -from before her face and gazed at him. Her tears over, the idea that -she should go to Calladine for help against Lovel caused her to laugh -mirthlessly. That Mr. Calladine should protect her against Lovel! well! -well! She laughed again. “Clare,” he exclaimed, “don’t laugh so, you -frighten me.” - -“There is one thing which you can do,” she said slowly. He grasped at -it; besought her to tell him what it was. Still she hesitated; yes, -anything to get away from the pain of Lovel. And it would please Mr. -Calladine; and if it pleased him what did it matter? perhaps she had -often hurt him in the past as Lovel had hurt her now. “Marry me,” she -said; and added candidly, “I know you want to.” - - -The arrival of the circus created an excitement in the village, poor -affair though it was. It trailed in, one afternoon, trailed in through -the gap in the earth-works; a couple of caravans, a merry-go-round, two -or three cages on wheels, and some led horses; it trailed in with its -air of perpetual perambulation and its poor pretence of gaiety, and -encamped itself, as it must have encamped countless times before, and -would do countless times again, choosing this time the field of the -sarsen stones, which by virtue of tradition was looked upon as common -land, where any farmer might turn his beasts overnight before a market, -or any fair or circus, as now, claim hospitality. The village boys came -to stare at the preparations, at the gaudy yellow carts marooned among -the grave ancient stones; they stared, vacantly chewing grass stalks, -at the men who were getting up the tent, running with the ropes that -were to fasten down the great, flapping thing, and heaving up the poles -that transformed the amorphous folds into a shape and a transitory -shelter. Of the animals there was not much to be seen; the cages -were roped off behind the caravans, and nothing but a desultory roar -betrayed the presence of these aliens among the English Downs. - -Shortly after nightfall a man with red and yellow streamers pinned -on to his coat and tied round the crown of his hat, passed down the -village street beating a drum as a signal that the performance was -about to begin. There proceeded already a stream of the population -towards the fields, by twos or in families, and between the gate of the -field and the tent the grass was already trampled into a track. Night -was come; and within the opening of the tent the interior lighting -glowed warm and fulvid; towards this square of light in the centre of -the field, thus inviting, the procession of villagers made its way, -inwardly eager, outwardly sheepish, and drew together at the entrance, -where a rude box-office had been erected, and another man with red -and yellow streamers dispensed tickets in return for the coppers and -six-pences paid across his little counter. - -Inside the tent, the newcomers herded, uncertain. Most of the benches -immediately around the central oval of grass were already filled -up, and the rows of faces and hands were uniformly lit by the two -gas-flares, one on either side of the supporting pole. The grass oval, -under this light, appeared most brilliantly green. The roof and sides -of the tent swept away into shadow,--shadow dimly peopled by the -audience on the rising tiers of benches, of whom only the first two -or three rows were illuminated, and the rest indistinguishable, save -as vague rings of buff-coloured hands and faces, over which the light -sometimes flickered fitfully. Over in one corner stood one of the -yellow carts, its shafts propped up somewhat foolishly into the air, -and its body, on which was painted in large black letters the single -word, ORCHESTRA, filled by members of the company with bassoons and -other wind instruments, the lower parts of their persons concealed by -the sides of the cart, and the upper emerging like so many jacks in the -box. Beside this cart was the opening for the entrance and exit of the -performers. - -Into this scene of flaming light, strong colours, and deep shadows, -came Lovel and his brother, the former so scowling and dark,--for he -detested this appearance in public,--that he might rather have been a -member of the traveling mountebanks than of the yokel audience. As he -stepped out into the light, followed by Olver, this defiance was almost -absurdly evident in his manner. He knew that the light was full on his -face and on the figure that shambled behind him, and that the eyes of -the audience were turned with a mild curiosity towards the pair; he -felt himself to be an incident of the show they had all come to see. -He looked round for a place. A few kindly neighbours made room on one -of the front benches, so that, although Lovel would have preferred a -more retiring seat, he was obliged to take his place there with Olver, -at his side. Olver was gazing all round with the fascination of a -child. He had never seen so many people gathered all together before, -and his neighbours, familiar to him as individuals, acquired a new -impressiveness when seen thus together in their numbers; he had never -seen a circus ring, or an illumination so strange or so effective as -that cast by the gas-flares; and as for the performance itself, he had -nothing but vague and fantastic ideas of what he was about to behold. -Very furtively he brought out from his coat pocket the round mirror -which Clare had given him, and bent over it; reflected in it, he saw -the lights, and the ring of faces, the thin scarlet rope, the shadows, -the green grass, the yellow cart, according as he turned it. Lovel sat -stiff and erect beside him, staring straight ahead, his arms folded -across his chest. Olver bent lower over his mirror. He chuckled softly -over it. The orchestra now stood up in the cart and began to play, -brassily, noisily, but to the great delight of the audience. - -Olver was annoyed because he could not see reflected in his mirror the -agreeable noise which the band was making, and the tiny reproduction -of the scene was thus rendered incomplete. Still he peered into the -mirror, where the picture was small and distant, as seen through the -wrong end of field-glasses, and also with that slight distortion which -never failed to enchant him: the supporting pole appeared slightly -bent, the scarlet ropes curved round like serpents, and each face, as -he examined it separately, was a tiny caricature of the face reflected. - -With the blare of the band Lovel relaxed a little from his rigidity; -he glanced round him, nodded briefly to a few acquaintances, and -considered with an uninterested eye the scanty properties of the show -standing prepared near the performers’ entrance. He heard the eager -whispering going on in the audience, and, being himself scornful and -unhappy, was possessed by a passing contempt. He saw Martha Sparrow -there with her brother John, and a group of the cronies from the Waggon -of Hay; he caught sight of Farmer Morland with his wife and daughter, -and instantly looked away, for he had seen Daisy’s eyes fixed upon -him, and had no wish to respond to the smile she was holding in -readiness. No doubt they considered that he ought to have escorted her. -At that moment he saw Clare come in with Mr. Calladine. - -He had not expected this, and remained transfixed, staring at them in -complete dismay. Clare came in shyly, turning to speak to Calladine -over her shoulder; she was wearing a dark blue cloak over her muslin -dress, and no hat, only a dark blue ribbon in her hair. Coming, in -her turn, into the light, she hesitated with a perceptible confusion -that seized Lovel by the heart. Calladine came forward, competent and -proprietary, found her a seat, and took his place beside her; they bent -together over the leaflet of the programme. Still Lovel stared; she -looked up, and their eyes met across the width of the ring. Her lips -parted; for a full minute they stared at one another. He saw the blush -rising, like a flame of reproach, in her cheeks. For that minute, as -their heads swam, they had no thought of the pairs of eyes observing -them: of Olver’s, of Daisy Morland’s, or of Calladine’s, respectively -with a mischievous, a jealous, and a dismayed absorption. Then Clare -came to her senses; she looked deliberately away, looked around, -searching for faces she might greet, found Martha Sparrow, found -some of the tradesmen, and smiled to them all with disproportionate -alacrity. She spoke again to Calladine, whose pride in her had changed -to a visible moodiness; he answered her indeed, but briefly, and -sat angrily tapping the top of his walking-stick against his teeth. -Lovel, having no knowledge of the world, but only his instincts, -wondered whether he should leave the tent, or should remain to enjoy -the atrocious pleasure of watching her once again. He knew that now he -would have to fight out his renunciation afresh from the beginning; -the dull resignation which had clouded over him of late had all melted -away in a second before her restored presence. Merely to see her sent -the heat and ecstasy of life back into his veins. Twenty-eight years of -existence had not accustomed him to the rush of his own emotions. Such -a reasonless joy as this which seized him even while he knew that she -was promised to Calladine, still had the power to surprise him. - -The beginning of the circus did not distract him; rather it favoured -him, for under the cover of the general interest he was able to gloat -his eyes upon her to his heart’s content. Olver, who had long ago made -up his mind about his brother, had now little desire to watch for the -manifestations of a passion he took for granted in spite of all Nicco’s -denials, and devoted the whole of his rapt attention to the events -of the ring. These were enough to transport his simple soul, easily -pleased at best. Piebald horses, and fat thighs encased in pink tights, -curvetted before him; while with flashing smiles young men and women -performed apparently impossible feats of strength and balance. Olver -presently conceived the idea of following the circus in his mirror, and -alternated between the actual, which was already entrancing enough, and -the reflected, which provided him with a world so indescribably and -doubly queer. He hoped that the little, queer, brilliant pictures would -be preserved forever in the depths of the glass. A fat woman in pink -and spangles jumped through paper hoops off the back of a cantering -horse, crying “Hop!” as she jumped and again as she landed, and the -manager standing in the centre cracked his long whip at the horse’s -fetlocks, but only hit the clown, whose whitened face, ghastly under -the gas-jets, went bowling round in somersaults over the grass of the -ring. There was also a snake-man, dressed from head to foot in emerald -green, who contorted himself in the midst of a silence rendered more -impressive by the sudden cessation of the braying band, into the knots -common to all such performers; and the laughter which had accompanied -the clown was stilled into a respectful awe. The snake-man, Olver -found, was especially effective seen in the mirror. - -The atmosphere in the tent by now was somewhat clouded by tobacco -smoke, softening the hard, high glare of the gas, and through the smoke -the faces appeared hazy, sitting round in their rows, likewise the -hands, that periodically broke out into a beating of applause. But to -Lovel, who had not taken his eyes off Clare, her face was distinct as -ever; and his own face, to Daisy Morland, was distinct, and, above his -red shirt, dark and proud. - -In the ring now were three small bears, one dressed as a -clergyman,--whose appearance had provoked roars of laughter,--one -as a lady, with a poke bonnet and bustle, and the third as a clown, -the buffoon and wag of the party. These three sad animals were at -their tasks of travelling round the ring on large balls, pushing a -perambulator, balancing on a tight rope, or whatever it might be; -Lovel, in so far as he bestowed a passing interest in the show, -was indignant at the pitiful degradation. The audience had no such -niceness; they roared their hearty laughter, and some of those sitting -immediately behind the scarlet ropes even thrust a foot towards the -bears as they passed round in their drab monotony, provoking a dull -turn of the head and a lack-lustre glance, too spiritless even for -a snarl. Arm in arm the clergyman and the lady paraded the ring on -their hind legs, stopping now and then to bow gravely; they stopped -thus opposite to Clare and Calladine, recognised by the quick eye of -the manager as the only gentry present. Clare and Lovel looked at one -another once more when this occurred, a look in which their personal -passion, for once, had no part, but only discomfort and sympathy with -the indignity put upon the beasts. Yet that look, impersonal though it -was, only tightened Lovel’s heart the more, for it had in it all the -intimacy of their understanding, in the same way as when they had been -used to look across the Downs, and, seeing the bowling shadows of the -clouds, had spoken no word, but sometimes smiled, knowing each so well -the thoughts that were passing in the mind of the other. - -He began to wonder what he should do when the show was over, and the -moment came for every one to leave the tent. He was near the exit; -should he hurry out and hasten home, shutting the door of his house -behind him, before Clare and Calladine had so much as turned into the -street? “Likely they’ll wander home by the fields, being lovers,” he -said to himself. Or should he go boldly up to Daisy and invite her -to walk home with him, in order to prove to Clare the extent of his -indifference? He rejected this course, despising its cheapness. Or -should he remain seated where he was, letting Clare and Calladine -pass out of the tent before him? The one thing to be avoided was the -jostle in the exit. He might get pushed up against her, or against -Calladine,--if he felt Calladine jostle against him he would turn and -hit him. But he had Olver to reckon with; Olver who would tug at his -coat and bid him come, if he tried to remain behind; Olver who would -in any case torment him afterwards with questions as whether he had -seen Clare; and, half turning to look at Olver, he caught sight of the -mirror held tilted, over which the boy stooped with such absorption, -and he wondered idly where Olver had got this toy, that seemed so to -fascinate him and to occupy so much of his time; but after that passing -curiosity he returned to his own miserable concerns that gnawed like -rodents at his brain, and his eyes perpetually sought the face of -Clare, as though in her fairness lay simultaneously both the problem -and the solution. - -So turned inward upon himself was he, that a sudden shout was the -first thing to rouse him. He raised his head; a sheet of flame shot -upwards from the gas; all was confusion suddenly; the audience rose -and stampeded into the ring, trying to get to the exits; benches were -overturned; women screamed, men swore; overhead the flame tore a great -hole in the darkness, and portions of the burning canvas floated, -turning over and over, down to the ground. - -Lovel fought his way through the striving mass of people like one -possessed, caring nothing who he pushed aside or who he struck and -elbowed. For one second he came upon the terrified face of Daisy; she -tried to cling to him, but he threw her off. He was fighting against -the tide of the crowd. By now the canvas was roaring overhead, the -shouts increased, the panic surged wildly towards the narrow openings, -all round was nothing but terror and a mad confusion. Lovel clove his -way through the sea of limbs and faces; he tore a path by sheer fury. -Reaching Calladine, he thrust him aside, and seized Clare by the hand. -“Come,” he said, dragging her. He was obliged to put his arm round -her shoulders and half carry her along as with the other arm he opened -up a way for them both. The exit was hopelessly blocked; he took his -knife from his pocket and ripped a long vertical slit in the side of -the tent, through which he forced her first and then himself after her, -and the crowd seeing this escape, streamed through after them. The -night air was suddenly cool around them. He picked her up and carried -her away to the top of the encircling embankment. The Downs were black -behind them, and from the height of the ridge they gazed down upon the -red leaping flames in the field below. - -The field was wildly lit up, and around the blazing tent stood the -crowd in a circle, watching the destruction they could not prevent. -The flames reared to the height of trees, holding up the blackness; -the light fell upon the shapes of the sarsen stones, that, unmoved, -regarded this disaster as they might have regarded any other. Clare -seized Lovel’s arm. - -“Are they all safe?” - -“They will be, by now,” Lovel replied mechanically. - -“The animals,” cried Clare. - -At that, Lovel returned to earth, and a slow smile of amusement crept -over his mouth. - -“Why, they will have escaped,” he said slowly; “escaped and be roaming -about till morning. The village besieged by bears. Well, Miss -Warrener, it will not be the first time that bears will have been loose -among these stones or prowling on the Downs. Will we all turn out with -sticks and staves to-morrow to drive ’em in? Come and ride them in, -Miss Warrener, to-morrow morning before any one else is astir. Will you -do that?” - -“With you?” she asked. - -“Why not?” he replied. “But I forgot,” he added, “Mr. Calladine has -the disposal of your doings now, has he not? Many’s the pleasant hour -you spend over books or in your garden; gentle and pleasant. There was -a time when you rode rough as a boy; but that’s over now. Your finger -nails are smooth,” he said, taking her hand and examining it critically -by the vague light of the flames; “the hand of a lady,” and he lifted -it up and sniffed it. “Scented too!” he said. “Scented for Calladine to -kiss and fondle,” and gently he gave it back into her keeping, shaking -his head. “Ah, Miss Warrener, it was a terrible mistake you made when -you rode your pony in your little shepherd’s cap; ’twasn’t that you -were cut out for. No, but for a lady’s life. ‘I shall want the carriage -this afternoon, Mrs. Quince, to drive to Shrivenham.’” He minced the -words. “‘And I shall want the rug put in the carriage lest it turn cold -at sunset.’ No more catching your pony in the paddock when the fancy -takes you for a gallop across the hills. I’ll come as your groom, -if you’ll have me, and promise to keep away my brother, whose touch -startles horses.” - -“You must let me go home,” said Clare, who, white-faced, was holding -her cloak about her. - -“Remember, there are bears,” said Lovel. “A bear dressed as a lady, a -bear dressed as a clergyman, and one, poor soul, as a clown. They are -walking arm-in-arm, perhaps, as they did in the ring, but if they met -you walking alone across the fields they might remember that they were -born wild. They might forget that they had been tamed to civility. Cap -off: ‘Good evening, miss,’ as I might meet you in the lane. Never trust -the brute too far. But shouldn’t Mr. Calladine be here to protect you?” - -“How can he see me up here?” said Clare. “The night is very dark, and -the light down there must blind him.” - -“You have on a light dress under that cloak,” mocked Lovel, “if you -want him to see you.” But she did not throw aside her cloak, and he -noted it. - -At that moment came a cracking sound, as the central pole of the -tent crashed down, bringing with it what was left of the flaming -canvas. A loud cheer went up from the crowd, who, now that their own -skins were safe, were irresponsibly quite ready to accept one form -of entertainment in substitution for another. The fire died down for -a moment, then flared up again, as some of the benches and trestles -caught alight. The proprietor of the circus raged round, clasping his -head with his hands, but there was nothing to be done, and the few -buckets of water brought from a neighbouring well made no difference at -all. - -“Mr. Calladine is not more prompt at finding you here that he was in -getting you away from the tent,” said Lovel. - -“Why do you gibe at Mr. Calladine?” Clare burst out. “He has had a -great deal to suffer at my hands, and it ill becomes you to sneer,” she -finished inconsequently. - -The inconsequence did not trouble Lovel; his mind leapt the gap with -the ellipsis. - -“At all events he has nothing to complain of at present,” he remarked. -“Nothing, except that he is not the man to take good care of what he -has obtained. Born irresolute--there’s a disadvantage of birth as bad -as any other. Yet, I’d exchange my own for it; I’d accept to have only -myself to overcome. Yes, by God, I’ve no sympathy for him. Why doesn’t -he carry away his conquest? Too uncertain of his own worth? Look at -his face--haggard with doubt of himself. I scarcely envy Calladine. -He’s a straw to be swept away by a strong current, safe only so long -as he may lie in shelter. If I wanted to undo Calladine, I should -say to him, ‘Are you sure that you are the man to hold so untamed a -thing?’ As yourself, I mean, Miss Warrener. Or am I mistaken? Are you -a lady at heart--a lady and not a woman? Mrs. Richard Calladine. The -muslin dress, or the shepherd’s cap? If the muslin dress, then go to -Calladine. If the shepherd’s cap, then....” - -He paused. - -“I should not listen to you, reducing Mr. Calladine to this -insignificance,” murmured Clare in great distress. - -Calladine had become a shadow; a poor grey wisp drained of blood. Only -Lovel and herself seemed alive, so terribly alive that the wraith which -was Calladine faded between them. So far, no one had noticed them -standing up on the ridge of the embankment; the night was, as Clare had -said, very dark, and furthermore a few sparse trees helped to conceal -them. They stood, not very far from one another, very much isolated, -detached from the glow and excitement of the fire down in the field -below, as though they were two travellers come to a brief surveying -pause on the road which they pursued together. - -“Mr. Calladine is not the poor creature you think him,” said Clare on -an impulse. “Years ago he loved a woman, still unforgotten. That is not -the fidelity of a weak man. I tell you this, in order that you should -think better of him, and knowing that you will keep it to yourself.” - -“A woman he never got?” said Lovel. “And brooded over her ever since? -Do not doubt--Miss Warrener, he coaxed himself into loving her more, -during all those years of brooding, than ever he did when he had her -before his eyes. Be very sure, she made a proper fool of him, to -embitter him so for a lifetime--until he found you. Don’t be too sorry -for him. He has enjoyed living upon that memory.” - -“Oh, you are hard and cynical,” said Clare, vexed, because she saw -suddenly the whole of that episode, which, in her eyes, had always -thrown so picturesque a colour over Calladine’s melancholy--saw it now -in a cruel, naked light, Calladine duped first, and then retiring in -sulky discomfiture, to build upon a silly, sordid, mismanaged story an -erection of wordy romance: “I wish I had not told you; you take every -opportunity, to-night, of belittling Mr. Calladine.” - -“I? Oh, no,” said Lovel, carelessly, “and in any case, why do we talk -about him so much? he is not here, but to-morrow you will again be with -him, and the day after that, and the day after that. Even now he is -probably arrived breathless at the Manor House, where he will tell your -father that that gipsy fellow snatched you away, and that he has lost -you altogether. He has never given me anything but black looks, ever -since he came to live here. How much have you told him about yourself -and me?” - -“There was nothing to tell,” said Clare. - -“True,” said Lovel. “There was nothing to tell.” - -They were silent. She felt that he was in a highly dangerous mood. -Calladine was not dangerous; violent, but not dangerous; not as Lovel’s -contained quietness was dangerous. Lovel, at any moment, might suddenly -leap upon her; he was so lithe and quick. Moreover, she felt now, in -his company, that she was alone with him on a hill or a wide heath, for -the people down in the field below had no significance whatever, no -more than had Calladine, to whom she was promised. - -“I ought to go home now,” she said presently. - -“Oh, yes,” said Lovel, turning on her, “you ought to go home. Go home -and tell them that the gipsy fellow took you out, rudely enough, but -still into safety. Go and tell them that once or twice on the Downs -you gave him a few kind words and that he presumed upon them to get -you out of that tent to-night. Tell them that once he rejected your -kindness,--which you offered out of your pity for him,--and drove you -away with harsh words.” - -“We have not spoken since,” she said. - -“No,” he replied without comment. - -Suddenly they began talking quite naturally and gently with one another. - -“Who would have thought,” said Lovel, “that you would be coming to the -circus. Not that I should have come, nor you, I fancy, either, had -we known what we were to see. Yet we might have thought. Wild beasts -turned to buffoons. I would have liked to let a tiger out of its cage, -loose among the crowd. Did you see their eyes? yes, even the little -pig-eyes of the bears. I wouldn’t like to look into the eyes of the -tigers in their cages, when they stare through the bars. Trundled about -over England in those cages.... Why did you come? I came to please -poor Olver.” - -“And I because Mr. Calladine was dining at the Manor House, and I ... -oh, there is nothing to do after dinner,” she finished lamely. - -“What do you do as a rule?” he inquired, with a passing curiosity. - -“I don’t know,” she replied. “Sometimes he talks to my father, -sometimes we walk in the garden, sometimes I sing.” - -“You sing,” he repeated. “You sing.” - -“Sometimes he and my father go over the things in my father’s cases, -and they forget me, and I sit in a corner with some stitching.” - -“Yes,” said Lovel, “and the windows are open down to the floor, and the -moths and cockchafters fly in from the garden towards the lamps, and -you let your stitching fall into your lap while you watch them.” - -Clare was utterly startled. - -“How do you know?” she murmured. - -“Oh, I know,” he replied. His vision of the room, and of the three, was -so sifted and precise. “Sometimes you sing?” he prompted her. - -“Mr. Calladine leans over the piano, when I sing,” she said, looking at -him big-eyed. - -“That frightens you?” he said, more as a statement than as a question. - -“A little,” she said, telling him what she had thought she could never -tell to a soul. “He seems so soft, and yet so hungry.” Her voice sank. - -Lovel understood; he nodded. - -“If he would sit away in the corner,” continued Clare, “I should not be -afraid of him. It is his leaning over me like that. It makes me look at -him all the while I sing. But he likes my singing; he asks me to do it, -and he will not let me refuse.” - -“And sometimes you walk in the garden,” he said, still in the same -voice, as though he were looking at a tiny picture seen down the end of -a long vista; “does he frighten you then?” - -“Less out of doors; less when we are not shut in. I avoid the trees; -being under them is more like having a ceiling over our heads. I keep -to the lawn.--He is more in his place, within doors,” she said, making -a discovery which answered many of her problems. - -“Lamplight suits him,” said Lovel, his perceptions very clear and -malicious. - -She saw Calladine leaning over the piano; she saw his greying hair and -his fine hands lying loosely clasped on the ebony lid. She heard the -notes under her own fingers playing a slow gavotte; it was the music he -liked. She felt her eyes coming round again and again in fascination -drawn towards his face. A breeze fanned her cheek; and she saw herself -standing with Lovel on the earthwork, the stars above their heads, and -the red glow of the dying flames deepening the shadow of his brow. - -“We have always been in the open together,” she murmured involuntarily. - - -“I have never seen you in a room,” Lovel corroborated. - -“The day that I found you on the Downs,” she said painfully, “the day -when I last saw you,--you tried to hide from me among the beeches. Why -was that? Did you hope that they would protect you? Did the sense of -enclosure give you strength? Would the Downs have compelled you to be -more honest? I believe it was that. One can lie better,--can’t one?--in -a room; and as you had no room you took the shelter of the trees. You -couldn’t tell me lies out on the Downs?” - -“Is that why Calladine prefers a room?” he enquired. - -“Mr. Calladine tells me no lies,” she said, with a small flicker of -pride. - -“Oh, no,” said Lovel easily; “he only tells lies to himself. Through -and through. Or are they lies? Romances, perhaps. Only romances. And -you are part of them. But they couldn’t thrive in sunshine.” - -“We are not in sunshine now,” she said; “only in star-shine, and losing -our heads a little. I am going to marry Mr. Calladine, you know, Lovel. -So perhaps I should not talk about him to you as I have been talking, -or ... or indulge myself in these fancies. You asked me what I had told -him about yourself and me; I answered that there was nothing to tell; -nor is there.” - -“But if I had not gone into the beech-clump ...” began Lovel. He was -suddenly Puckish, mischievous; or so she thought. - -“But you did go into it!” she cried out. - -“And stayed in it till you were out of sight. But Calladine,” he -resumed, disregarding her effort to restore the balance of their -conversation, “Calladine will get you into a room for the rest of your -life. It will be a dim room, with the light shrouded from it. He will -talk in it, and you will listen, and his talk will seem to you less and -less unconvincing. Presently you will accept it as natural talk; you -will answer in the same key. You will play sad old tunes, and Calladine -will lean over the piano. But he will grow less graceful and more -ungainly, and his joints will crack when he stoops over your hand to -kiss it. And always you will be in the house,--in the room.” - -“Lovel!” she cried. - -“The dimness of the room will bleach your spirit,” he said finally and -remorselessly. - -What strange mood possessed him? Were the legends true? had he the gift -of prophecy? His very language had a sonorous, almost a Biblical, ring. -It was true that the occasion fostered it, and that he might be taken -for a prophet, standing there on the elevation, ringed with darkness, -and with that pool of dying fire at his feet. - -“Is it kind, Lovel, is it kind to put these thoughts into my head?” she -cried, distressed. - -“Kind,” he said scornfully. “When did ever you want kindness from -me? I haven’t given you kindness, or romance like Calladine’s. I keep -kindness for Olver.” - -“And for animals,” she interjected, remembering. The remembrance -softened her marvellously towards him. - -“And for animals. But for you....” He scanned her from head to foot, -as though the term for what he had given her were inexpressible. “Not -kindness for you,” he finished up. - -A great uproar arose in the field below; the crowd scattered, and down -the pathway thus cleft they saw, by the light of the flames, a small -black shape bundling helter-skelter along, till a ring of shouting men -closed round it and hid it from view. - -“Rounding up the wild beasts,” said Lovel, amused. “They won’t -sacrifice them on the stones,--not they. They’ll all be chivvied back -into their cages after a few louts have got a nip on the ankle. I -wonder how many will remain at large? All the old women of the village -will be going about to-morrow with umbrellas and pokers. See, now, they -are beating out the fire.” - -The last sparks flew large and red in the darkness. - -“Fire and wild beasts and the stones,” murmured Lovel dreamily. “How -many centuries is it, do you think, since those three things have met -together here? The place will get a bad name among owners of circuses. -They will say that it clamours for its natural prey; that the circle -is under a curse; that it scents blood; and a hundred such fabulous -things.” He laughed as he spoke, but Clare, looking at him, thought -that the fantastic creature half believed it himself. “What will you -say, when they want to know where you have been?” he asked. “You won’t -dare own up to the gipsy fellow. You’ll say you watched the fire, and -let it be understood that you were alone,--isn’t that so?” - -“Of course I shall say I have been with you; why not?” said Clare. - -“Ah, but I’d rather you didn’t,” he said earnestly. “Keep it a -secret,--that we stood and talked unseen while the rest beat the fire -out down below. I had not thought that I should see you again, and now -I know that I shall not see you again,--in the distance, perhaps,--and -hear the bells for your wedding,--and see you driving by,--Mrs. Richard -Calladine,--but I shall never stand again with you alone as in this -hour. Let us keep it a secret. I don’t care what you think of me. Look, -the fire has gone out now, and it is quite dark, but the time I spent -with you was lit by the fire. I will walk round with you to the Manor -House, and let you go.” - -In silence they started off to walk round the top of the earthwork -towards the Manor House. The village lay below them in its strange cup, -and around outside the circle lay the Downs hunched in the starlight. -Where the road intersected the circle they ran down the slope and -crossed it, their footsteps briefly crunching on the gravel, but on -the opposite side they scrambled up again and silenced steps on the -turf and continued side by side along the high ridge above the ditch. -A breeze from the Downs blew cool against their cheeks; they knew it -well, it was a friend pleading with them, calling them back to the -open. They both knew the Downs so well that in their consciousness -they were all the time aware of the country’s geography, stretching -before them like a foreshortened map; the long roads, the little -English towns with their broad main-street that was only a section -of the Roman highway, the ancient green tracks over the hills, and -the angular spatchcock landmark of the White Horse, straddling on the -hillside. Neither of them had thought sufficiently beyond these things -to be tormented by the further world. But, on the other hand, they -had attained a degree of familiarity and concentration undiminished -by any scattering of their faculties. They had not sprinkled their -interest over other lands and other folk. They had dwelt only on their -country and on themselves, so that the breeze came to them direct as a -messenger from the Grey Wethers lying out derelict on the hills, and -the sickness of the desire of each to respond to the call found an echo -in the soul of the other. - -So vivid was the call, so absurd the refusal, that as they reached the -point above the trees of the Manor House garden, Lovel stood still and -laughed out loud. - -“So you go back to rooms,” he said, and laughed again, but more -bitterly. “You!” he said, charged with contempt. - -They were closer in understanding than ever they had been in their -lives. He began to speak low and rapidly, “Clare,” he said, “there is -no more softness in you or in me than there is in this soil. There is -no flabby flesh, only bone. No trappings, only the hard skeleton. We’ve -pared away.... If I had not taken shelter in the beechwood,--and it -was the nearest approach to shelter I could get,--I might have taken -you by the hand and galloped away with you; you would have come. That -would have been mad. I have got my mother and Olver, and not only that, -but I’ve got their blood in me. I want to have sons, and I may not, -because of that blood. That was why I said I envied Calladine having -only himself to overcome, when here am I as hard as flint, who might -beget sons with that soft squelch in them that has rotted Olver. A -bad stock, I said to myself; be strong; let it die out. And then the -irony ... well, you know nothing about that, and even that seems not to -matter now. Never be surprised, now, if you hear that I have been borne -a son or a daughter, only don’t judge me too harshly. But how could I -have brought you to my mother and Olver? and our children, yours and -mine,--how could I, Clare? What chance had I but to cease from seeing -you? Oh, if it had not been for them and my blood, then there would -have been the Downs for you and me, Clare. Don’t share the Downs with -Calladine; he lives among them, but he isn’t strong enough to endure -them. There are some countries that it takes a strong man to endure. -They don’t generate strength, and they crush weakness. Calladine should -have lived in towns. But now that he has got you he may be rescued.” - -“You know that Mr. Calladine has not got me, and never will have me, -except in name,” said Clare. - -“That’s true,” replied Lovel, not disputing her statement. “Let him -live with you by his side, you listening, listening patiently, for as -long as he chooses to discourse, and looking at him with the eyes of -a stranger. I don’t say that I envy him. (“How you despise him!” she -breathed.) And yet,” he said, “don’t I envy him a little? Can I help -myself? He will see you every day, he will be able to call your name -through the house at any moment and hear your answer. Don’t I envy -him that? Wouldn’t I change places with him for that?--But he’ll tire -of you, perhaps,” he added, dropping from his sudden anguish into the -old whimsicality, “tire of you even though he has never got you. No, I -don’t envy him. I’ll be less lonely,” he said with a fine insolence, -“than he.” - -“I must go, Lovel,” cried Clare. - -He stepped back from her instantly. - -“Go to Calladine,--in name. Go from me,--in name,” he said, out of his -torn heart. “Only go,--go,--go!” he added, turning away from her and -laying his arm across his eyes. - - -She left him then, feeling, although he had not once touched her, as -though she had slipped all on fire from his clasp, so close had been -their communion in spite of their immense separation. She did not know -where he would go, or how long he would remain, gazing after her, -standing on the height of the circle. For her own part she ran down -amongst the trees, across the lawn, and entered the study by one of the -French windows, to find her father absorbed in his work, not having -noticed her absence, and blissfully unaware of any excitement or of his -daughter having been in the slightest degree in danger. He said, “Bless -me! bless me!” several times while she flung herself with exaggerated -animation into a description of the fire, and pushed his spectacles up -on to his forehead, and stared at her with an absent-minded interest -as though she had just come straight out of the heart of the flames. -“Dear, dear, and where’s Calladine?” he said at last. “There was -something very curious I’ve come across and particularly wanted to show -him. It quite corroborates my ideas. I made sure he’d bring you home.” -“But you don’t understand, father: the circus-tent caught fire, and -we got separated.” “Of course, to be sure,” said Mr. Warrener mildly. -“Well, I daresay he’ll come over to-morrow, and I can show it him then. -It’ll interest you too, Clare....” - -Clare lay awake for a long time. The windows of her room were open, and -outside the breeze sighed, a plaintive spirit trying to get into the -house. The world outside was crying to her, endeavouring to reach her, -sending its gentle messengers to plead with her. The heavy-foliaged -trees rustled, as it seemed, with an unwonted nearness to her window, -and the room was full of the insects of the night, which as soon as -she had turned out her lamp woke into life and fluttered against her -cheek and thudded softly against the ceiling like small downy ghosts. -A moth imprisoned beneath her hand struggled for freedom; she shook -it off with a gesture between tenderness and revulsion. Several times -she lit a match, and the little creatures became still, flecking the -bed with their long mottled bodies and closed wings, but no sooner -had darkness fallen again than they returned in greater numbers to -their soft wheeling and the bruising of their voiceless plea. She lay -now shivering in spite of the summer warmth, awed to her very soul -by the deepened significance of night. Darkness by shutting away the -visible and reassuring world opened the field to all finer perceptions, -to all the mysterious relationships, to the purified intuition of -essential unity. That sense,--the sense of unity, the discarding of -all irrelevancies,--was an unexpressed link between herself and Lovel; -she was not sure, everything else being sifted down to its last bare -expression, that it was not _the_ link. Out in the night somewhere an -owl hooted, and she heard the distant baying of a dog; the spacious -presence of the Downs opened out before her widened senses, their -loneliness, and the secret of their ancient tombs; their untilled -defiance rolling eternally under the stars. Where was Lovel now? Was he -still standing like a sentinel on the dyke, between the Downs and the -sleeping village, with only the vault of the black sequined sky above -his head? as she fancied him there he seemed to grow in stature until -in his heroic proportions he became an embodiment of that open country -which called to her, and his voice rose harmoniously in a long cry -above the soughing of the breeze in the trees. Or had he plunged down -from the circle after she had left him, to roam across the uplands, a -wisdom in his feet, a swiftness that lifted him above fatigue? That he -was out somewhere in the night she was sure; no house would confine -him, not even a house whose walls were built of the sarsen stones. He -was out somewhere, and every moth that bruised itself so plaintively -and so impotently against her was his envoy; every sound that reached -her, whether the whisper of the breeze or the churning of a night-jar, -bore the burden of its message from him to her. If she called back to -him “Lovel! Lovel!” surely in one form or another her voice would find -him among the hills. - - - - -PART TWO - - - - -_Part Two_ - - -She had been married for four months to Calladine. - -Evening after evening they sat opposite to one another over the fire -at Starvecrow. Often they played chess,--a pastime to which he seemed -tirelessly addicted. - -He would rarely go out; he shivered and said that it was cold,--it -was true that snow lay upon the Downs and that the wind blew -incessantly,--and why should a man face the bitter cold of March when -no necessity compelled him and when a pleasant fire could console him -within doors? Nor did he like her going out without him. So they stayed -in, until she felt that she could have sent walls and ceiling flying by -one extravagant gesture of her arms. - -But he,--oh, how content he was! He had lost his melancholy; he had -brought out for her benefit from cases and cupboards numerous objects -wherewith to beautify their rooms, but her inability to distinguish -among the various artists was a source of infinitesimal friction -between them; “No, no, my dear; _Clodion_, not _Houdon_,” he would say, -and she would accept the correction meekly with a little laugh implying -that the matter was not of very great importance after all, and with -that little laugh would undo all the merit of her meekness. - -At first he had enjoyed making these corrections. It flattered him to -think that he had brought into an atmosphere of artistic refinement -this child of the hills whose knowledge although so thorough as far -as it went, was concerned with such rude things as rocks and skulls -and antlers, supplemented by a working experience of shepherds’ and -woodman’s lore. Certainly he had always been ready to take an interest -in Mr. Warrener’s work, and to entertain a respectful admiration for -the old gentleman’s scholarship, but that was a different matter: it -was a tabulated profession, archæology was a branch of study suitable -to gentlemen, especially old gentlemen; Mr. Warrener contributed papers -to the journals of several societies; he was a distinguished and -accepted authority. That was quite another matter. It had been amusing, -even, to find Clare dabbling her fingers in the same research; amusing -to hear the terms so glib upon her lips; surprisingly instructive, -sometimes, to catch the odd bits of information she let fall while -out riding with him on the Downs. But what had been amusing in the -child was insufficient, even unbecoming, in the married woman. To -dilettantism, _per se_, he had no objection; he was a believer in -dilettantism; but in the name of all good taste let it be dilettantism -in graceful and becoming subjects! So he tried to interest Clare -in _terres cuites_, in crystals and in the bindings of books. She -looked at them at first with pleasure, they were exquisite; she had -never seen such things before, or suspected their existence; she -exclaimed over them, marvelled at their workmanship, fingered them, -discovered new loveliness in them as she turned them this way and -that. Calladine was enchanted by her appreciation; he thought he might -venture further; he tempted her with subtler baits. But she returned -to the fragile eighteenth century statuettes. He let her have her -way, tolerant, determined not to force her interest. He watched her. -There was about the little terra cotta groups a false paganism, a -windy grace, that intrigued and allured her. Here was something that -she could nearly understand; nearly, if not quite; not quite, for -there was still something, or the lack of something, which troubled -her; she could not put a name to it, consider how she might, with a -pucker between her brows. These dimpled children, with the thighs -and hoofs of goats,--these girls with draperies blown by the wind at -the moment when the sculptor caught and fixed them motionless for -ever,--these young men with slanting eyes and laughing mouths,--of what -did they remind her? and in what were they so evasively deficient? -She circled round the table on which they stood. Calladine’s eyes -followed her in amusement. She was puzzled, this nymph who was so much -more like a nymph than any nymph that Clodion ever made, puzzled by -the drawing-room _faroucherie_ of these false fugitives. “A little -self-conscious, you find them?” he had murmured at last. - -But the artistic education of Clare proved a game that had palled. She -had gone clean through his objects of virtue, and had come out the -other side. She seemed to have been briefly deluded by them, then to -have sized them up, to have detected their essential fraud, and to have -discarded them from her interest. Mortified though he was, he perceived -somewhere in himself a respect for her pure, uneducated instinct. -Still, as this was a thing he could not, out of self-respect, admit, he -continued at intervals his efforts to guide her feet into the paths he -himself found so pleasant. He liked to sit within doors re-ordering his -books and his treasures, while the snow drifted up against the windows -and the wind cried unappeasably across the Downs. “Why are you staring -out at that ugly landscape, Clare? Don’t you like the fire better, and -a chair, and a book to read?” But she read very seldom; only once, -when she had been reading, he saw to his consternation that tears were -falling silently down her cheeks, and, going up behind her, he had seen -over her shoulder that Shelley lay open on her knee: - - - If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear, - If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee, - A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share - The impulse of thy strength, only less free - Than thou, O uncontrollable!... - - -“Clare, why so silent? I declare, you’ve grown more meditative than -I,--where’s your irresponsibility? is the dignity of marriage so heavy -upon you? Were you as silent with your friend Lovel? didn’t you prattle -to _him_? eh, tell me?” - -“What funny questions you ask, Richard. Lovel? I don’t remember. No, I -don’t think I ever talked much to Lovel.” - -“Well, but in all those hours you spent, riding with him, fishing, and -I don’t know what else....” - -“Well, we were busy, Richard; too busy to talk.” - -“And he was a common fellow, wasn’t he? it’s not to be expected you -would have talked much to him? eh?” - -“He certainly wasn’t fine like you, Richard.” - -“Now how do you mean that? Too fine, am I? And he,--a poacher, wasn’t -he? a bit of good-for-nothing? You don’t answer. A queer fellow, not -without good looks; oh, I wouldn’t deny him that. A romantical sort of -fellow, Clare?” - -“Practical as he could be, on the contrary.” - -“Maybe; none the less, there was something romantical about him....” - -So he tormented himself by this small constant nagging about Lovel, -liking to dress the man’s personality up in the lyrical words of his -own choosing; but for the rest he appeared satisfied, living with Clare -a captive under his roof. - -But sometimes she eluded his company. Then he roamed about the house, -up and down stairs, out at the front door, down to the little wicket -gate in the new wall, holding his muffler close under his chin, for -the wind tore at his coverings, tweaking his scarf, flapping his coat, -freezing his fingers, blowing his grey hair about in wild strands. He -stood at the little gate, vainly trying to smooth his hair, gazing -round the expanse of the hills, and calling from time to time as loudly -as he could call, “Clare!” The wind took his voice and dispersed it -like smoke; instantly tattered, it streamed away on the wind. No hope -that Clare should hear that futile call, and it seemed to him that the -empty Downs must from her childhood onwards have accumulated the echoes -of voices crying “Clare! Clare!” A bell-like and doleful name, so -cried; a name made to ring out; a wailing appeal; a name to cry after -a gay truant, knowing that no answer would be returned. A gay truant, -marked out for tragedy, dancing away, while those who remained behind -cried after her and broke their hearts. - -All his complacency dropped from him, he stood at the gate, looking -and calling; then turning back to the house he sought her again in -every room, even up to the attic where Phoebe Batch, startled at his -intrusion and dishevelled appearance, gaped at her master and stammered -out her, “No, sir,”--she had seen nothing of Mrs. Calladine. Mrs. -Calladine! She was Clare, just Clare; Calladine with a bitter twist -could not at that moment associate her with the respectable title. He -turned away, downstairs again, and back to the front door, to stand on -the doorstep, gazing across the little garden, over the low wall, up to -the pale inhospitable hills. - -She returned, of course; every time she duly returned; and he upbraided -her, and almost wept, but she said nothing, only looked at him with -wide eyes, indifferent and remote. He upbraided her more loudly, even -shook her on one occasion and “Don’t stand there,” he cried, “as though -you had left your wits out in the blizzard,” and he flacked his fingers -in his hysteria, and his voice grew shrill. But after a little while -he would quieten down, and his melancholy would return, and he would -sit with his head in his hands, saying that for his unhappiness he had -married an elf and not a woman. - -Clare looked at him, sitting sunk in his chair, and presently she -would thaw, as though those wits which he said she had left out in the -blizzard were creeping back little by little into her body, and then -she would put her hand kindly on his head and tell him not to fret. -But that was all the explanation or comfort he ever got, to his great -exasperation, being a man who liked to know how his wife had occupied -every moment of her time,--to know, indeed, every thought which passed -through her head. - -Fortunately for himself, he soon forgot; the next morning he would -descend, serene as ever, and set himself after his breakfast to his -usual mild pursuits. Only in a sudden suspicious glance shot at Clare -would his anxiety reawaken, and he would look at her feet, to see -whether she wore her black strapped shoes and white stockings, peeping -out under the fulness of her skirt. And sometimes, for a day or two -after one of her escapades,--her evasions, as he called them in his own -mind,--he would follow her upstairs if she went up to her bedroom. - -Inquiringly she looked at him. - -“Yes, Richard?”--for she was always gentle, save when she gazed past -him with that far-away look, that seemed to range the Downs though her -husband’s body and the walls of the house stood in her way,--“Yes, -Richard?” - -He mumbled, half-ashamed. - -“I came to see what you were doing....” He could not bring himself to -say, “I came to see whether you were changing your shoes,” for that -seemed ridiculous, beneath his dignity. - - -He had his happy moments. Sitting in his little room with her after -they had dined, in the firelight, he beheld the very picture he had so -often imagined. He had got her there, for his own; and his eyes rested -long upon her grace, travelling, with delicate sensuality, over her -young body and the little hands lying idle along the arms of her chair. -“You never sew, my Clare,” he observed to her once, regretting this, -for he luxuriated in all the pretty attributes of woman. She smiled at -him. “What are you thinking of?”--his favourite question, and he bent -forward to pick up her limp hand and fondle it. “Tell me what you were -thinking,” he repeated jealously. - -For once she lifted frank eyes and gave a frank answer. - -“I was wondering how much real need you had of me, Richard.” - -“Remember the man I was before you came to me,” he said reproachfully, -yet with a certain pride in recalling the gloom which had been his to -discard. - -Then she said no more,--a trick of hers, which irritated him when he -would fain have had her explain and amplify. He liked argument, he -liked analysis; and into neither could he draw her. - -“How unwillingly,” he said, “do you dwell upon personal relationships!” - - -He had lost his gloom and melancholy,--or was it that he had begun -to think that hobby ridden to death, sometimes inconvenient to -himself and possibly diminishing in impressiveness to other people, -and had welcomed his marriage as a plausible reason for abjuring it? -His habitual manner he had not altered; he still maintained towards -her the same elaborate courtesy and his air of rather patronising -protectiveness, as though thanks to the one convention, he revered -her, and thanks to the other, condescended. - -Yet, he had changed; changed from the very day of their marriage. He -had paraded her on his arm before their wedding-guests, the smile -had wandered perpetually over his lips, he had abandoned his slight -stoop, he had straightened himself up into a handsome and possessive -bridegroom. She had been too apathetic at heart to be nettled by his so -parading her in public: “My wife,” the formula constantly on his lips, -had not stirred her resentment; those were the outward shows,--they -could not touch her secret being. And, looking at him perhaps -nevertheless with a faint surprise, she had ascribed this new manner -to his natural triumph at getting her, and had expected a relapse as -soon as the novelty should have staled into habit. But there had been -no relapse. He had brought her home to Starvecrow, and then she had -realised how all the new chintzes, the curtains in the windows, the -works of art brought out from the drawers where all these years they -had lain concealed, had been but the preparation for this long-schemed -change in his mode of thought. They slipped now into their place, they -came into their own, small but significant. He had at last now an -excuse for shedding with relief the strenuous manner of years. There -remained no work for her to do. - -Oh, little objects of art and skill. What hours he must have spent -trifling with their suavity, taking them from their hiding-places of -an evening after he had heard Mrs. Quince go safely up to bed, and -knew that no one was looking, no one likely to break in upon him and -surprise him at his comfortable pottering; the hours of mansuetude he -must have spent turning and caressing them between his fine sensitive -hands! He had not brought out those little objects to show her the day -she had gone to tea with him at Starvecrow; oh no! the only thing he -had brought out had been the drawing of that woman’s head, which he had -so dramatically destroyed in her presence. She saw that destruction -now as the first step taken towards his emancipation. But the little -objects he had not shown her,--those delicate fraudulent statuettes -in terra cotta, those chiselled and prismatic crystals. How bare, how -cheerless she had thought his room! those heavy leather armchairs, now -so jaunty with chintz! She had pitied him, genuinely and kindly, even -through her impatience at his mismanagement of his life. She had chided -herself for any passing suspicions that his gloom might be deliberate. -And she had seen in her marriage with him an opportunity to perform, -supremely at her own expense, a task perhaps worth performing. - -But what right had she to murmur, when she saw her intentions -crumble? She had, indeed, achieved her object, albeit in a manner so -disconcertingly unforeseen. She reproached herself, in her mind which -gave no quarter, any more than Lovel gave quarter; she reproached -herself for not rendering thanks that her task had been thus made easy. -What! she dare to murmur because she had been spared the strain of -months, even of years? because she had not been permitted to string -herself up to an effort daily renewed, an exertion in which her own -weariness must never for an instant be allowed to appear? because -Calladine had taken the law out of her hands, and had ordained for -himself the resurrection to which she had intended to force him? She -looked back with the smile of rueful irony to her brave and pitiful -plans for his redemption. She had intended,--so gallantly--to set her -back for ever towards her old life. She would have devoted herself,--so -sturdily,--to the man who had need of her. She would not have flagged. -The vision of her married life had disclosed itself during the weeks -of her engagement in detail to her anticipation. There was no detail -she had shirked,--not even the least picturesque. She had not tried to -idealise Calladine; no, rather she had tried to see him in the light -that Lovel’s careless scorn had thrown; not as a romantic figure, -blasted by the catastrophe of an early passion, but as an incompetent, -bungling, pitiable figure. Her pity, her charity, and her contempt -would between them have carried her through. But now that she found -herself forestalled, as it were,--found that Calladine had already -accomplished for himself precisely what she had intended to accomplish -for him,--she was disconcerted, almost angry. It was in vain that -she upbraided herself for her own ingratitude. The life that she had -planned for herself was not falling out according to her design. She -was cheated; a person who has tried to take in the dark a step that was -never there. Let her keep her sense of proportion,--her refuge now, her -only refuge,--and she would not even yet be wholly lost. Then she could -laugh at the futility of her plans; she could see, as from without, -their derision, and their full pitifulness. Her life at Starvecrow had -not fallen out according to her design. What of it? - -A woman spending thirty, forty, wasted years in a forgotten corner of -the Downs. What of it? - -Her memory would not cling about the place after she should be dead, -any more than the memory of victims clung about the sacrificial -stones. “Here blood was shed,” but that was a collective phrase; all -individuality had long since,--almost immediately,--been telescoped -into the clemency of perspective. So it would be with her, and she saw -herself already as part of that anonymous crowd, whether of the victims -of a savage creed, or of the women with the wasted lives,--no sublime -and legendary sorrow, except in so far that all sorrow shared in the -same great dignity,--women who had lost children or lovers, women who -had trailed ill-health about their daily business, women who had borne -the long, mute burden of uncertainty, all the grey, silent, muffled -women that whispered round her, and that had taken to their graves -unchronicled the blunt or the poignant sorrow of their hearts. - -Nameless, they lived for her now. For her now, the Downs, hitherto -so void and so spacious under the freedom of the winds and the cycle -of the seasons, for her now the Downs were peopled. Their dews were -brushed dark with footsteps. Their heights were scanned by searching -eyes. Their flanks were bruised by the stumble of weary limbs. Their -beech-clumps were threaded with the breath of secrets. She had not -known, at first, whether to resent or to welcome the looming-up of -this hushed population. It seemed to her that they rose up out of the -ground, stealthy, ashen, tall. They were everywhere about her. They had -known the Downs as she knew them, and the changing seasons had found as -they did for her either a significant echo or an incongruous irony in -their souls. Their presence did away with the loneliness, the untouched -and indifferent loneliness of the uplands, which in her egoism she had -seen as a background to her life and Lovel’s populated only, in so -far as they were populated at all, by the rough figures of the men of -barbarous ages, men who fought for the simple preservation of their own -existence, undivided by any shredding of their moods, whose religion -was one of fear and not of charity, the men who had set up the stones -and raised the barrows in order to propitiate the dark Unknown of -creation and of death with such rude pomp as they could devise. They -had been stark, striding elementary figures, one with the tree-trunks -and the sarsen stones. They had ennobled the Downs by the record of -their constructions. It had seemed to Clare that the intervening -centuries between their age and the present day had been blank,--that -she inherited the Downs direct from their hands,--those Downs which -revealed themselves to her eyes unchanged from the hour when the stone -men had passed away from them. The barrows, the dew-ponds, the Grey -Wethers, the green tracks, the hawks and the larks, the space,--all -unaltered; the stone men, returning, would find no change. What had she -said, long ago, to Calladine, “an old, hard country; and such ghosts as -there are, are bleached bones by now, dry and clean. I think,” she had -said, “that the ghosts that walk among the stones must be as stern as -the stones themselves; and that’s my fancy.” - -And now there came to her this newly-realised population, bruised by -life down to the softness of humanity. As to her those dry, bleached -ghosts of the rude ages were masculine, so those more human ghosts that -rose up out of the centuries were feminine. Increasingly, they had -splintered their emotions; they had departed from the stark, simple -facts; they had become more complex and more wistful. The stars and the -stones had meant less and less to them; the Man of Sorrows, and not -the terrible orbs of heaven, had been their god. They were kneaded, -malleable. They had endured much, but in the full consciousness of -endurance; their spirit, even if not their voice, had groaned under -the load of life and its ironies; they had not accepted as a matter -of course, unquestioning, a lot that was hard. For all that, they had -not been the less courageous; perhaps even their courage had been of a -sublimer brand. And they were women, women, always women. The men had -remained nearer to the old, strong, practical stock,--the purveyors of -necessities. It was upon the women that civilisation had had the most -effect. Calladine himself, the most highly civilised man that Clare -knew, had always seemed to her instinct more like a woman,--sitting in -his house and picking his griefs into smaller and smaller pieces. But -Calladine’s griefs were not very real griefs,--she knew that now. She -knew that he was, really, quite negligible. - -She had been almost afraid, for a brief period, to go out upon the -Downs,--afraid of forms rising up round her, of hands pulling at -her garments, and of eyes seeking hers until she was forced to look -into their depths. It was not that she any longer felt resentment -against the population her own imagination had evoked; no, the Downs -were enriched by their company, and the calm heights acquired a new -significance by contrast with their soft rustling tumult. It was that -she feared the knowledge which would come to her if she spent many -hours alone with those ghostly inhabitants whispering round her like -dead leaves; she feared what she would learn; she would not probe her -new half-guessed discovery. Things were a degree less terrible so long -as they remained without a name. - -But she could not fear for long. She had pushed them back, averting -her head, into the shadows, and there they had taken up their abode. -They would not leave her again. Not even in the midst of joy,--if joy -should ever visit,--would they leave her, any more than the shadows -were ever completely absent even in the midst of sunshine on the Downs. -She was grateful to them for the way they had come, stealing in upon -her, silent and gradual, not in a sudden irruption that would have -broken her. But now that she no longer feared them, no longer feared -the learning that solitude might bring, it was for solitude that she -craved, and solitude, she found, was the thing that she might not have. -Calladine, who was so content in her company, expected that she should -be equally content in his. When she went out, he went with her; when he -was not inclined to go out, he begged that she would remain at home. -“It is a rough day, Clare; let us stay happily by the fire.” Or he -would consent to pace the garden, sheltered now by a little wall, and -together they would look at the bare winter beds, and he would talk -cheerfully of the flowers that would blow there in the spring. - -She renounced the Downs. Since she might not wander there alone, she -restricted herself to the house and the square of garden, or to the -green track that led to King’s Avon when she went to see her father. -Even on this expedition Calladine accompanied her. He did not notice -that she walked with her eyes bent upon the ground, never allowing -them to lift and stray over the rolling country; or if he noticed he -gave no sign. All the time he talked of minor things, and to his talk -she made adequate response. Arrived at King’s Avon she would quicken -her steps and pass rapidly down the village street, glancing about -her only sufficiently to acknowledge the greetings of her humble -acquaintances, and only when safe within the Manor House gates would -she relax a little, and show herself gentle and affectionate towards -her father, who, absent as ever, would presently forget that she was -married and would invite Calladine to remain to dinner, “Clare and I, -my dear friend, may so rarely welcome a visitor.” Through her laughter -she looked at him wistfully; he was dear and familiar, his old beehive -hat as wide and as shabby as ever, his spectacles still on his nose -and his mild blue eyes looking out through them. She wondered how he -got on without her, but Martha told her he did not seem to notice her -absence much; only once, she had found him in Miss Clare’s old bedroom, -wandering round, and touching everything in a gently puzzled way. Clare -was glad that he should continue his busy, happy existence. Martha -she could trust, “To be sure, Miss Clare, I look after him as though -he was your own baby. It’s all I can do, not to powder him after his -bath.” But she sometimes fancied that his eyes followed her a little -sorrowfully down the avenue when she went away, as he stood watching -their departure and waving his big silk handkerchief. - -And they would set off on their homeward journey up the village -street, along the road through the cut in the embankment, and along -the road until it dissolved into the green track that led across the -Downs. Still with her eyes upon the ground she walked rapidly, as -though anxious to find herself once more safe within the shelter of -Starvecrow. Calladine’s long legs easily kept pace with her; and she -had the impression that, even were she to run, she could never escape -from him. He strode beside her, talking of her father, talking of those -minor things which, she had found, occupied so much of his attention, -and always with the assumption that her interest equalled his own. Once -or twice he wanted to leave the track and make their way home across -country, but when he suggested this she always pretexed her anxiety to -be once more ensconced in their own room. This invariably pleased him, -and he acquiesced. She could not, no, she could not, stray across the -Downs with him. - -She renounced the Downs. She could not share them with Calladine; not -even with his mere physical presence could she share them. She cramped -herself within the house and the little garden. The moment came when -Calladine commented upon it. “Don’t you want to go for a walk, Clare?” -She did not;--she clung to their meagre patch of cultivation. “You are -grown quite stay-at-home,” he prodded, fondly. - -The great Downs,--that stealthy population out on the Downs. Waiting -for her,--the call of nature, always, and now the call of humanity. Out -there, she could respond, she could feel, she could learn. Once she had -not wanted to learn. She had shirked knowledge. Now, she had acquired -knowledge, and could bear a yet deeper learning. She was avid, indeed, -for the deepest draught of knowledge. Those bare great Downs, they were -not bare; they were peopled. She might learn the first lesson from -their storm, and the ultimate lesson from their serenity. But it was -not in Calladine’s company that she would learn it. Such lessons were -learnt in the severest solitude, with the senses of the soul stripped -to flagellation. - -Therefore she clung to Starvecrow. “An uncouth name,” said Calladine -discontentedly, after relishing it for years; “shall we change it?” -But she begged him not to, without clearly knowing why. “Very well, we -keep it,” said Calladine, smiling down at her, “as a contrast to the -snug life we live beneath that uncomfortable label.” She smiled back; -she could smile, always; it had become mechanical, costing her little. -She clung to Starvecrow, without affection, but also without anything -so precise as distaste; it, like Calladine, was negligible really, and -she had never gone back on her first opinion of it,--that it was not -austere enough to excuse its barrenness, and merely mean in its lack -of comfort. It was no different from the Manor House, which, although -at first sight incongruous perhaps in the midst of the village and its -barbarous temple, was in truth no more incongruous than her old father, -who pottered in his big hat about the garden, or peered through his big -spectacles at the shards set out upon his desk. - -But still she clung to Starvecrow; it was just bleak enough to match -the bleak, small disaster of her life; just comfortless enough to -accord with the blank at the root of her life with Calladine. - -There had been the days of her engagement, when convention demanded -that she should go over and at least appear to take an interest in -her future home. She had gone, driven by Calladine himself through -the village in the high dog-cart; holding on to her hat she had gone, -rattling along the lanes behind the raw-boned animal, the gig rocking -slightly from side to side, and the low branches of the trees almost -sweeping against her as they passed. Calladine had looked fondly -down upon her holding on to her hat, and in response to his murmur -as he bent down towards her, she had looked up, and thought, in a -detached way, that he was agreeable to look at, very gentlemanly and -rather interesting, with his sallow, high-bred face, his many-caped -driving coat, and his fine skilful hands encased in his gauntlets. She -wondered, in the same detached fashion, what it would feel like when -he stood tall by her side, and she could say “my husband.” Already -she had had little foretastes of it, when he accompanied her to the -village shops, and the shopkeepers said, in their familiar, respectful -way, with an admiring gaze at the couple, “Here’s our best wishes, -I’m sure, Miss Clare, to you and your gentleman.” And they had come -to Starvecrow, where Mrs. Quince was waiting to receive them, and -for all the smiles and curtseys and the insistence that Clare should -inspect every cupboard, Clare had been conscious of the hostility -of the elderly woman. But she had gone,--gone all over the house -under the escort of Mrs. Quince, accompanied by Calladine as far as -the first floor, where with his elaborate deferential manner he had -retired, conveying by all that he left unsaid, that women were best -left to themselves over household matters. There was in the manner of -his retirement the indefinable condescension which to Clare was so -subtly irritating. A wholesome male contempt she could more easily -have pardoned.... But she had not stopped to think of that, in her -dismay at finding herself alone with Mrs. Quince; she needed all her -wits to balance the tension between herself and the housekeeper. Mrs. -Quince seemed determined to outrage down to the least detail of her -own feelings; all the doors of her most sacred cupboards were thrown -open with a jingling of keys, and their immaculate depths revealed to -Clare, who, her criticism being all the time slavishly invited, could -respond with nothing but approval. “Though I am sure, miss, there’s -many a thing in this house not carried out according to your ideas.” -Mrs. Quince, indeed, seemed so anxious to be found fault with, that -Clare, feeling that she must exhibit her own competence or forfeit from -the outset the housekeeper’s respect, at last did offer some small -disparaging comment. “Ah, there, what did I tell you?” said Mrs. Quince -instantly, as though satisfied to have got finally what she had been -expecting all along; “’tis not likely that old eyes and young ones -should always see alike.” After this her urbanity and her constant -return to the point that Clare had condemned became so excessive that -Clare devoutly wished she might have forfeited all Mrs. Quince’s -esteem for ever only not to be pursued by this constant reference and -exaggerated subservience. And Mrs. Quince would spare her nothing, but -led her up to the second storey, where, pausing on a landing carpeted -with coarse matting and lit by a small skylight, she explained that -“the girl” slept. Clare shrank; “Oh, no, Mrs. Quince, don’t disturb her -if she is in her room.” “Indeed, and why not, miss?” said Mrs. Quince -stoutly, advancing towards the door; “’tis only her room on sufferance, -as you might say; and likely there would be something you would wish -altered.” She threw open the door as she spoke, and Daisy Morland, -rising in confusion, let fall on to the ground the scraps of white -linen at which she had been stitching. - -Clare recoiled on the threshold; she had known that Daisy Morland was -in the house, but had not expected to come face to face with her. Nor -had Daisy expected to see Clare,--whose arrival with Calladine she -had watched on tiptoe from her little dormer window,--thus ushered -into her room. The mischievous eye of Mrs. Quince superintended the -clash between the two girls. She had manœuvred ably; she congratulated -herself. Daisy,--Daisy was curtseying,--had recovered herself so far -as to remember her curtsey,--what gall, what mockery, was in that -curtsey!--Miss Warrener,--Miss Warrener was nodding to her,--saying -something about “nice little room,” and looking sideways all the time -at the pieces of linen fallen on the floor. Mrs. Quince folded her arms -and superintended. She wore a smile,--outwardly benevolent, inwardly -immensely ironical. The two girls,--much of an age. Daisy, blowsy and -flustered, hardly able to repress her jeer; Clare, cool and wounded, -but too proud to betray her wound. A lady: Mrs. Quince paid her that -grudging acknowledgment. Well, Daisy had got the gipsy fellow, and Miss -Warrener had got Mr. Calladine. As it should be. - -They came out of the room together, Clare and Mrs. Quince. Mrs. Quince -drew back a little, respectfully, to let her go first, and closed -the door gently behind her. “I wouldn’t have taken you in there -miss,” she began, “if I’d known what that shameless baggage was to be -at,--stitching away at her own baby’s clothes a fortnight before her -marriage. Perhaps I should not say such things to you,--but there, -you’ll be married yourself before the month’s out. And I wouldn’t -have kept Daisy Morland here, knowing about her what I do know now, -but that I wanted to have the house well set to rights against your -coming, and, thought I, why not make use of a pair of hands that’ll -never do a turn of work again for honest folks, but only for herself -and a shame-begotten brat and a ’scape-the-gallows husband. It’s a hard -bit of luck for Farmer Morland and his wife,” continued Mrs. Quince -as she followed Clare down the stairs, “after they brought their girl -up decent; but what can you expect with such poachers and loafers and -gipsy-like stuff hanging about the village? ’Twas the easiest thing in -the world for Daisy to go sweethearting on the hills, and what with -shepherds’ huts and hurdles handy there was all the chance of a bit -of trouble. Well, and now she’s got it, and lucky for her, _I_ say, -that Lovel’s ready to turn her into an honest woman, for there’s many -stouter bred than him that hasn’t stuck to their girls, and I always -say....” Here Calladine had come out of the sitting-room, hearing -the sound of voices; he came pleasantly towards them, rubbing his -hands together and bending towards Clare, “Tired, my dear? tired? a -little bit, I think,--too bad, too bad, Mrs. Quince, we’ve tired her -out between us; well, come in here and rest in this big chair....” he -pressed her into the sitting-room, and Mrs. Quince with much solicitude -settled cushions for her and placed her feet upon a footstool in spite -of all Clare’s protests. - -She had dreaded to find Daisy still at Starvecrow when she returned -there after her marriage. It would have been simple for her to find -out, but she lacked the courage to ask. And would Calladine know? -would he know if one girl rather than another slept in the attic at -the top of his house? She could have asked Martha Sparrow, but pride -withheld her from making enquiries as to Lovel’s wedding. True, Mrs. -Quince had mentioned a fortnight, but she did not trust Mrs. Quince; -the elderly woman would relish laying a trap for her. But at the end -of the fortnight she had known that Mrs. Quince had spoken accurately, -for Martha Sparrow, coming into her room to call her that morning and -whisking back the curtains along the curtain-rods, had said cheerfully, -“A fine day for the gipsy’s wedding; and I wonder how many of the folk -will turn out to see the customs a common Christian wouldn’t practise?” - -But those folk, skulking round the church, had been disappointed. They -had seen no swarthy women in scarlet handkerchiefs, no dark men with -little gold rings in their ears. They had heard no gibberish, and -seen no gestures of incantation or abracadabra. They had seen only -Nicholas Lovel in his ordinary clothes, inaccessibly severe, with his -young woman, all simpers and dimples, on his arm; and Olver Lovel in -the nave, watching the scene at the altar, obliquely in that queer -little round mirror he always seemed to carry. Not even the Lovels’ old -mother had they seen; and for a glimpse of her they had greatly hoped, -for surely, even of a witch and a gipsy, it might be expected that she -would turn out to witness the marriage of her own son. But no, she had -not caused herself to be wheeled as far as the church, the bedridden -old woman; and, indignant because they were disappointed of their -spectacle, the village folk muttered, “Unnatural,--but what would you -expect?” - -Disappointed though they were, they had remained to watch the ceremony. -Some of the bolder spirits had gone to the church, edging their way, -sheepish but defiant, along the pews; but the majority had crowded -near the door, peeping, nudging, jostling backwards whenever Lovel -up at the altar threatened to turn round. There had been none of the -coarse, friendly atmosphere that surrounded most village weddings. -There had been, instead, an atmosphere of curiosity and fear; and at -Daisy looks were thrown, full of commiseration and a fearful respect, -by the villagers as at one of their own comfortable number, about to -cut herself adrift from them and to become enrolled among an alien -community. They fully expected that Daisy, hitherto so plump and jolly -and normal, would be initiated into dark rites beyond their imagination -when once she had been swallowed up into the shadows of the dim, -tunnel-like passage of the Lovels’ house and the Lovels’ door closed -behind her. They never expected to see her emerge again in precisely -the semblance of herself familiar to them. Or would Lovel deny his -secrets even to his wife? Would he keep her there, in his dark house, -as a servant and a convenience, to wait on his old mother, to cook his -meals and obey his behests, and above all things to hold her tongue -as to all the unexplained things she might happen to witness in the -course of years? Would she be no more than a terrorized servant in that -house they thought so vaguely sinister? There was Olver Lovel, too; -was he a sort of accomplice to his brother, a sort of sly malignant -accomplice, who in his brother’s absence would bully his brother’s wife -by deputed authority, so that she would be at the mercy not only of the -elder Lovel, who was an unknown quantity if ever there was one, but -against whom nothing but his practices in defiance of the game laws was -definitely known,--not only would she be at his hard mercy, but also at -that of his younger brother, of whom the blackest and most cunning arts -might be believed. There were a hundred ways, they decided, talking it -over between a horrid fascination and a still more horrid relish, in -which Olver might exercise his nasty talents upon Daisy. John Sparrow -even went so far as to predict that the day would come when she would -be found wandering, as crazy as Olver himself, upon the Downs, but -others more sagely replied that if indeed she were to lose her wits she -would never be allowed to escape from the house. And that opened up -another series of pictures, in which Daisy, crazed and foolishly happy, -went about her work singing little ditties, and the door of the dark -house was closed daily by Lovel upon the three inmates, the mother, the -brother, and the wife, and the key lay close within his pocket. - -But in the meantime the spectacle before their eyes was quite different -from those evoked by their imaginations. It might be true that Lovel -looked lean and stern, and that Olver followed the ceremony in that -slanting way within his little round mirror, but the words the -clergyman uttered were the same that they were accustomed to hear at -all respectable unions, and as for Daisy, she was the picture of all -a bride ought to be, muslin flounces and coyness, and if her figure -was a little oddly thickened, why, that also was a thing that had been -seen before at village weddings. She looked pleased with her young man; -she kept glancing proudly at his height; she sniggered with content as -he repeated the beautiful threadbare words after the priest, repeated -them gravely and firmly, but as though he were utterly indifferent -to the obligations they imposed upon him. There was nothing very -startlingly unusual about the wedding. True, neither Daisy’s father -nor her mother were present, but the whole village knew that Lovel was -marrying the girl because he had got her into trouble, and it was not -likely that the Morlands, steady and decent folk, would be present to -give the sanction of their approval. Perhaps later on, when the child -was born, they might come round; for the moment, no doubt,--and very -naturally,--they were sore over both the cause of the marriage and the -son-in-law imposed upon them. Daisy did not seem to care. Ever since -the publication of her banns she had gone about flaunting as though her -marriage were a reason for pride rather than for shame and apology. -Not that the village saw much shame in circumstances so common. It -had, rather, a certain respect for Daisy, who, having set her heart on -the gipsy,--a strange taste, but that was her business,--had at last -got him to the altar. There was a tacit convention that a girl was -justified in using all her weapons if she could not otherwise carry -her point: and there was also, in the present instance, a peculiar -satisfaction in feeling that the gipsy had been worsted. So grand, so -stuck-up, Nicholas Lovel, but a girl had got the better of him in the -end. - -When the bridal pair came out of the vestry and proceeded down the -aisle, there was a scattering in the little crowd at the church door; -a lane opened, and Lovel and his wife passed out between the craning, -curious faces. Lovel looked neither to left nor to right; his arm was -crooked to allow Daisy’s hand to rest within it, but that was the only -concession he made to his newly-married state. She, on the contrary, -sought eagerly for the faces of her friends; she dragged upon Lovel’s -arm, but he moved unyielding forward. Daisy, who was trying to lag, -had to take a little run, like a child that cannot keep pace with the -advance of a grown-up person. With her head half-turned, her eyes -still lingered over the little crowd that was once more closing in -behind them. There were not many girls in the party; she knew why, and -a sense of triumph came over her; they might affect to despise Lovel, -but for all that they did not care to see him married to one of their -own number,--ah, how clever she had been!--not many girls; two men, -doddering on their sticks; and a group of young men, the lounging, -insolent handsome young men, with their hands stuck into the belts of -their smocks, chewing straws for all the world as though they had been -in the Waggon of Hay and not on the threshold of a church. It was then -that an incident occurred, the recollection of which was frequently -to dash Daisy’s triumph into a sinking of uneasiness; towering behind -the group she caught sight of Peter Gorwyn’s grinning, good-humoured -face on the top of his enormous proportions, and as she looked at -him in a sort of terror of recognition that _he_ of all men should -have come to attend her wedding, he very slowly winked, so slowly -that time seemed to be suspended between the beginning of the wink -and the completion of it; and in that suspension of time, while her -eyes had leisure to dwell in fascination upon the subtle and quite -unambiguous process of a wink, her mind had leisure also to take in its -whole significance: Peter Gorwyn _knew_. In that wink the day of the -Scouring was evoked; the fun they had shared; the irresponsibility, the -momentary drunkenness. There was no reproach in the wink; there was no -reproof; there was not even a threat; there was simply the amusement -of a confederate, of one who knew himself quite well to be a party to -a hoax. There was humour in it too; in that broad, ruddy face and blue -eyes there was humour; there was even congratulation, a kind of silent -applause; and a hint of gratitude to Daisy for having let him off so -easily,--for having got Lovel to stand there in his place. This was all -very re-assuring; there was such a phrase as honour among thieves, and -big Peter, with her, was a thief if he was willing to let Lovel take -his place and pay the price which should have been exacted of his own -responsibility. But at the same time that wink came as a sharp shock -to her, the shock that a second person shared her hoaxing secret. She -thought that presently, when she had had time to settle down a little -in her new life, she would catch young Gorwyn for an interview, and, -without giving herself away, make quite sure, that, although he had -guessed what she had concealed, he was ready to grin and hold his -tongue. She thought this in a flustered way, as she came out of the -church on Lovel’s arm into the warmth of the sunny morning, and they -proceeded down the path between the grave-stones, a stiff little group, -robbed momentarily even of the slight relief of the bride’s simpering, -with Olver bringing up the rear. Daisy shivered for the first time; -this wedding was not being conducted according to her idea of weddings; -there were no emotional relatives, no weeping mother, no bells -pealing from the calm grey spire overhead, no bridesmaids, no best -man,--only Olver shambling behind them as they proceeded between the -grave-stones, Olver so slightly and indefinably mis-shapen, a solitary -evil attendant, shambling as though he might at any moment break into -a fawning gambol around them, a senseless dance full of irony and -mischief. And Lovel, himself, dearly as she had set her heart upon -him, was throwing a chill by his demeanour over the occasion; he had -not once looked at her, he had offered her his arm in a coldly civil -way,--less he could not do,--he had stood up stern and unbending; she -was afraid of him, and discouragement began to cloud over her triumph. - -They were walking now down the street towards his house, and the -shopkeepers came to their doors to stare at them as they passed. -Still Lovel marched on, undeviating, and Daisy began to feel herself -a captive being led towards her prison. She clasped her fingers -tighter round Lovel’s arm; it was hard and sinewy, typical of his lean -strength. Here was a harshness she would find tough to propitiate; -and jealousy shot through her; had he shown himself harsh towards Miss -Warrener? or had she discovered an unguessed marvellous Lovel? What -secret understanding had they shared? Daisy scarcely understood the -pain. “The minx!” she muttered; it was the only analysis she could -find of her sudden twist of anguish, blind and inarticulate. Up to -the present she had been too much occupied with securing Lovel; in -future she would have leisure to dwell upon those memories of his which -would lie for ever concealed from her. “We’re married now, aren’t we, -Nicholas? I’ve got you?” she said, looking up into his face. - -He took her into his house, where during the whole time of their -engagement he had never allowed her to come. They were in the dark cold -passage, at the end of which, in the sun, opened the little square -of garden where Lovel like any other cottager grew his cabbages, -his patch of flowers, his gooseberries, and his beans. Daisy became -excited again; she forgot Gorwyn, she forgot her discouragement and -her jealousy; she was a woman brought for the first time to her home. -She peered about her with interest, while Lovel shut the door, and the -passage became quite dark but for the door at the further end opening -bright arch-wise on to the garden. “Oh, Nicholas,” she said, “I can’t -see and it’s cold; leave open the door.” “For all the village to spy in -upon us?” he returned, and she perceived that in this as in everything -else he would have his way. “It’s more friendly,” she ventured, but he -did not move towards it, and she desisted: after all, she had got him, -she had fooled him, the score so far was heavily in her favour; if she -let him have his way now, she would get him more completely in the end. -“It’s rather cold,” she said nevertheless, repressing a shiver, and, -hearing a small chuckle in the shadows behind her, she turned and saw -Olver crouched up against the wall. - -“Take me into the kitchen!” she cried, pressing herself against Lovel. - -Kitchen! the word was reassuring; her mother had kept a spruce, -spacious kitchen, where bottled fruit stood ranged on shelves, and -trays of floury scones stood on the scrubbed deal table, and the big -Parliament clock tick-tocked in comfortable regularity against the -wall. Very different was the room to which Lovel sarcastically admitted -her; she stopped with the dismay of the conventional person suddenly -confronted with rebel views. She was shocked as at something unseemly -and profane. “Oh,” she cried, “but this isn’t a kitchen?” - -She turned as though to make her escape; before her was the room with -its walls of rough stone, its rafters, shadows and cobwebs, behind -her was Lovel in the doorway and the dark passage beyond him, with -Olver crouching in it. She stared round her, and was met everywhere by -silence. “I don’t like it!” she cried in shrill terror. Lovel continued -to look at her without speaking. “Mother! dad!” she cried, “I want to -go home!” She rushed to Lovel and beat her hands against his chest. -His physical contact recalled her, and she began to sob. “Nicholas, -Nicholas,” she sobbed, “I love you, I don’t understand.” She sobbed -against him. - -He stood still, hard and carven, while the waves of her panic broke -over him. Presently a loud tapping sounded overhead, and she raised her -face, mouth moist and wide open, to listen. “What’s that?” she uttered. -“My mother,” he replied grimly. “Then she _is_ alive?” breathed -Daisy, her common curiosity coming back to her, and she felt suddenly -important, since she was about to see,--redoubtable privilege,--the -legendary figure of the village witch. Speaking over his shoulder, -Lovel said, “Olver, go you and tell her I am bringing Daisy up in a -moment,” and she heard Olver shuffle off, and knew the mysterious -suggestion of hearing footsteps mount an unknown stair, and the voice -of an unvisualised person speaking in the recesses of an unknown house. - -“Must I go up?” she said to Lovel, between fear and desire. - -She wondered when she would have the chance of pouring into the ears of -one of her confidential friends the account of her first entry into the -old woman’s room. Not that she could be so very old in years,--not more -than sixty or sixty-five, Daisy hazarded,--but her bedridden condition -and the squalor of rugs and coverings under which she croaked and -feebly moved lent to her an appearance of almost fabulous age. Dirty -and tattered, a heap on the bed in the corner of the dark room, her -grey locks straggled about her face, her shaking fingers crooked -themselves at Daisy, and her mouth mumbled out unintelligible phrases, -in which the words, “A hard son to me, Nicco ... a hard husband ... -you’ll see,” alone detached themselves with any significance to the -bride. She was herself too much overawed to speak, but stood close -to Lovel, who, forbidding though he was, was yet the only familiar -landmark in the whole of that house. For his part, he said nothing, -not a word to help Daisy out of her fear or her embarrassment; he -stood there, and had he not appeared so utterly indifferent she would -have said he seemed resigned; he stood there waiting while his mother -mumbled out her accusations,--how many years was it since she had had -the opportunity of doing so save to Olver?--willing to wait although -scorning to justify himself; and it was clear that he cared no more -for his wife’s opinion than he did for his mother’s or anybody else’s, -but had within himself a reserve of some unknown, unexplained quality, -whether pride, or contempt, or self-communion, or all three, but which -in any case left him invulnerable and as though he could close his ears -at will when he did not choose to hear. - -But although even through her fright Daisy was thinking of the -succulent story she would make out of this first glimpse of the old -woman, the closing incident was one she would not retail. No, she -would not tell any one that when the mumble had finally died away, the -mumble and the bursts of laughter, she would not tell any one that as -she and Lovel had started to move towards the door the old woman had -raised herself up on her extraordinary mountain of sacks and pillows, -heaving herself up under all the rugs, and pointing an accusing finger -at her daughter-in-law, had cried in an access of malevolent amusement, -“Big already, my lass, and on your wedding-day!” She would not tell -any one that. She could not, even had she been willing, have described -the effect that the old woman’s words, uttered in such a tone of -discovery and delight, produced upon her. Hitherto she had not thought -very much about her condition; it was an inconvenient consequence that -often overtook girls of her class when they had omitted to behave with -too self-righteous a prudery; and in her own particular case she had -been able to turn her “trouble” to excellent account. But with that -witchlike cackle a whole future of foreboding rushed up at her, a whole -revelation of mischievous malignity. The cackle and the wink--Gorwyn -knew her secret; did Lovel’s mother know it too? she was credited with -sly powers; did Lovel’s brother know it? and would they sit for years -upon their knowledge until one day it should hatch out, sudden and -disastrous? Or had Lovel told them both that the child was Olver’s -child? Olver would accept that, surely; he had the memory of the scene -in the barn to convince him. What had Lovel told them? she would never -dare to ask him, and his inscrutability gave her no hope of discovering -by chance. - -And then she had been astonished to find how gentle he could be towards -her. It was true that he was stern in his injunctions,--no tales of his -house to be carried about the village, he said, and poor Daisy saw her -one consolation evaporate,--but in his personal dealings with her he -was uniformly gentle. Distant always, never relaxing, never easy; but -kind with a kindness that wrung the very heart of her love for him. It -was as though he pitied her, and was kind to her as he would have been -to an animal; although she thought bitterly, there would have been more -of love and less of duty in his kindness towards the meanest animal. -She could not cajole herself with the idea that anything but duty lay -beneath his kindness to her. He was equally gentle, she observed, with -his brother Olver, and with his mother, never betraying by any sign -his repulsion or his impatience; and Daisy thought sometimes with -terror that she herself might be as repulsive to him as the old woman -must surely be, but never would she know it, for he would never allow -it to appear. And at moments, loving him, she could forget herself -sufficiently to be sorry for him in his loneliness and his unrelaxing -self-command. - -She began to know the full significance of suffering. Before very -long she was suffering, in her blind, ignorant way, down to the bone. -For discomfort she had bargained; for a hard life of work, since she -knew that the business of keeping the house and its three inmates -would after her marriage devolve upon her, she had bargained also; -for Lovel’s severity she had bargained, and with an obscure sense -of justice and fair play she had been prepared to accept without -complaint these things that she was voluntarily bringing upon herself -as the price of securing Lovel for her own, for her husband; but for -the torment of his kindness and his proximity she had not bargained. -The work she had envisaged with a practical eye; that was within the -reach of her capacity, but the emotional problem had altogether eluded -her anticipation. She had thought, if she thought at all, that once -she had got Lovel safely over that ticklish business of marriage, she -would have consummated her supreme ambition. She had not understood -that then and then only would her problem truly begin. It had been -easy, pitifully easy, to trick Lovel into marriage, easy to play upon -the double string of his dejection and his sense of honour; he had -allowed himself to be conducted through preliminaries and ceremony -alike with the same cold, trance-like indifference; that had been easy -for her; but how to dig through to the man beneath that blameless mask? -“Nicholas, will you take me to Bath some day, anywhen you’ve time? -I’ve never seen a bigger town than Marlborough,” and he would answer, -kindly, always kindly, but like a man who might well be dead before the -day for going to Bath arrived, “I’ll take you to Bath, my dear,” and -she would sidle up to him and say, “That’ll be a treat for you too, -Nicco?” and he would acquiesce, and at the same time, on some murmured -excuse, would put her gently away. - -She waited hungrily all day for his return in the evening. His presence -exasperated and tortured her, but his absence left her in a perpetual -fret, swallowing up what she had anticipated as the principal trial of -her days, the sinister companionship of Olver and the old woman. Now -that she knew her way about the house,--knew the full squalor of the -old woman’s room,--had grown accustomed to the croak and the pointing -finger,--no longer started at Olver’s sudden laughter in the dark -passage,--she was not so much oppressed by them; but Lovel, Lovel, was -always what she wanted and what she could not have. At first she had -restrained herself, not knowing the temper with which she had to deal, -but, seeing him so kind, she slackened her restraint, and her affection -slopped increasingly over him. He could not be in the house but what -she must waddle after him, pawing at his hand or trying to entice him -into some friendly phrase. “You like having your house kept by me, -don’t you, Nicco? You like getting hot meals, don’t you, darling?” and -often she whined, “I love you, Nicco!” - -It was not in her to suffer in silence. When she craved too strongly -for him to touch her, she would take his hand and hold it against her -full, warm breast. She would sit at his feet in front of the fire, as -Olver had been used to do, and lean her head against his knee with -sentimental sighs, for she quickly learnt that although he might ignore -her he would never repulse her. In the kitchen, when she did this, -Olver sat at the centre table squinting into his little mirror at the -reflected group of his sister-in-law, his brother, and the red glow of -the fire. He was content to sit doing this by the hour, but Daisy could -not endure it; she clambered to her feet,--for she was rapidly growing -more clumsy in her movements,--and went about the room finding small -unnecessary tasks to ease her discomfort. Sometimes she turned noisily -on Lovel: - -“What are you thinking of, sitting there?” - -He was mild in his reply, or else did not reply at all. - -“Oh, _I_ know, _I_ know!” she would cry, in an access of jealousy, but -dared say no more. - -Only once, when he caught her with his strong hand as she stumbled on -the stair, and uttered a word of caution, she turned on him and cried, -“You’re mighty careful of another man’s brat.” But it seemed that he -had set his will against being goaded into any retort. - -The other man’s brat troubled her now, for she could not escape from -what seemed to her an absurd desire that it should be Lovel’s. The -Scouring had taken place in May; it was now December, so that she was -approaching her seventh month,--but Lovel must not know that: he must -think her only in the sixth month, for the incident with Olver in the -barn had happened in June; she must always be careful to remember -that, or the whole fabrication would be ruinously exposed. She must -run the risk of incomplete preparations,--a misled midwife, a probably -unavailable doctor should things go wrong. The resented child moved now -vigorous within her; she had a full-blown appearance without which she -still thought in her naïveté that she might have been attractive to -Lovel. In the autumn his bitch had whelped, and she had watched with -real anguish his tenderness towards the blind crawling puppies in their -wooden box, and later his patient hands teaching them to drink as they -crowded round and blew bubbles in the bowl of milk, and later still, -when they grew into fluffy balls, cuffing one another and snarling in -their small rage, she watched him dangling old cotton-reels for their -amusement, or saw him cross the kitchen with the little pack prancing -after him, and was shrewd enough to recognise that this was the first -thing which had given him pleasure for many months. Now, when he was -out at work, she watched them tumbling over each other on the flags of -the kitchen, staggering on their still uncertain legs, and the longing -grew within her that they should be babies instead, fat babies, hers -and Lovel’s, and the more she longed for this the less she welcomed -the child that struck so strongly against her flanks. It should be a -hearty child, conceived in laughter of healthy parents, a child that -would lie content and kick and crow; a little ploughboy; but already -she dreaded to see it with Lovel,--would he touch it with his hands -that were so light and loving to train and fondle all young things? -or would he avert his eyes from it? would it grow up to toddle always -after him in preference to any one else, while he endured it between -pity and loathing, and would it call him father, poor fraudulent little -stranger in a house where it had no right? Only in one degree less did -she speculate over Olver’s attitude towards it,--Olver who was being -passed off as its father,--would he believe himself the father or did -he know better? and would he croon in his odd slanting way over the -cot, with a grotesque affection? and would he later try to win over the -child and fill its head with queer lore? and here a fire of maternal -protectiveness and indignation flamed through her, rising suddenly from -the depth, as she discovered that she was not willing that her child -should come under the influence of Olver. - -There were endless possible groupings to be foreseen about the tiny, -dangerous, controversial person of the child. - -Its burden weighed her down more and more as the seasons deepened -towards winter. This child, so light-heartedly conceived on a day in -spring, its presence unnoticeable through the early summer, began to -oppress its mother in the saddening autumn, and with winter when the -days were dark and short and gloomy, she could no longer forget its -existence for a moment. The burden of the child and the burden of the -year moved together increasingly towards their culmination. She looked -back sadly to the easy days when the child had been light and even her -preoccupations had been leavened with hope. Now everything weighed upon -her, even the weather which was bleak and dismal: “I declare,” she -said fretfully to herself, “I’d be no worse off in the Kennet,” and -she skirted the idea, but lacked the desperation to execute it. She -was, however, by now quite sufficiently unhappy. She had nearly lost -any hope of gaining Lovel, her days were leaden, she lumbered about -the house in slovenly clothes, since at the beginning she had used -up all her poor finery by wearing her best every day in the hopes of -pleasing Lovel’s eye, but now in an access of dejection, she went to -the opposite extreme, and took a wilful pleasure in letting him see her -at her most sluttish and ungainly. But nothing, she noticed, caused him -to alter his manner towards her whether she presented herself in her -muslin, or in an old bodice made of some gray tartan-like material, not -joining on to her skirt, so that she appeared to be dressed in some -thrown-on coverings from off his mother’s bed. But he never varied in -his patience and his impersonal kindness; he neither retreated to a -greater distance, nor allowed himself to become more approachable. -Every evening he returned to his house to rejoin the company of Olver, -his mother, and the cumbersome and plangent woman, but by no word did -he betray either his nausea or his weariness. “Oh, yes, he’s a good -husband,” said Daisy bitterly to young Gorwyn, “he doesn’t drink, he -doesn’t hit me, and he gives me all his money. He’s a good husband -enough.” - -Young Gorwyn lounged gracefully round the house-door. - -“Then you’ve fallen soft,” he observed in his drawling voice, surveying -Daisy from head to foot as she stood just within the entrance to the -dark passage. - -“I’ve fallen soft,” she echoed, full of sarcasm. - -This was in October, and in the blue early dusk people were gossiping -at their house-doors, up and down the street. Young Gorwyn felt a -spice of adventure in philandering thus openly with the newly-wedded -wife of the redoubtable Lovel,--advertising to the whole street his -disregard of Lovel. Not that there was any glory in passing the time of -day with Daisy; everybody knew that Daisy was cheap and easy, giving -impudence for impudence, a joke for a joke. But in making free with -Lovel’s property there was glory, in being so near to Lovel’s house; -almost inside it, one might say; in dawdling there, treating it as any -ordinary house. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his breeches, -and lounged, and stared at Daisy. She was a good sort, and he had got -off cheap, were his dominant reflections; and was quite sure,--with a -grin,--that she read his thoughts and wholly sympathised with them; -would not have been shocked, in fact, had he voiced them and held out -his hand, thanking her for the escape she had allowed him. He did not -credit her perhaps with very much respect for him, but then he had -equally little for her. - -“Let’s see our kid now and then,” he said. - -“What?” she said sharply. - -“Let’s see the kid now and then,” he repeated, so that she wondered -whether she had heard him right the first time. - -“Oh,--maybe,” she replied, trying to show herself nonchalant about it -as he, being a woman who readily took her cue from men. - -She remembered the wink in the porch of the church, and that small, -all-compromising word, so slily slipped into his phrase, seemed to her -a first cousin of the wink; they had the same family air of innuendo, -of confederacy. The impertinence! she thought, in her heart of hearts -frightened rather than indignant, and she had a good mind to have the -question out with him then and there, but, giving him a preliminary -look, she decided to hold her tongue; an admission, once made, could -not be recalled, whereas silence committed one to nothing. She was far, -however, from trusting young Gorwyn now that she came to examine him -more closely; he was strong and sleepy and graceful, lounging against -the door-post, but there was something of the cat in his face with the -broad cheek-bones, and the fair-lashed blue eyes so deep-set that when -he smiled they almost disappeared into two little slits, and the way -his fair hair grew so thick and low on his forehead; and she knew from -experience,--all too well,--how caressing were his hands, caressing -and heavy, when he reached them out towards a girl. A return of the -passing attraction he had had for her came upon her, and she had a -moment of queer disloyalty to Lovel, contrasting his slim darkness with -the square Saxon strength of Gorwyn, to whom she was really so suitably -mated. Their glances crossed; they understood one another too well, and -looked away. “I must be getting on,” said Gorwyn after a pause which -lasted a perceptible moment. - -But that was in October, and she had not seen him again for any private -conversation, however evasive. Autumn had gone, winter had come, with -the violence and completeness to which dwellers on those uplands were -accustomed. Snow blocked the roads. Communication with Marlborough -was cut off, the inhabitants of King’s Avon resigned themselves to -rely upon their own store of provisions, the Downs lay around them, -white and enormous. They did not resent their isolation, but accepted -it, almost yearly, as coming in its turn in the nature of things. It -imprisoned them, more than ever self-contained, in their cup within -the earthwork, with their pagan stones, their Christian church, -their shops, and their Manor House, where Mr. Warrener was now their -only representative of gentry; snugly a homogenous community. Lovel -alone saw in the snow something more than a mere barrier against the -outside world, a barrier that was almost a defence; he saw the stones -standing up black out of a white field, the black trees powdered and -spangled; he knew that he could go up on to the Downs without the fear -of meeting any stranger riding there for pleasure. He could look from -the crest of the White Horse Hill out over the country, without seeing -the roads of civilisation, without seeing the White Horse itself, and -his shepherd’s hut was as rough a shelter as primitive man would have -devised. He took a certain pleasure in the discomfort and severity of -his winter life. Often he would be the only man to leave the village of -a morning, passing out on his way to the uplands while a few isolated -figures trudged up the draughty street against the blizzard with sacks -thrown round their shoulders, going to their cowsheds or to clear a -space for their poultry; but Lovel passed them, leaving them to such -domestic occupations, and sought the high lands, where wind and sleet -swept across like aerial cavalry, and the driven snow was banked deep -in drifts against the scars and scoops of the hillsides. Here, as he -stood alone with the spears of the weather driving through him, he -had a sense of triumph: he had got the better of the Downs, he had -got the better of his own soul. His physical and mental endurance -were alike strong enough to cope with the utmost rigours that Nature -and fate were able to devise for his trial. This grim satisfaction, -he felt, was the last luxury he permitted himself to indulge. For the -rest, he had stripped himself bare of soft superfluities as a man -could be; down to bone and sinew he had stripped himself. At times, -in his moments of strange, harsh exaltation, when the gale screamed -most piteously around him, he wished he might divest himself of his -clothing, outward symbol of protection, and stand naked to support the -lashings of the wind and the frozen hail; he thought proudly that no -harm would come of it to his lean body. But although he never allowed -himself to exploit the desires of this fanatical folly, he knew that -he had touched the apex of his conquest over himself and his country, -and, relaxing, he considered with a grin the superstitious amazement -of his fellow-villagers should they, passing below, chance to see upon -the skyline the naked figure of Lovel (whom they had always known for a -wizard) crucified against elements where horse and man might scarcely -hope to live. - -He had his reward when the storm ceased, and, again alone upon the -heights, he surveyed, as though his will alone had imposed the calm, -the thick smooth quilt of snow and the blood-red sun descending towards -the beech-clump through the perfect stillness. - -But in the direction of Starvecrow he never wandered, where Calladine -edged with some rare book closer to the fire, and Clare stood with her -face against the panes staring out of the window over the snowy Downs. - -Daisy began now to cling to him more and more. Her child was nearly -due, but since she alone knew this,--and perhaps young Gorwyn, if he -took the trouble to reckon up the dates,--every one believed the birth -to be distant yet another month. Daisy was frightened; she dared not -tell Lovel that the child might now be born any day; but she dreaded -his long absences, for she feared that she might die without making her -confession or obtaining his forgiveness. If all went well, she had no -intention of confessing; but if she saw her life in any danger she had -made up her mind to barter the security of this life against that of -the next. Superstitious, she imagined that she would run more danger -through bearing this child that she had carried during the months of -deception and fraud, than she would through bearing a child honestly -conceived and carried. She was mortally afraid of death, and mortally -afraid of losing Lovel. She tried to sound him, “You’d be sorry if -anything happened to me, Nicco?” - -Lovel had heard this a dozen times already. - -“Why should anything happen to you?” he replied. - -“I shouldn’t have gone with Olver,” she mumbled, twisting the corner of -her skirt. - -“That’s a long time ago,--that’s over and done with,” he replied -patiently and cheerfully, feeling sorry for what he thought was her -genuine repentance. - -“But this is the result,” she said, not consoled. - -“Don’t distress yourself,” he said. - -“Supposing I was tooken bad,” she began again. - -“’Tisn’t for a month yet,” said Lovel. - -“One doesn’t know always, with such things.” - -“Will you see the midwife?” he asked, perceiving that she was worried. -But the whole subject, and Daisy’s very existence, though he spoke with -solicitude and bent a kindly gaze on her to discover what were the poor -creature’s real wishes,--the whole subject to him was utterly remote -and meaningless. - -“The midwife over to Marlborough by this snow-fall!” she cried -disdainfully. - -“I’ll ride over and get her if you like,--I’ll bring her out on a -pillion.” - -“No, no, Lovel,” she said, shaking her head, “neither now nor when the -child is born,--I’ll die without midwife, or doctor, more likely.” - -“You’re determined to see it in its blackest light,” said Lovel, but he -spoke good-humouredly, without losing his patience. - -“Well, it isn’t of me or my baby you think, when you sit silent by the -hour, is it?” said Daisy, suddenly losing her temper, pulling herself -up with the help of the table, and wandering aimlessly around. “’Tisn’t -your baby, so why should you think of it? and if I come to die, well, -good riddance for you, and you’ll be able to think you did your duty -by me. But much you care now, when you go out into the snow like the -crazed gipsy you are,--to meet Miss Warrener, Mrs. Calladine, for all I -know,--much you care that I sit at home and think myself sick over the -danger I’ll run and the pain I’ll suffer, while you maybe won’t come -near home till it’s all over one way or the other.” - -“When the time gets near I’ll stop closer to home.” - -She wanted to cry out, “You dolt, you blockhead, the time is near -_now_,” but dared only repeat “One doesn’t always know ...” and began -to whimper. - -“I won’t go far afield,” said Lovel, soothing her. He was full of pity -for all women in her condition, so that none of her words had power to -anger him. - -A small remorse came over her when he was kind like this, a compunction -for having tricked him: would he have been so kind, so long-suffering -about the child had he not believed without question in his own -brother’s guilt? She tried to edge closer to him; “Nicholas, if -anything happened to me, you wouldn’t think too hardly of me, would -you?” - -“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” said Lovel, weary of the -discussion, but still patient and kind. - -“You won’t go far, Nicco, will you?” - -“No, if that comforts you.” - -He was committed now, having given his promise; there would be no more -roamings for him; but he was willing to forgo their small solace, -negligible in the midst of his desolation, if thereby he might reassure -the poor contemptible creature. - -“Nicco,” she said timidly, with an impulse of honesty, prompted by his -gentleness, “’tisn’t fair to ask you, hardly ... ’tisn’t your child, -after all’s said and done.” - -“I’m responsible for my brother,” said Lovel, and she turned away from -him and wept, overcome. - -“You’re an upright man, Lovel,” she cried through her tears, “too -upright for such as me.” - -He had not understood her full meaning, of course; he had told her -again not to distress herself, he had assured her again that he would -not go far from home, he had even patted her shoulder, letting her -see nothing of the effort it cost him, and he had gone out then, to a -house down the street where he had a small carpentering job to finish. -Daisy remained alone in the kitchen, alone with the satisfaction of -having gained her point that he would abandon his long absences, but -still she was not satisfied as she expected; she sat on where he had -left her, bluntly probed by conscience, she whose conscience had never -troubled her until this contact with Lovel and his standards: what was -she doing to Lovel, she asked herself now? she had got him, but was -that all? was that enough for her? to have got him and to know she had -caught him by a trick? to see him inert under his dull unhappiness? -never to hear him complain, never to catch him at fault, but to see -him quiet as though his spirit was ebbing daily from him? Even she, -in her blundering insensitiveness, stirred uneasily at the thought -of his injuries. “But what was I to be at?” she cried to herself in -self-justification; “I wanted him, and all’s fair....” She moved in -her chair and twisted her hands. “Nicco, Nicco,” she moaned. “If he -knew how I wanted him he’d forgive me,” and with this reflection came -a deeper stab: it was probably true that he would indeed forgive -her,--that she had indeed broken him down to the extent of that -saint-like clemency. What would put anger and mettle back into him? -what would put life back into him? Clare, nothing but Clare, without -whom he was incomplete, only a gentle husk; and for a passing moment -her thoughts travelled to Clare, living out her life in some fashion -or another by Calladine’s side at Starvecrow. What, in her ignorance, -had she helped to bring about? She paused and drew back on the brink of -things she did not understand, taking refuge again in her own miseries, -comfortably familiar by reason of the many times she had pored over -them, with no dark corners or frightening perspectives, but all close, -small and personal, under the range of her poor niggling microscope. -And she was in the right frame of mind for such brooding, feeling -herself oppressed and full of foreboding, as she sat in the kitchen big -with the child, and big with the failure of her life, waiting indeed -for deliverance from the child, but seeing no solution to the greater -oppression, which she might expect to continue until she should grow -as spiritless and broken as Lovel and their existence should dwindle -to a grey twilight of apathy unenlivened even by anger or revolt. She -had rarely felt so dejected; the very stones of the kitchen walls -crushed her with their rude size; the child within her, usually so -active, so ironically vigorous, was so quiet to-day that she began to -wonder whether it were dead; the old woman overhead made no sound; and -all round the house lay the thick soft deadening pall of snow that -muffled the country from Thames to Severn. She wished that Lovel had -not gone out; disheartened though she now was, she still clung to the -tormenting comfort of his presence; it was almost a consolation to see -him suffering beside her. Since life held neither hope nor joy for -either of them, let her in her own pain at least be able to sneer at -the sight of his; let them be together in their separation. She grew -frightened at the wildness and virulence of her thoughts. They were -not so much thoughts, as impulses that floated a little crazily across -her mind. She was not well to-day; it was not surprising; it was cruel -of Nicholas to leave her alone. She stirred, and looked round, saw -no one, but fancied that eyes watched her. “Olver!” she cried out, -although she had seen nothing. - -In a pause that followed her cry she breathed heavily, staring round -with eyes that dared not flutter into a blink. Her eyeballs became -tense and dry, her hands strained at the edge of the table. For all -that she knew, her brother-in-law might have been in the room all the -time; she was still startled by his soft appearances and vanishings, -as by his sudden meaningless laughter, and by the arrows of shrewdness -that would dart across his erratic brain. “Olver?” she whispered next, -half-expecting him to answer from under her very feet, and little -as she desired his company, she thought that any answer would be -preferable to the continued silence in the room and to the doubt as to -whether Olver was there or not. - -She was coming to the conclusion that her instinct had been a mistaken -one, since five minutes had certainly elapsed while she stared and -peered round the room, and she was about to relax from her strain of -looking and listening for Olver, when she heard a faint tap on the -window, and, looking round, she saw his face pressed against the window -pane from outside. Her fright gave way to petulance; she called out -to him to give over his tricks, and at the same time she beckoned -imperiously to him to come into the house. Well-accustomed to him by -now, she felt relief when he materialised out of the silence. “How -long had you been watching me?” she asked. - -“That’s my secret,” he replied. - -She struggled, impatient of the little mysteries he liked to make. - -“Anyhow, Nicholas isn’t here,” she observed, turning away from Olver -and tapping her fingers irritably upon the table. - -“I don’t want Nicholas,” said Olver, “I want you.” - -He came further into the room, while she looked at him in enquiry. - -“Oh, you’ve found an old bird’s nest you want to show me,” she said -disdainfully. - -“That’s as far as you can think,” replied Olver with equal disdain. He -came up to her. “Have you ever thought that there’s things you’ve no -idea of going on all round you?” - -“Why,” she said, fright again overtaking her, “that’s what I was -thinking just now.” - -“But you didn’t like to think too close on it?” - -“No, perhaps I didn’t. Let me be, Olver; I’ve troubles enough without -you moidering me.” - -“And are you the only one to have troubles?” - -“Let me be, Olver, I tell you.” - -“No, I won’t let you be. I’ve a grudge against you. I’ve thought it -out.” - -“I’m not well, Olver; keep your grudge till I’ve got my baby. Then I’ll -have it out with you if I must.” - -“You hadn’t any pity on Nicco.” - -“Oh, that’s how the land lies, is it?” - -“No use being brazen about it, Daisy. I’m here to speak for Nicco, and -nothing you say’ll stop me.” - -“If you don’t let me be, I’ll tell Nicholas, and he’ll be angry with -you.” - -“I’m not afraid of Nicco.” - -“Oh, yes, you are. We all are. Even me,--and I’m his wife.” - -“A pretty wife. Nicco can kill me if he likes; I’ll speak first. I know -better what’s good for him than he knows himself. You’ve broken his -heart.” - -“Not me, Olver, not me only. His heart would have been broken anyhow. -And God knows he’s breaking mine.” - -“Who cares about yours? Nicco’s worth everything.” - -“I know that, do you suppose I don’t know that? It’s making me mad, -Olver. Can’t you have a little pity on me and leave me to myself?” - -“I wouldn’t have any pity for you, not if you were dying.” - -“Well, I shall be dying before very long, if that’s any consolation to -you.” - -“You aren’t the sort that dies. Nicco’ll have you stuck to him for -years; he’ll leave you before you leave him.” - -“Don’t say that, Olver; he’s strong; different, but as strong as me.” - -“Oh, his body’s strong enough, but there’s something burns him away -inside. Look at his eyes.” - -“Olver, don’t say such terrible things. What do you know? I never -can tell how much you know,--you’re simple, aren’t you? He doesn’t -complain. He doesn’t complain to you, does he?” - -“He’ll die, but he won’t have complained once. And we shall never know. -He’s good to us both, isn’t he?” - -“Good,--yes, he’s good; but you don’t understand, Olver, you needn’t -rub it into me how good he is or how much he’s worth. I know it -already, I love him so much it makes me sick and mad. It’s almost -too much for me, what I have to put up with, what with one thing and -another.... Now go away, can’t you? I’ve told you, I’ve admitted it all -to you; I can’t put it more plainly.” - -“He’s good to you just as he’s good to me; he hasn’t a ha’pennyworth of -feeling for you.” - -“I know, Olver, I know; can’t you leave me alone? I’m not well, I tell -you; it isn’t the moment to come baiting me.” - -“There’s another woman he wanted....” - -“You shan’t speak of her!” screamed Daisy. - -“Oh, yes, I will,” said Olver, seizing her by the wrists. “Do you call -to mind what you once told me, that you saw them together, and it -seemed a week wasn’t enough for all they had to say? Where are they -now. Three miles apart, yet they haven’t seen one another for six -months,--from the time the Downs were green to the time the Downs are -white. And do you suppose he’s left her for a moment in thought, or -she left him? Not they. They used to slip together to the Kennet, those -two, and they’ve been suddenly divided. And you whine to me because -you’re unhappy. You say you’re not well. Not well! You! Who cares? You -could whelp a litter and be none the worse, and you can stand a bit of -unhappiness just as well as you can stand your baby. I’ve no pity for -you. But Nicco,--he’ll break,--he’ll die inside.” - -“Don’t, Olver, don’t; what’s the good of torturing me now. What can I -do?” - -“What can you do? You can clear out, can’t you? Go and have your baby -in a ditch, somewhere where Nicco can never find you again,” he said -brutally. - -“Where would be the good of that? She’s married herself, Miss Warrener -is, and I love Nicco, I keep on telling you; I can’t give him up,” -cried Daisy, confused and hunted to the last extremity; and she thought -of something she could say to Olver, something which would either -silence him or else force him to throw down all his cards upon the -table, “Whose fault is it, anyhow, that Nicco had to marry me, to save -me from the shame his own brother brought upon me?” - -“You think you can trick me like you tricked him,” cried Olver, -horrible with rage. “Why don’t you say the shame Peter Gorwyn brought -on you? You might be a little nearer the mark.” - -“Peter Gorwyn?” - -They faced one another, all civilisation gone from them. They struck -blindly at one another, keeping nothing back. - -“I saw you, oh, I saw you, the day of the Scouring.” - -“I loved Nicco, I do love him; I had to have him!” - -“_You_ love him?--you’re killing him.” - -“He couldn’t have got Miss Warrener,--not with a brother like you. Do -you hear? ’Tisn’t me that keeps him from her; it’s you, you, you.” - -“Me?” shouted Olver. - -“You, did you never think of that before? It doesn’t matter whether -my baby is your baby or Peter Gorwyn’s baby. It’s you that spoil his -life for him, you and your mother, you mischievous dolt, and your dirty -blood in him. He’s tainted, and he knows it. ’Tisn’t me. I came long -after; I’m just an extra. ’Tis you and your mother destroyed him, from -the day he was born.” - -She clasped her hands suddenly to her side and fell back on to her -chair. - -“You’ve done for me,” she groaned. - -The door opened and Lovel stood upon the threshold. Olver ran to him, -touching him all over with his hands, reaching up to pass his hands -even over his brother’s head. - -“Look at her, Nicco; she’s tricked you, the brat isn’t mine, it’s Peter -Gorwyn’s, and she says ’tis I that kept you from Miss Warrener. Why -don’t you kill her, Nicco? and I’ll go right away if it’s true; I love -you better than she does; you shall have Miss Warrener.” - -“What’s all this?” said Lovel. He put Olver’s passionate fumbling hands -aside, and went over to Daisy. “You’re ill,” he said in a practical -voice; “What is it? has Olver hurt you?” - -“You heard what he said,” she replied, looking up at him with terrified -and pain-racked eyes. - -“Never mind about that. Are you ill? Let me help you up.” - -“She’s tricked you, Nicco,” cried Olver, fawning round him. - -“Hold your tongue, Olver; she’s in pain. You poor fool, why didn’t you -tell me? Heaven knows if I can get to Marlborough through this snow -with darkness coming on. Lean on me, I’ll take you upstairs. Lean on -me; never mind anything else.” - -Olver was pulling frantically at him. - -“Is it true, Nicco? is it me? Oh, my poor Nicco,--first me and then -her,--what can I do?--but I’ll do something,--I’ll find something to -do,--oh, my head, my heart.” - -“The pain, the pain!” cried Daisy. - -“Lean on me,” said Lovel, putting his arm round her. - -“Gorwyn’s child!” screamed Olver in a frenzy. He followed them to the -foot of the stairs, where he stumbled and fell on the lowermost step, -still calling incoherently after Lovel, who was persuading his wife up -to her room, saying meanwhile, “Lean on me, Daisy, I won’t let you -fall, don’t be afraid, it’ll all be over soon.” - - -The word was quickly passed down the village street that Daisy Lovel’s -time was come, and that Lovel begged the kindness of some charitable -woman to remain near his wife while he rode to Marlborough in search -of the midwife. “There’s a chance for somebody,” said one woman, “to -see the inside of that house for herself.” “And there’s a come-down -for Gipsy Lovel,” said another, “to have to beg for one of us to go -into his place. Where would he be if we all refused?” “Her time come -already? and she married,--let me see,--four, five months, is it?” said -a third. But in spite of these and other scornful remarks, volunteers -were forthcoming, and even those who had lagged most behind, or who had -recommended that Lovel be left to suffer now the penalty of his years -of unneighbourliness, watched enviously the departure of Mrs. Blagdon -for the house of mystery and evil legend. They saw her received at the -door by Lovel, drawn in and swallowed up, as to their imagination Daisy -herself had been swallowed up on the day of her wedding. - -They continued, however, to observe Lovel’s house for some time, -glancing at intervals between the lace curtains which decked their -own windows, and saw a light spring up in the room they assumed to be -Daisy’s, and a gigantic shadow passing to and fro upon the blind. -Evening had come, swiftly to be followed by night; the snow had -begun to fall again in large flakes; very soon the street was white, -unbroken by footmarks, since every soul was within doors. The women -idly watching between their curtains saw Lovel emerge from his house, -close the door behind him, and pass down the alley between two houses -to the shed where he kept his horse. They saw him emerge again, leading -the horse; they saw him swing himself into the saddle and ride away, -his coat collar turned up high against the snow, tall and spare as he -disappeared silently into the thick dusk. The women said, “He’s off to -Marlborough to find the midwife. Things can’t be going,” they added -with relish, “as well as they should.” The men only growled, “He must -be crazed to think he can find the road to Marlborough on a night like -this; he’ll break his own neck and his horse’s legs.” But the women had -a curious faith in Lovel’s efficiency. - -Few village confinements were honoured with so much interest. The -darkness in the street was now intense, heightened by the snow that -continued to float down in large, soft flakes; only the little yellow -lights in the windows broke it, all on the ground-floor level but for -the significant exception of Daisy’s window, whose lighted rectangle -on the upper storey threw its beams out against the falling snow. All -was silent in the Lovels’ house; ever Mrs. Blagdon seemed to have -fallen into the clandestine habits of her hosts, for she had not -once run out across the street in an interval for a moment’s gossip -with a neighbour; only the shadow passed upon the blind, enormous and -suggestive, to show that any life stirred within the house. The snow -fell thicker; the few black holes left by the hoofs of Lovel’s horse -had been long since blotted out, and Lovel himself had disappeared into -the night as completely as though he had no intention of ever coming -back. Hours had passed, suppers were finished and cleared away in all -the little lighted kitchens, still the good wives were reluctant to -move upstairs to bed, while careful to conceal their reluctance from -the men. And Mrs. Blagdon, when she finally threw up a window in spite -of the steely cold, to call out in an irritable and impatient voice, -“Anybody seen anything of Lovel?” was answered by a dozen voices in -negation. - -“How’s things, Mrs. Blagdon?” - -“Turned round the wrong way,” came the reply laconically. - -The street fell back into its silence after the small disturbance. -Women who had been through the experience gave a moment’s pity -to Daisy. Gorwyn, the smith, knocking out his pipe against his -hearthstone, reiterated the opinion that Lovel would not be seen again -that night. Peter, his son, stirred uneasily. “Is it all up with her, -would you think, mother?” But Mrs. Gorwyn was contemptuous. “Lord, no; -a solid girl like Daisy’d stand a deal more than that.” - - -Country news, that most unaccountable traveller, spread even to -Starvecrow in its isolation. Mrs. Quince was full of it,--she who -towards Clare had kept herself so very prim and respectfully reserved. -“You will remember, madam, the girl you saw in the attic bedroom here, -Daisy Morland by name?” - -“I remember perfectly, Mrs. Quince; what of her?” - -“You will remember she was stitching at some baby-linen,--she was -married to that good-for-nothing Lovel,--Gipsy Lovel, they call him,--a -fortnight later,--a matter of three weeks before you were married -yourself, madam.” - -“Yes, Mrs. Quince?” - -“She was brought to bed of a son in the early hours of this morning, -madam,” said Mrs. Quince importantly. - -“Really. I hope she is well?” - -“Well enough; these country girls make nothing of it. Lightly born -as lightly come by, I always say. Yet at one time it was a question -whether they could save the baby.” Mrs. Quince added some details. -“Yes, madam. Her husband had to ride to Marlborough and brought the -doctor out a-pillion, and how he could ha’ done it with the night as -black as pitch, and the snow falling, and the roads hedge-deep in -snow, is what the folk are all asking themselves. They saw him start, -but no one saw him come back, but sure enough when they went to unbar -their doors this morning there were the tracks of a horse up the -street. A fine boy, they say. It’s fortunate he hasn’t taken after his -Uncle Olver.” - -“Yes,” said Clare. - -“It’s my opinion, madam, I don’t know if it’s yours too,--that people -like that have no business to get children. ’Tisn’t fair, as a matter -of conscience, when you don’t know what dark blood you may be handing -on. Anybody has only got to look at the Lovels to know there’s no good -in them,--well, they ought to restrain themselves, that’s what I say.” - -Seeing that Clare did not reply, Mrs. Quince resumed after a moment, -“There always were things about those Lovels that weren’t natural. Now -here’s another thing: how did he ride from King’s Avon to Marlborough -and back on a night like last night, if something unholy wasn’t in -league with him? No other man in the village could have done it, and -there’s not many that would have tried. No, let the baby go, they’d -have said, and the woman too, if need be. And he’s always out on those -hills; if he had to go after sheep there would be some sense in it, but -he just goes straying alone when most men are glad enough to keep their -fireside. He’s been seen on the top of White Horse Hill, in the middle -of a blizzard fit to cut you in half. And I have heard it told, that -after he’s passed by, the Grey Wethers have been found uncovered; yes, -even though they were at the bottom of the deepest drift there they’ll -be, sticking up black in the middle of the snow.” - -“You can’t believe everything you’re told, Mrs. Quince.” - -“Well, that’s as it may be, madam. All the same, I stick to it that -there is something unholy about those Lovels; it’s easy to say the -younger one is daft, but there’s nothing daft about Nicholas,--far from -it. So why does he look so dark and queer? and why must he pass on his -sly Egyptian blood to an English girl? if he must get children, let him -get them on one of his own sort, that’s what I say.” - -Here Calladine came in. - -“Secrets?” he asked in his most urbane manner, seeing Mrs. Quince -become silent in the midst of garrulity. - -“No,” said Clare. “Mrs. Quince was telling me that Lovel’s wife has had -a son, and that Lovel had to go to Marlborough in the middle of the -night to fetch the doctor.” - -“Dear me, that’s a daring, uncomfortable thing to do,” said Calladine, -smiling in a patronising way. - -“Yes,” said Clare, looking at him. “Not many people would have cared -for the job, I think.” - -Calladine laughed negligently. - -“You always had a weakness for your poacher,” he replied. - -“Would you be wanting me any more, madam?” enquired Mrs. Quince. - -“If Lovel’s wife is in need of anything I can send her, please let me -know, Mrs. Quince.” - -“Yes, madam. Very good of you, madam.” - -When the housekeeper had left the room, Calladine said, “I never -question your actions, as you know, Clare, but do you think it -judicious to encourage these people? The woman was married not very -long before ourselves, yet she already gives birth to a baby; the man -is well-known as an undesirable in the whole neighbourhood.” - -Clare went up to him. “Oh, Richard,” she cried gaily, “are they worth -talking about any longer?” She pushed him down into his armchair and -knelt at his feet. “What are we going to do to-day, tell me?” - -“To do?” repeated Calladine in surprise. “Why, what is there that -we could possibly do on a day like this? What a restless spirit it -is--always crying out to be up and doing--when I am quite content if I -may sit and look into your eyes.” - -“That’s very pretty, Richard, but it doesn’t mean much; don’t you ever -want to be out, moving, riding, anything! anything but sit cooped -indoors day after day with books?” - -“I confess I haven’t much desire to be riding into snow-drifts on this -particular morning,” said Calladine, glancing at the white-and-leaden -prospect out of the window. - -“And you wouldn’t allow me to do so either, if I had a mind to?” - -“Such a wild child!” said Calladine fondly, stroking her hair. “How -fortunate that you should have a staid, elderly husband to look after -you.” - -“How do you think I looked after myself for nineteen years, then, -Richard?” - -“Heaven knows,” said Calladine in mock dismay; banter with Clare was -a form of conversation he particularly enjoyed. The morning promised -to pass agreeably; there was nothing he liked better than for Clare -to kneel at his feet, as she was doing now, sitting back on her -heels, while he looked at her fresh youthfulness with that fond and -tender glance of his, and rallied her gently, or caressed her with -the courtly phrases she had heard from him alone among men. “How -_did_ you look after yourself?” he repeated. “You always escaped from -old Martha Sparrow, and even the poacher cannot always have been at -hand for a ready rescue, and in any case he is scarcely my idea of a -knight-errant.” - -“No,” said Clare, “he hasn’t such pretty manners as you, Richard.” - -“Now you’re laughing at me,--are you, or aren’t you? I never know,” and -he caught her to him and began flecking her face and hair with quick -kisses, but desisted to say more seriously, “You’re so exquisitely a -woman, Clare, so deliciously a child; I realised that you were both -from the day you first came to visit me here.” - -The phrase had a vague echo of familiarity for Clare; “so exquisitely -a woman”; she felt sure that she had heard him say that, or something -very like it, before; and she thought with the hardness that was -becoming habitual to her where he was concerned, that from no woman -would he demand anything further. - -“What a toy I am to you, Richard,” she said idly; “what a toy you like -to make of me.” - -“The most exquisite toy that ever came into the life of a sad and -lonely man,” he said, with a return to his old manner, and he took her -hand and began to play with the bangle on her wrist. He handled her -much as he would handle his terra-cotta statuettes, and for a while she -endured it, but presently sprang away and went to stand at the window -where she might look out upon the prospect of shining snow. - -“Always looking out, Clare? what liberty do you see out there? you -think I ought to let you go, little caged bird, but you would soon -perish,--your pretty limbs wouldn’t stand the cold,--better stay -happily where you are, believe me,--don’t fret,--come back to me,--let -me whisper how precious you are,--come back to our lovely idleness.” - -“But I don’t like idleness, Richard; no use pretending I do; you should -not have married some one so restless as I.” His hands were upon her -shoulders; she wanted to shake them off. - -“Did the poacher ...” began Calladine. - -“Ah, leave Lovel alone,” she cried; “what impels you to speak of him -this morning? Leave him alone, with his wife and his baby; they can -very well look after themselves without any interest from us.” - -“But, Clare, Mrs. Quince was speaking of them; it’s only natural that -my thoughts should continue to run in that direction; and even you -yourself....” - -“You’re fascinated by the subject of Lovel,” she said, whirling -round on him, “now, aren’t you? own to it. You always bring him in: -the Downs, the circus, and now his baby,--everything’s an excuse -for bringing in Lovel. And why? Is it because he took me out of the -circus-tent that night? is it because I rode with him? why not speak -out what’s at the back of your mind?” - -“But, Clare, Clare! why so fierce and challenging suddenly? there’s -nothing at the back of my mind.” (“There is,” she thought, “and you too -great a coward to face it out.”) “Come now, don’t let us quarrel and we -won’t speak of Lovel if it offends you,--will that satisfy you?” - -“It’s of no importance whether we speak of a man in the village or -not,” she said, turning away and hunching her shoulders. - -They went back to sit by the fire, a bulk of hostility unspoken -between them. Calladine felt peevish; his indolent, graceful, vaguely -amorous morning had been spoilt; and spoilt by what? by the presence -of Lovel. “You’ve never yet shaken off that lean rogue,” he broke -out once, sudden and querulous after a spell of silence. They both -sat staring into the fire, separate as they could be. They had not -previously spoken of Lovel, not directly, not insistently; only to -range round him with that nagging, niggling hesitation that seemed to -pull at Calladine. But now his presence blocked every other road of -conversation; he got in the way, he was near, he could not be got rid -of. Almost, he was in the room. - -Calladine looked at Clare; fair and slight, delicate even, but so -unafraid. A touch, and she was instantly up and all-daring. She kindled -at a spark. What was it that she and Lovel had in common? the same -apparent frailty of body, the same flame of spirit,--Calladine had all -the lyricism to clothe his perceptions with words. He had apprehended -Lovel; on the rare occasion when he had seen him, he had apprehended -him fully, to his own disquietude. And he apprehended Clare and -their resemblance, with pain and resentment. They were two fine and -vulnerable things, he thought; vulnerable and brave. But he thought it -with only half of his brain, the lyrical, romantic half; with the other -half he was peevish and irritated. - -If only they were not so silent; Clare had never faltered or -complained. Only she had wanted to go out; she had looked out of the -window with a kind of homesickness. He was always catching her eyes -at their straying, and being made aware how far removed she was from -himself. But this, again, had been with half of his brain; with the -other half he had known that she was his wife and that he had got her -under his roof. And he had not allowed his lyrical self to call her a -prisoner. - -What if she were to escape? He would be without persuasion or authority. - -“You stay with me out of apathy,” he cried. “If once your fancy -changed, you would be gone.” - -Clare, who had not been thinking of him, turned a mild glance of slight -attention on him. He was glaring at her, frightened and angry. - -“Yes,” he continued, “I don’t hold you; you’re kind to me, and you -indulge my game of pretence. But you’re not really here. You’re -indulgent to me as if I were a child,--‘yes, dear, very nice,’ between -your own, grown-up preoccupations. But you ought to remember that I am -your husband,” he said. - -“When have I forgotten it?” - -He sulked. It was true she had not forgotten it. He had no reproaches -against her; she had been patient, gentle. - -“I don’t hold you,” he grumbled. - -It was a long time since she had seen him like this; usually he was -assertive and complacent. How slight a thing it took to disturb him! -His complacency was only a façade, a painted hoarding propped up by -struts,--theatrical, like everything else about him. But she really -bothered very little with him, now that she had found him out. - -“Oh, yes, Richard,” she said, to pacify him and to be done with the -argument. - -“But I say no,” he cried, hitting his fist on the arm of his chair. -“You’re for ever looking out of the window, and sometimes when I speak -to you, you answer beside the point. I married you to get a wife, not a -woman languishing like a captive in my house.” - -She laughed at that, quite amusedly, and he felt he had been foolish. -Still he would not abandon his point. - -“That fellow would only have to beckon ...” he grumbled. - -“Lovel again?” asked Clare. - -“You enjoy saying his name.” - -“I do not,” said Clare quietly. - -“No,” he said, staring at her, “perhaps you do not.” - -Perhaps she did not. Perhaps the very name was pain to her. But he must -go wrangling on at her. - -“Lovel wouldn’t keep you indoors, perhaps you think.--He would let you -out into the snow,--take you out into it himself perhaps.” - -She only looked at him. He went on, more judicial now; deliberate, less -blatantly bad-tempered. - -“Yet, after all, I don’t know why you hold such a good opinion of -this fellow Lovel. He sticks to no trade,--he gets a country girl -into trouble and has to marry her,--not a very creditable record, it -seems to me.” He was leaning back in his chair, with his finger-tips -together. “And, judging by his stock, he has no right to beget -sons,--better if he did not associate with women at all,--such people -should be allowed to die out.” - -“So Mrs. Quince was saying. Perhaps he feels the same himself,” said -Clare in a contained voice. - -“It looks like it! a child born after four months of marriage. I -am bound to say, my dear, your suggestion isn’t very convincing. -But there, what should you know of the lusts of these country young -men? Animals, merely. Forgive me if I seem self-righteous. I feel -strongly,--very strongly.” He leaned forward and patted her. “You can -understand that I don’t like to think of my Clare contaminated by such -company.” - -“You mean Lovel?” - -“Most certainly I mean Lovel.--Why do you look at me so darkly, Clare?” - -“Did I look at you darkly? I didn’t mean to. My thoughts were far away.” - -“And where....” - -“Ah, Richard, mayn’t I have my thoughts to myself?” - -“By all means, Clare. I hope, my dear, that no one has ever accused -me of being a tyrant. Of course your thoughts are your own.--But you -don’t resent, do you, the things I have been saying of Lovel?” - -“I am only tired of the whole subject.” - -“Yes,--of course,--naturally,--I quite understand that. Mrs. Quince is -an old gossip. I must tell her that it really doesn’t interest you to -be informed every time a woman in the village has a baby. It doesn’t -does it?” - -“No, of course not,--but don’t say anything to Mrs. Quince, I beg you.” - -“But I can’t have my wife bothered by my old gossip of a housekeeper. I -daresay she meant it well, thinking you were interested in Lovel.” - -“Richard, please,--let us leave Lovel now,--I shall begin to scream if -I hear his name mentioned again, I warn you.” - -“Clare. You try to joke, but the idea of saying that wouldn’t come into -your head if there were not some truth in it.” - -“Well, I told you I was tired of the subject.” - -“You are talking now like an irritable woman.” - -“Am I? But I _am_ a woman, and not a man, and therefore I daresay as -irritable as all other women.” - -“You mean that men can be every whit as irritable,--myself, for -example.” - -“Now you are putting words into my mouth that I never said. Is it a -guilty conscience, Richard?” - -“You persist in joking when I want you to be serious!” - -“Oh, Richard, what a childish conversation. Instead of sitting here and -talking, let us....” - -“Well, what? Let us what?” - -“Nothing, I’ve thought better of it.” - -“Let us go out, you were going to say. Always the same folly! Have you -any idea of the depth of the snow? Out, indeed!” - -“I never said it.” - -“No, but you thought it.--Ah, if I say that, you will ask again if you -mayn’t have your thoughts to yourself. There are moments when I don’t -know how to deal with you, Clare.” He knew his own injustice, but his -querulous jealousy pricked him on. “Any other woman would be content to -sit by her own fireside this bitter day with the man she had married so -short a time ago.” - -“Four months,--getting on for half a year.” - -“I see,--you have found the time long. If you entered a little more -into my interests, instead of having your own thoughts to yourself so -much, my dear, perhaps you would find it pass quicker, and it would be -more companionable.” - -Clare thought that he looked at her almost with hatred. She was herself -too indifferent to be interested either one way or the other. - -“I shall be glad when this accursed snow is melted and gone,” he added, -“and you will perhaps be a little less restless.” - -At that moment Mrs. Quince came in, looking perturbed. - -“There is Olver Lovel downstairs, madam, asking to see you,--I didn’t -know what to say,--he seems so bent upon it,--but he looks like a -scarecrow, that he does, with his coat torn and his hat stove in, and -bits of straw all over him as though he had spent the night sleeping in -a barn.” - -Clare rose. - -“Where is he, Mrs. Quince?” - -Calladine started forward with a detaining hand. - -“No, Clare, you can’t see this man,--let me speak to him first,--at -least it’s not right, not safe, for you to see him.” - -“And he says he must speak to Mrs. Calladine alone, sir,” Mrs. Quince -put in. - -“Of course I shall see him,” said Clare. - -Calladine grew agitated. “Mrs. Quince, you need not wait; please leave -the room. Now, Clare, understand: it is against my wishes that you see -this man. Let me go down and find out what he wants, and then if I find -that he is quiet and reasonable I will allow you to interview him in my -presence. He has probably come to beg, in which case I can give him a -few shillings as well as you can, and send him away.” - -Clare faced him. “Please let me pass, Richard; I am sorry to do -anything against your wishes, but I intend to speak to Olver,--and -alone.” - -“Let me make myself quite clear: it is not only against my wishes, but, -since my wishes fail to touch you, also against my orders.” - -“I am sorry, Richard, but I mean what I said.” - -He blustered; she remained quiet; in their first encounter he was no -match for her. - -“You disobey me deliberately, then?” - -“This is a case in which I must use my own judgment.” - -“You will not expect me to receive you back into my favour afterwards.” - -She smiled a little. - -“Really, Richard, I am afraid I must take the risk of that.” - -“Go, then,” he said, stepping dramatically aside, “go, in direct -defiance.” Still he did not quite expect her to flout his authority, -and remained amazed when she passed him and went swiftly out of the -room. - -Left to himself, he made a movement to follow her, but drew back. Let -her go, to her Lovels and her secret life: he had never really held -her. Let her go, to the summons which had come, and to which she had -so instantly responded. He himself, from the moment Olver Lovel’s name -had been pronounced, had dwindled to nullity; he had ceased, on the -spot, to exist for her. All these months, she had lived with him, a -stranger, away from her kind. And he recalled Mrs. Quince’s description -of Olver,--“he looks like a scarecrow, that he does,”--this emissary -from Nicholas Lovel to his, Calladine’s wife. - -Calladine strode up and down the room. She was downstairs now with -Olver; what was he saying to her? What was in the future, haunted by -the presence of Lovel as the past had never been? How should they -ever get rid of Lovel now, standing between them? That uncomfortable -presence of Lovel in the past, at which Calladine had pecked and -nagged, was nothing to his dominion over the future. Surely he had been -mad not to take Clare’s acquaintance with the poacher as a matter of -course? mad to harass her as he had harassed her that morning? By his -own folly he had created the spectre, the giant, of the situation. He -strode up and down, hitting fist against palm in his vexation. Then he -grew afraid; what if the poacher should not restrict his poaching to -game alone? What if he should entice Clare by the occult powers with -which the countryside credited him? Occult powers, or human powers, it -was all one. Calladine felt his helplessness; he was weak, wordy, he -could be set aside. They would set him aside, those two. - -He was an ill-used man. Self-pity nearly brought tears to his eyes. -Life used him ill: first the woman who had fooled him, now Clare. -Clare’s kindness to him had been a dalliance, while she had nothing -better to do; it had evaporated at the mention of a name. He hated -her, he hated Lovel, he hated the Downs and the snow. Glittering and -cold, without compromise; he did not understand the Downs and the -winter, but Clare and Lovel understood them. What was Olver saying to -Clare? Calladine felt his life finished; and through his perfectly -genuine anguish he did not fail to perceive the romantic value of his -situation. He fell into a chair, and remained there with his legs -extended as he gazed despondently on the floor before him. - -Clare would tell him nothing. He foresaw that, and his foresight -was justified. She came back, immeasurably far removed from him. He -wanted to ignore her return, to remain stiff with dignity, but it was -not long before his curiosity weakened him. “Well, you are not very -communicative. I see that you have no desire to make amends for the -distress you have caused me. Was the poacher’s message, then, too -sacred,--too personal,--to be imparted to me?” - -Clare’s eyes, when she turned them on him, were narrowed with pain. - -“Richard, must you ask me questions now? I have come back to you; I ask -you only to leave me to myself.” - -But that was precisely what he could not do. - -“You ask a good deal, don’t you, in asking that? I see you white and -shaken, yet I am not to know the cause. You ask a good deal of my -forbearance, indeed. I am not to know what messages another man sends -you. I am not to know what is going on, nearly under my nose, but kept -away from me. I am to be defied by my wife, and then kept in ignorance -by her. This is the state of affairs we have come to in one short -morning! What has happened to us? it bewilders me.... I insist upon -knowing,--I _will_ know,--has that half-wit come to you with a message -from his brother?” - -“No,” said Clare. - -“How you have to force even that one monosyllable from your lips! -What, he came on his own initiative? Clare, you are not speaking the -truth.--Yes, I am sure you are; I beg your pardon. You distract me by -your coldness. Clare, forgive me, I scarcely knew what I was saying.” - -“Don’t touch me,” said Clare, recoiling, “for pity’s sake don’t touch -me now.” - -“I am a very unhappy man,” said Calladine, falling again into his -chair and taking his head between his hands. “I am indeed an unhappy -man,--what am I to do with my life?” - -He remained for some time with his head sunk between his hands, then, -glancing up to see what effect his attitude might have had upon Clare, -he found her gazing out of the window. - -“I see,--you forget my very presence,” he said reproachfully, and his -sense of injury was doubled. But because his distress was genuine, -although he could not refrain from rhetoric, he followed her across the -room in a tormented way, and tried to see into her face. “Clare, speak -to me; I am not angry, only unhappy. There is something now in your -mind which I do not share; you live in a half-hour which is secret from -me.--Or have you always,” he cried suddenly, “lived in hours I knew -nothing of?” - -Mrs. Quince peeped in through the door. - -“Ah, that’s good,” she said in a relieved tone; “I wasn’t easy so long -as I thought Mrs. Calladine was with that scamp,” and she retired. - -“Even the servants, you see, Clare, are concerned for you.” - -“Mrs. Quince, far from being concerned,” Clare said, returning briefly -to a consciousness of Calladine and of the house that held her, “is -full of delight.” - -“Clare, these bitter words from you! you are changed indeed, or am I -seeing you as you are for the first time? I begin to look back at these -four months as at a long delusion; I am utterly bewildered. You are -withdrawn to an unbelievable distance from me; I feel it, yet I cannot -say what has taken place. This morning, we were close to one another; -we were, as it seemed, enclosed by our little room, leisured, snug, -sheltered; now, I am striving to reach you, and am held off.” His words -beat without meaning against Clare’s isolation; she could not emerge at -all from the tumult of the terrible scene she had endured from Olver. -She looked, indeed, at Calladine, intently, as though she were trying -to bring herself back to the importance of his world, but her eyes were -empty. - -The day dragged away; Calladine continued to clamour fitfully. He could -not leave her alone, and, though she clearly suffered, he, perverse, -must torment her. By adding to her pain, he added to his own, but could -not desist. She answered him very little; a negative, an affirmative -now and then, was all he could get from her; for her part, all that she -wished was that his voice might cease, so that she might have a lull, -a silence, alone with her own mind. Yet it seemed to her that she had, -indeed, a silence at the core of her being, still and inviolate against -his ineffectual clamour, like the stillness in the heart of a cyclone, -where birds poise and sing. At this core, this kernel, this patch of -peace, she dwelt apart; Lovel was there, and so was Olver, Olver with -the urgent hands and fanatical eyes, passing from Lovel to her and -from her to Lovel, almost crushing them up against one another by the -force of his urgency, Olver’s determination was like a menace, becoming -almost malevolent by virtue of its very violence. He overwhelmed, he -terrified her; she had nothing but weak refusal; she had tried to push -him away with hands that had no strength in them. She had covered -her eyes, but he had forced away her hands; she had shut her ears, -but he had screamed past her defences. It was easy to remain deaf to -Calladine’s whining; it had been impossible to shut out the ferocity -of Olver’s attack. And yet, in spite of the din, she was aware of -that core of silence, in which she and Lovel were, with Olver rushing -between. - -She and Calladine, Lovel and Daisy, there they were, the four of them, -all separate; and Olver, like a firebrand, a trail of fire, working -between them. They might have had some control, the four, but for this -crazy creature, obsessed by the one idea, not to be reasoned with. He -was the incalculable element; he made the others helpless, taking their -intentions out of their hands and throwing them away. - -The danger of Olver,--what if he should see Calladine? What if he -should irrupt into the room and shout irreparable words before she had -time to stop him? The danger of Olver,--what had he said to Lovel? -what to Lovel’s wife? But Calladine and Lovel’s wife alike remained -insignificant; she and Lovel were the two full of meaning, shut up with -the wild, charging Olver in their core of silence. - -Vaguely somewhere, she was sorry for Calladine, but he was -insignificant; she could not pause to consider him; where she and Lovel -came together, he faded into that poor wisp drained of blood, that he -had dwindled to on the evening of the circus fire, when she and Lovel -had stood together on the embankment. They shed him; he slipped off, -and only his noise reached them intermittently, scarcely troublesome. - -Daisy herself was less unreal than Calladine; Daisy knew suffering too, -Clare supposed; in a clumsy, common way she knew it; blundering, but -human; yes, she could be sorry for the other woman. - -But they must be sacrificed, the two, Calladine and Daisy, if matters -came to a head; sacrificed to the blazing reality of herself and Lovel. - -Would Olver come again? Would he leave her alone now? Would he give her -a chance to forget the words he had spoken? some of them remained, rang -in her head, brassy, like beaten gongs; fell on her like big sparks -from an anvil, burning. It had been a strange experience, to hear Olver -voice the passion that had upreared itself, always mute, in Lovel. - -Olver came again. He came like an avenging angel, inspired, the crazed -creature, by the urgency of his message. Like a reproachful angel he -came to rebuke her, grotesquely disguised in his scarecrow travesty; -the beauty of his selflessness shone through the ramshackle of his -appearance. She scarcely knew whether to find him pathetic or alarming; -she wanted to pity, she could only be disturbed; he disturbed her to -the darkest places of her soul. The fixity of his idea, the strength -of his purpose, his devotion, his anger, raised his simplicity to the -plane of nobleness. She could not answer him; she was abashed before -him. - -She was afraid of him, his image pursued her, his upraised hand -denouncing her, his eyes and tongue pouring scorn upon her. At moments -he seemed like fate itself, like a thing she could not escape from. -She never knew at what hour of the day he would come, so all day, -sometimes for two or three days on end, she waited, dreading and -longing for his coming. She could have refused to see him, but had not -the strength; but when she must crush Calladine’s protests, then she -had strength in plenty. - -The snow lay deeper than ever, after another heavy fall, upon the -Downs, but although still a prisoner her restlessness had left her: -the life she had wanted came now to her from without. Olver brought -that life; he brought tumult, anguish, but it was life that he brought, -besieging her. And although he was not Lovel’s envoy, still it was -straight from Lovel that he came. His eyes, as they flamed on Clare, -an hour earlier had been filled with Lovel; she could fancy Lovel’s -image still lingering in them. And after he had left her, it was to -Lovel’s presence that he would return; he would hear Lovel’s voice and -see Lovel’s hands, that so haunted her. Once she broke her silence to -ask about Lovel, “What does he do, these days of snow? does he get out? -stay at home?” and Olver answered, “To-day he has been twisting new -snares, and last night he brought home a lamb that still lies by our -fire.” - -She knew that an end must come; beleaguered, she knew that. She had -pushed life away, but it had followed her, even into her retreat. It -was useless; Calladine was not life; his need of her had not been life. -He was a shadow, a man of pretence, sufficient to himself, with his -own pretences for company. It was only the true solitaries, the really -lonely people, like Lovel, who had absolute need of their chosen loves. -The strong, clamping loves, that fastened on to one another, to lose -their hold only when they lost their hold on life; the unalterable, -ordained loves. She could not justify the argument; her selfishness -towards Calladine remained unjustified. But she knew that that would -not weigh with her; she and Lovel would reach one another when the day -came, even through a stone wall. - -Still she could not justify it. She tried to, perfunctorily. She sat -frowning, and saying the words over to herself. Selfishness, duty. -They remained mere words; she could not feel them in her blood, as -she felt her need for Lovel and Lovel’s need for her; they were words -pitted against instinct. Was it love, that need? Was it no more than -that ordinary miracle, love? She thought that it was more. They had -the Downs as a bond between them; the Downs, and all nature, of which -Lovel seemed the spirit, the incarnation. He was the darkness of the -Downs, their threat, their solitude, their intractability; she was -their light, their windiness, their sunlit flanks, their springiness of -turf. United, they formed a whole. There was an essential significance -in Lovel, as there was an essential insignificance in Calladine. - -Olver seemed to know these things; he had an untutored insight. -Calladine seemed to know them too, but that was less surprising; with -his subtle, lyrical mind he might well be expected to apprehend, and -apprehending, to drape in wordiness; to give a name; to illuminate -blind impulse by giving a name. Poor Calladine; she watched him, -detached, as he rambled from discovery to definition, tormenting -himself by the beauty of his own phrasing. At moments he viewed them, -herself and Lovel, as a spectator, losing himself in the romanticism he -wove around them; recalled to the fact that it was his own wife of whom -he spoke, he relapsed into the gloom and terror of his pain. For he -lived in terror, impotent terror. And Clare watched him, living herself -in her hours with Olver and in her consciousness of Lovel. - - -There was the little round mirror she had given to Olver. He always -brought it with him; he told her, chuckling, and tapping its bright -surface with his finger, that he could see her in it even when she was -not present. She did not believe this, but still she half believed it. -“Look into it now,” he said, thrusting it under her eyes, “and you -will see Nicholas.” She shrank back, afraid; he could not persuade her -to look into it, he could not even deride her into looking into it. -“You don’t believe me, yet you won’t look,” he said, “but if you don’t -believe me, why then won’t you look?” He was for ever daring her to -look into it, to find the image of Nicholas. She would not; she did not -believe in the magical properties of the mirror, yet nothing would -induce her to glance into its queer convexity. “I watched the circus in -this, the night Nicholas took you out of the tent,” he said, and she -wondered whether he knew how bound to Lovel she had felt herself that -night; “I watched Nicholas’ wedding in this; I looked in this at him -and Daisy sitting in the kitchen. Look into it now,” he said, offering -it to her again: “maybe you’ll see Daisy nursing her baby; maybe you’ll -see Nicholas twisting snares; maybe you’ll see him riding up on White -Horse Hill, alone, in the snow.” - -“Do you remember what I told you once?” he said to her another time, -“that Nicholas could bring you out to him, even at midnight, if he gave -his mind to it?” - -She wondered how long this strange period would last; she was not even -impatient; the core of peace and silence within her lay so certain, so -quiet, that she dwelt already as it were serene in the fulfilment of -herself and Lovel. - -Calladine came to her door to find it locked against him. He shook the -handle. “Clare! it is I.” A wild winter night; the wind blew along the -passage, lifting the loose matting on the floor, the gas-jet on the -stair flickered and below the well of the staircase was dark. “Clare!” -said Calladine again, shaking the handle. - -Her voice within answered him, faint, shut away. - -“Yes, I am here; I am in bed.” - -She was there! the house contained her at least; she had not fled. - -“Let me come in, Clare.” - -A long pause, and then her voice again. - -“I cannot, Richard.” - -“You have locked me out?” - -“I am sorry, Richard; I can’t let you in.” - -He stood irresolute. Then he started shaking the door, frightened by -its wooden resistance. Still she did not come to open, she remained -hard to him, did not even pray him to desist. He ceased his useless -shaking and began to plead with her, tears in his voice, humiliating -himself. She made no answer. He went away, down into the sitting-room, -where the embers of the fire still gleamed red between the bars. “I -gave her everything,” he whispered, looking round upon the comfort of -the room. Upstairs, she lay in her bed, soft and sweet and indifferent -as he had always known her,--lost to him. He went over to the window -and looked out; the masses of the clouds flew before the wind, so -that the stars seen between the rifts seemed to be rushing across -heaven. Starvecrow lay beneath them, small and lonely. A hatred of -the place overcame him. “I shall take her away,” he muttered; “we -will go to London.” And he saw her a fleeting figure, hurrying down -straight narrow London streets, her footsteps that were used to the -short turf ringing forlornly along the pavement. He pitied her in the -midst of his anger and frustration: surely in London she would droop -and pine. But she must be the one to suffer now; it was her turn; he -had suffered enough. He could not run the risk of leaving her among -these open hills, in league with the Lovels,--even now that crazy boy, -that wild scarecrow figure, might be frisking beneath the windows. -His wife, linked with those dark people,--so linked, that she was and -always had been a stranger to him. Misery drove him to superstition: -there was a kinship between the Lovels and the country, witchcraft and -legend, the crazy boy, the sarsen stones, the ancient sacrifices, Lovel -the vagabond poacher, the wayward shepherd, his immunity from cold or -fatigue,--all these things ran together in Calladine’s unhappy head. - -And Clare, what place had she among them? she was the country in its -loveliness, the running brooks, the soaring birds, the sheep-bells, the -dew, the distance, the manifold music. - -He would take her away. Next day, he told her so, challenging her -refusal. And although she neither refused, nor, indeed, made any -answer, he insisted on the point, growing noisy in his insistence. -“We shall leave this place, do you hear? We shall go, we shall take -the railroad to London.” But London must be an empty sound to her, -he thought, whose world was the Downs. “The city of London,” he -emphasised, seeing the streets, the squares, the endless houses,--a -maze of streets, in which she would lose herself, seeking in vain the -way out. He looked at her with hatred; there, in London, where he -would feel himself at home, he would at last get the better of her, be -revenged upon her for all the pain she had made him endure; there, she -would be the bewildered stranger, and not he; perhaps she would even -cling to him for reassurance, and he would mock at her in her distress, -and spurn her, over and over again, until she crept broken at his heels. - -Then, seeing her so pale and fragile, he was remorseful, and fell on -his knees beside her, crying, “Forgive me, Clare.” - -She sat with him after dinner in their room. He was not restive, -that evening; his panics overtook him only periodically; sometimes -he appeared to regain all his old confidence. Olver had not troubled -Starvecrow for several days, and Calladine readily forgot. He was -standing now by his bookcase, lovingly shifting the volumes; his touch -slipped like velvet over the frail old leather; delicately he fluttered -over the pages. Clare could even find it in her heart to envy him, -life to her came so rough and violent, to him so veiled and mellowed, -always, so to speak, at second-hand. He murmured to himself over his -books, or was it to her that he addressed his murmurings? how real -was her presence to him? was she more real than those fugitive terra -cotta nymphs of his? was she perhaps less real? as lovely, but more -troublesome? a nymph that would not stay there quiet on her stand, but -whose draperies were blown by the wild wind from outside, and whose -feet stirred mutinous towards escape? Still he murmured over his books, -without that uneasy glance which meant that he was afraid of losing -her; he had forgotten, for the moment; it was providential how easily -he forgot, his excitability easily roused, and almost as easily abated. - -But as for her, an oppression was on her, an exaltation. She rose. -“Richard, I am going to the door to look at the night; don’t come; it’s -cold outside.” - -He was startled, but he had known her do this before, and he had no -desire to leave his books or the warmth of the room. “Take a coat,” he -said. She went up to him and kissed him lightly. He patted her shoulder -with affection, and watched her cross the room to the door. “Graceful -... graceful,” he murmured to himself in appreciation, turning again to -his shelves. - -Clare passed downstairs to the hall. She moved as though her feet did -not touch earth. With a fur cloak thrown round her, she opened the door -and stepped out into the night, closing the door again behind her. The -Downs were there, white in the starlight. Overhead, in a black sky, -blazed the constellations, not yet sunk from the splendour of winter: -Orion, low in the west, the splendid Plough, and Sirius, single and -more brilliant than the rest. Clare passed down the dark path, swept -clear of snow, to the little gate; at the gate the dark shape of a man -came forward to meet her; it was Lovel. - -“I knew you would be here,” she said without surprise. - -“I have not been before,” he answered. - -“No,” she replied, “I knew that.” - -There was a little silence. - -“Will you come with me now?” he said. - -“What, out on the Downs?” she asked, trying to see his face through the -darkness. - -“Well, we belong there, don’t we?” he said patiently. - -“Then what has kept us apart, I wonder?” she said. She wondered -genuinely; their union seemed so large and simple. “Yes, I will come,” -she added then. - -“I have tried not to come to you, Clare,” said Lovel. “The child is not -mine, you know,” he went on. - -“I know; Olver told me. But what does it matter? Shall we go?” - -He followed her through the gate, and they took the track up on to the -Downs. - - -Three days later Calladine rode into King’s Avon, turning in at the -Manor House gates at the slow walk which had been his pace for the -whole three miles of his journey. He rode slackly and without interest, -letting his horse stumble; even the instinctive check on the reins -seemed to have deserted him. He gave his horse to William Baskett, who -ran out from the stables, and, laying his gloves and crop on the bench -in the hall, trod wearily into Mr. Warrener’s presence. The old man -was surprised and delighted to see him. “My dear Calladine,--my dear -Richard, fancy your riding over in this snowy weather,--why, I thought -you scarcely stirred out of doors. And what brings you?” He peered -closer. “Dear me, there’s surely nothing the matter?” - -“Clare has left me,” said Calladine. The phrase had been in his head -for three days now. It was a relief to him to pronounce it at last -aloud. “She has gone away with young Lovel.” - -“But I don’t understand,” said Mr. Warrener. “Left you? gone away with -young Lovel? The shepherd fellow? But why? where have they gone to? -what for?” - -Calladine raised his hands and let them fall again with a gesture of -hopelessness,--the hopelessness of explaining to Mr. Warrener. Yet in a -way he relished lacerating himself with the explanation. - -“Clare and the shepherd fellow,” he said, “are lovers. Yes, it is as -I tell you. They have been lovers for many months, perhaps for many -years. They were in the habit of meeting on the Downs,--I don’t know -how often,--frequently,--perhaps every day. I can’t tell. Since Clare -has been married to me they had not, so far as I know, met at all. She -has only seen Lovel’s brother,--the simpleton. He has come over to -Starvecrow to see her. I don’t know what he has said to her. I can only -suppose that he engineered their meeting. All I can tell you is that -three evenings ago she went out, as she said, to look at the night, and -has not since returned.” - -“Three evenings ago!” exclaimed Warrener. “But I knew nothing of all -this.” - -“No,” said Calladine wearily, “I gave strict orders that you were not -to be told. I thought she would come back, you see. But as she has not -come back, I cannot keep it a secret from you any longer. We must take -some action, I suppose, if you think it necessary. Or shall we leave -them to themselves. If any one is capable of looking after her, Lovel -is the man. And he knows the Downs,--they both know the Downs,--surely -the Downs wouldn’t hurt them?” - -Mr. Warrener took no notice of this pitiable cry wrung suddenly out of -his anxiety. - -“Of course we must search for them,” he said, frightened and bewildered -and angry. “But,--really this is a most extraordinary story,--how do -you _know_ she has gone with young Lovel? Clare!” he said, indignant, -“whom I trusted to wander about at will,--to deceive me in this -fashion!--but she never came to any harm, whilst she was under my -care,--no, not until _you_ were responsible for her. Upon my word, sir, -you’ve fulfilled your charge very badly,--what excuse have you to give -to me?” - -“You let her grow up into a wild thing,--the blame’s with you as much -as with me,--and as to responsibility, she’s my wife even if she _is_ -your daughter.” - -“Well, well,” said Mr. Warrener, relapsing into his customary mildness, -“it won’t help matters if you and I start wrangling. But tell me -now, what makes you so certain she has gone with this ... his name -positively sticks in my throat,--this shepherd fellow?” - -“What makes me so certain? What do you suppose I have been doing these -three days?” said Calladine querulously. “What do you suppose my state -of mind has been? I knew Clare was safe, in one sense, I know she was -with Lovel. Yes. His wife came to Starvecrow after him; she had guessed -where he was going. Oh, a pretty interview I had with her--I have Clare -to thank for that. She came crying to the door, and Mrs. Quince let her -in, so Mrs. Quince, at least, guesses the whole story. She brought the -woman up to my room, and left her alone with me, and I saw her smirk -as she went out of the door. A pretty business.... She cried to me, -this woman; she sat in Clare’s chair and cried. She owned up--a long -tale--how she had got Lovel to marry her and how her child was neither -his child nor his brother’s; I really don’t know what else--a long -tale. She talked very extravagantly--said she was dying for love of -him--and how he had never touched her,--a lot of nauseous detail. She -kept on saying that he was decent,--decent, decent to her,--that kept -on coming back,--and that she was sorry now,--she was being punished -for what she had done. He was civil to her always, she said, but as -cold as winter, and now he had gone. There was nothing left for her -now, she said, but to stay looking after his people,--his old mother -and his mad brother,--that was her idea of making amends. We went out -together and looked all over the Downs for Clare and Lovel; she sobbed -and cried all the time. She wanted me to raise a hue and cry, to put -the police on their trail, but of course I would not do that. ‘If they -want to go,’ I said, ‘let them go with as little noise as possible.’ -But I looked for them myself, and if I had found them I would have -besought Clare to come back. She was with me nearly all the time, this -dreadful woman. I kept sending her away, but half an hour later there -she was again. She brought her child with her, wrapped in a shawl. -She said she felt like drowning it,--a shocking thing to hear a woman -say. Saxon fair it was, and I believed her when she told me Lovel had -nothing to do with it. She has been with me almost uninterruptedly now -for three days; I kept her at Starvecrow because I didn’t want the -story trumpeted over the whole village. Certain that she has gone with -Lovel, indeed! Of course I am certain. Besides, I found the tracks of -two persons’ feet in the snow--a man’s and a woman’s.” - -“Well, why didn’t you follow those tracks?” asked Mr. Warrener, who had -been staring at Calladine all through his recital. - -“You may be sure I did, and they led me to the top of the -Downs,--knee-deep in some places. Then snow began to fall again and the -tracks were blotted out,--I lost them,--I fancied the Downs and the -snow were conspiring against me with Clare and Lovel. Lovel’s wife grew -frantic when she saw the tracks blurring; she began running round and -round in a senseless circle. There was I, up on the height with that -common woman, she having lost her husband and I having lost my wife. -That is what your daughter, sir, has exposed me to.” - -“Is that all you think about?” said Mr. Warrener. - -“Heaven knows it isn’t!” cried Calladine. “I think horrible things,--I -think of Clare suffering from the cold, and then I think of her close -with Lovel, and upon my soul I don’t know whether to wish her dead or -alive. You don’t understand, Mr. Warrener, the passion they have for -one another. I suppose I knew it, a long way back, but I shut my mind -to it. It seemed preposterous. I put it away. And then, when it began -to come closer, I did not know how to fight it,--I knew how strong it -was. And Clare was like a little trapped thing all the while; gentle -to me, but always looking out of the window. I tried to tame her; she -pretended to be quite tame, but all the while she kept that poised look -about her,--ready to spread her wings.” - -“You seem to have a good deal to say about it all,” Mr. Warrener -observed. - -Calladine was silent; he felt rebuked. - -“I have been crushing down my thoughts for three days,” he muttered -then, sulkily. - -“But what are we to do?” said Mr. Warrener. He took out his big -handkerchief and began to mop his forehead, then, remembering that the -day was cold, he replaced it in his pocket. “Is it snowing now?” he -asked irrelevantly. - -“No,” said Calladine. “It is bright and frosty, and there is no wind; -the wind has dropped ever since the night that Clare went. I used to -think the wind made her more restless, ‘Le vent qui vient à travers la -montagne,’ you know, ‘me rendra fou.’” - -“But what are we to do?” said Mr. Warrener again. They were two -helpless beings, to confront such a problem. “At all events, she -is safe enough with young Lovel; I believe he is a capable sort of -creature; he won’t let her come to any harm.” - -“Curse him,” said Calladine, resentful that the legend of Lovel’s -efficiency should have percolated even to Mr. Warrener’s secluded room. - -“We must go out and look for them,” said Mr. Warrener. “Come, -Calladine,” he said, rousing himself, “you don’t seem able to take any -action. Bestir yourself; we must go out and look for them.” - -“Must we?” said Calladine without interest. “But I don’t think it’s -any good, you know. I have a superstitious feeling about it; there was -something intangible about Clare. I never got hold of her,--she was my -joy, she tinkled about my house, in and out of my rooms, but it was -like having a linnet in a cage. You know how the men go out and snare -the larks under nets on the Downs; well, it was like that. She didn’t -mope; no, never; but I think she was only waiting for the day when she -should fly away.” - -“Nonsense, nonsense,” said Mr. Warrener. “Don’t encourage such -ridiculous fancies, Richard.” - -“I’ve seen her,” said Calladine, “looking out of the window, looking -out of the window....” - -“Come,” said Mr. Warrener again; “if you won’t come with me I must go -alone.” - -“And the man too,” said Calladine, obstinately; “he was always on the -Downs; he wouldn’t bind himself down to a master; he slipped free.” - -“Are you coming?” asked Mr. Warrener, standing up. He cast a glance at -his writing-table. “Fancy Clare....” he said with a sigh. “She was a -help to me, Calladine, you don’t know. I made a sacrifice in giving her -to you. But I thought it was for the child’s happiness; and she hadn’t -a mother. I missed her more than anybody knew. You never realised how -much she helped me; why, look here....” and he showed Calladine a thick -note-book filled with Clare’s handwriting. “She had an instinct for -archæology,” he said, “and she wrote a beautiful hand--clear and pretty -both.” - -“You make it sound like an epitaph,” said Calladine bitterly. - -“Heaven forbid,” said Mr. Warrener, a little startled. “She’s safe -enough, never you fear. All we have to do is to get her back and -perhaps we’ll find your fears were groundless,--a burst of wildness, -only,--she was accustomed to liberty, you know,--perhaps it’s no worse -than that,--lovers, you said,--but oh, no, I can’t believe....” - -“You and I, Mr. Warrener,” said Calladine, fixing the old man with a -gaze full of meaning, “have perhaps lived a little too remote from -life. Clare is alive, Lovel is alive; you and I are left behind.” - -“But all the same....” said Mr. Warrener, greatly troubled, “all -the same.... Lovers, you said. Oh, no, surely not,” and he looked -embarrassed, uncomfortable, as at an indecency. - - -They went out together. They went on foot, with no very definite scheme -of action in their minds. Vaguely they intended to make their way up on -to the Downs, on to the topmost height if possible, and from there to -scan the rolling country. They went side by side, Calladine long and -spare, Mr. Warrener, round, short and bespectacled, and as they went -they tried to disguise their anxiety from one another, and to pretend -that they had gone out for no more serious purpose than to recall a -troublesome child from an escapade. But there were periods of silence -between them, broken with a jerk by Mr. Warrener with brisk questions, -“Now in what direction did she ride for choice, Calladine?” or “If the -fellow is a shepherd, he must have a hut up on these hills.” “Yes, I -have visited that: it was empty,” said Calladine, forced into a morose -reply. - -They took the road out of the village, the only road cleared by the -snow-plough, and presently struck up into the hills, climbing with -caution, for they were afraid of sinking suddenly into a drift against -a bank. They climbed, prodding with long sticks before them, a long -wearisome climb, their feet sinking over the ankle at every step into -the soft snow; by now they had the excuse for speaking very little, for -their energies went all on their progress. “I have spent my time like -this for the last three days,” said Calladine, grimly. - -It was noteworthy that neither of them considered for a moment that -Clare and Lovel might have moved on to another part of the country; -they took it for granted that they had remained among the Downs. - -No paths were to be seen anywhere, only the rolling white hills, broken -by the sky-line beech-clumps. No sound; neither the tinkling of water, -nor the quivering of larks, nor the quaver of sheep, nor even the wind; -only the hush of quiet snow lying spread. It was a stillness that grew -as they climbed; a stillness, a shroud. There was the glitter of the -snow, and the black clubbed trees, and the white sky, and the silence. - -It occurred to them that they might get lost, for all the hills looked -much the same, and the landmarks were all covered up; the White Horse, -the Grey Wethers. Still, Calladine was contemptuous of that; and as for -Mr. Warrener, he plodded on with an unrepining, pathetic obstinacy. - -At last they came to the top, and stood on White Horse Hill, two puny -figures scanning the horizon. “There is Lovel’s hut,” said Calladine, -pointing it out. “We had better go down to it,” said Mr. Warrener, and -they began the descent, which was almost as trying as their climb, for -they had to hold themselves back, the snow being blown into deeper -drifts on that side of the hill. - -The great scoops in the flank of the hill forced them to follow a -circular route which lengthened their road. The hut seemed to stand -always equally far ahead, and never to draw any nearer; nor had they -much hope of finding either Clare or Lovel within it. Mr. Warrener, -now that he had gained a few hours of experience, was beginning to -share Calladine’s hopelessness; before they started, it had seemed -comparatively simple an undertaking to go out and search and shout for -Clare over the Downs. Now, although he called her name tentatively on -approaching the hut, the quilted silence swallowed up the small echo -of his voice. Yet it was a bell-like name to call, “Clare! Clare!” - -Calladine let Mr. Warrener go forward and peer into the hut, and he -felt a sudden tenderness for the old man. “If,” he said to himself, -“Clare should never return to me, Mr. Warrener and I must keep house -together,” but the idea of Clare not returning gave him a pang which -eclipsed the amenities of the prospect with Mr. Warrener, leading a -scholar’s life, and he was ashamed of the glimpse that had opened out -on to a life so congenial, so secure. - -Mr. Warrener turned in the doorway and beckoned. - -“They have been here,” he said. - -Calladine drew near and looked. Yes, they had been there. The hut was -poor, a shepherd’s shelter, with a rough table arranged on a couple -of boxes, and a thick pallet of bracken on the floor; warm enough, -no doubt, and even snug, with the paraffin lamp burning and the door -closed against the cold. Mr. Warrener and Calladine looked in silence. -A horn mug stood on the table, beside a loaf of bread; two sugar-boxes -served as stools. A couple of blankets were thrown over the bracken; a -bag stuffed with bracken did for a pillow. There was nothing else. - -“My God,” said Calladine, staring at the pallet, “they lay there last -night,--they lay there!” He looked round the pitiful cabin, and a groan -was forced from him. “He brought her here!” he said, “and I who gave -her everything she could desire,--comfort, even beauty, refinement....” -He sat down and buried his face, and touched perhaps the bitterest -moment he had yet gone through. “How much she must have loved him,” he -said, raising a suddenly haggard face to Mr. Warrener. - -Mr. Warrener was deeply perturbed and distressed. Such things were -altogether beyond his experience and understanding. - -“Hush,--don’t take it so much to heart,” he said, confused, but meaning -to be kind, and he touched Calladine on the shoulder with a gesture -singularly awkward. “Now let us think what is to be done. Shall we -remain here, and trust to their return at nightfall? It is true that we -could not, all four of us, spend the night in this hut, but probably -Lovel knows the way,--he can take us all home safely.” - -“You seem to have a curious confidence in the fellow,” growled -Calladine. - -Mr. Warrener blinked in his mild fashion. - -“Yes,--I don’t quite know why,” he said, “except that I’ve seen -him about the village,--he seemed an alert, romantic kind of -creature.--Forgive me, I see that pains you.” - -“Oh, not at all,” said Calladine, ironical. - -“We must wait,--there is nothing else to be done,” said Mr. Warrener, -reluctantly. - -“No,” said Calladine, rousing himself to a sudden determination, -“I will wait, but you, Mr. Warrener, must make your way home while -daylight lasts. You will only have to follow our own tracks in -the snow. Indeed, I should prefer it,” he said, seeing the old man -hesitate, and gently he took Mr. Warrener by the arm and urged him out -of the hut. A hard cruel sun was already setting red behind a clump of -beeches. The white sky became suffused with crimson in the west; on the -rounded tops of the hills the snow flushed to pink. But it was a hard, -cruel world that they saw, the hard red of the snow where the sunset -did not catch it. The line of the beech-clump curved already across the -slowly sinking sun, and presently hid it altogether from sight; the -tops of the hills lost their flush, and only a few red bars lingered -still in the sky. - -“What a desolate spot!” exclaimed Mr. Warrener, impressed, “and what a -spot,” he went on, “for a shepherd to study the courses of the stars, -for such has been the tradition of shepherds since the days when the -known world was not one tithe of the size we now learn it to be. Think -of that, Calladine,” said the old man, warming to his subject, “those -early shepherds on the hills were more conversant with the cycle of the -heavenly bodies than with the distribution of their own planet. A fine -tradition among shepherds--for what else have they to do? They don’t -read in books, but they read in the heavens through the long, lonely -nights; and observe, Calladine, that in winter, when the pleasures -of the earth are less, the heavens in compensation treble their -magnificence. I don’t believe that a man who spends his nights alone -in the open remains similar to other men. He’s soaked in the sense of -space; and young Lovel....” - -“Yes, yes,” said Calladine impatiently, “but there is no time to be -lost if you are to reach King’s Avon before dark. Follow our tracks; -there are no other tracks to confuse you, for it snowed a little this -morning; indeed, there is still snow about in the air.” - -“I don’t like to leave you alone in this lonely place,” said Mr. -Warrener, still hesitating. - -“Doubtless Clare and Lovel found no fault with its loneliness last -night,” Calladine replied harshly. - -“My dear Richard,” said Mr. Warrener, vexed at his son-in-law’s harping -on this theme, “I am sure you distress yourself unnecessarily. Clare -will be able to reassure you,--and she is a very truthful child,” -he added, with a certain pleading pathos, as though to justify his -upbringing of her. - -“Where, then, did the man sleep?” said Calladine, turning on him. -“Supposing he gave Clare the pallet, where did he pass the night -himself? Tell me that.” - -“Why, I don’t know,--sitting up, I suppose,--he could lean his back -against the wall,” replied Mr. Warrener. - -Finally he consented to go, and set off, Calladine watching him -until after trudging up the hill he topped its crest and was lost to -sight. Calladine then, a prey to such loneliness as he had never -dreamt, returned into the hut to wait. Twilight came, the long, cold, -late-winter twilight when the world seems dead. The last vestiges of -colour faded out of the west. Such sharp shadows as there had been, -merged into a greyer, universal shadow; the hard black and the hard -white turned to grey, vast and mournful; the sky was all grey now, -and the dusk heavy with impending snow. The quietness and the poverty -of the hut settled down round Calladine. He had examined its few poor -resources, fingering the utensils he found in the little cupboard on -the wall, the tea-pot, the canister of tea and sugar, the rasher of -bacon put ready on a plate; but now he sat listless, with hanging -hands, and not so much as a sound came to make him raise his head. -He did not know how long he sat there. The darkness deepened; soon -the black night was again over the Downs, vaulted; the big golden -stars, and the dim huge shapes of the hills. He was without sensation, -numb, having the consciousness only of his extreme solitude. So numb -was he, that he was scarcely aware what he waited for. He simply -sat on, in complete darkness now, feeling neither hunger nor cold, -forgetful almost of his sorrow, patient only like a man condemned to an -indefinite suspense. - -When he heard the sound of a voice singing out on the hill, he raised -his head and waited. The voice drew nearer, singing a cheerful song; -it trilled and carolled, as in an exuberant lightheartedness. To -Calladine it came with a strange effect, this voice singing out in -the night, unexplained, bearing down upon the hut, frivolous and -rollicking. Suddenly it sounded quite close, outside. The door was -torn open, a figure carrying a lantern appeared on the threshold, and -Calladine beheld the grinning face and battered hat of Olver Lovel. - -The boy carried parcels in his arms, besides the lantern swinging from -his wrist. He appeared in excellent spirits, grinning broadly, skipping -as he stood on the threshold of the door, with little excited skips -from foot to foot. He seemed scarcely able to contain his high spirits -and his excitement. When he saw that the hut was already occupied, he -gaped stupidly, then burst into peals of laughter. Calladine, remaining -seated, looked at him without a word. He perceived nothing startling -in the advent of this apparition, apathetic as he was, and at the same -time strung up to the most improbable occurrences. It seemed to him -quite natural that Olver should stand shouting with laughter in the -doorway; he saw nothing grotesque in the encounter of himself with the -crazy boy out in this hut on the hills. Clare!--this was the note to -which Clare had re-tuned his life. - -“Mr. Calladine!” said Olver, ceasing from his laughter. He came forward -and put his parcels and his lantern down on the table. Its rays -illuminated the little hut. “So you were waiting for them, sitting -here in the dark, were you?” he observed. - -“Will they come?” asked Calladine. - -“Oh yes, they’ll come,” replied Olver easily. “But they won’t let you -stop here, you know,” he added. “No, nor me either,” he pursued, coming -closer to Calladine and speaking confidentially. “They’ll put us both -out into the snow, get-yourselves-home-as-best-you-can. They won’t -care. They won’t notice us, scarcely. They’re in a dream. Nod to me, -perhaps; give me a pat, like a dog. Good Olver; he brings our food. But -do they eat it? they seem like they don’t need food.” - -“Have you seen them, then?” said Calladine. - -“Seen them? Lord bless you, yes; and seen you too, wandering round with -Daisy. I was behind you, many and many a time, but you didn’t turn.” - -He began now to unpack his parcels, bringing out a loaf of bread, a -tin of milk, some eggs, and finally some raw meat in slices. Calladine -watched him in silence. He disposed of everything in a business-like -manner, fetching two plates out of the cupboard, laying the table, -putting ready the tea-pot and the canister. - -“You might well have lit the lamp for them,” he said reproachfully to -Calladine. - -He lit the little paraffin lamp himself, and the hut was further -irradiated by its yellow glow. The hut made now a patch of warmth and -light among the cold, dark hills; a box of light, like a star in the -blackness of space. Calladine felt the warmth creep through him, as -though he were admitted to a hint of the sufficient and radiant secret -of those lovers. The poverty of the shelter disappeared now, in the -golden warmth of the light from within. And he felt that he, and not -they, was the pauper. - -Olver meanwhile had set the meat to fry over the lamp. It frizzled as -he turned it with a fork, and he crouched over it, humming his song. -“You seem very well contented,” said Calladine. - -Olver looked up, having forgotten Calladine’s presence. - -“I am contented, because Nicholas is happy,” he replied. - -“Simple enough!” said Calladine. - -“But she is happy too,” said Olver, sitting back on his heels and -staring at Calladine. - -“He is only a mad boy,” thought Calladine to himself. - -Olver sang. He sang an old song, of a girl drowned in the mill-pool -because she had lost her lover. The wistful beat of the ballad came -back at the end of each verse; it droned on, with mournful persistence. -At last Calladine could bear its monotony no longer, and asked, “When -will they come?” - -Olver shrugged. “Who can tell?” - -“Where are they?” Calladine asked. - -Olver shrugged again. “Who can tell?” - -Calladine remembered how often he had asked Clare, “Where have you -been? where have you been?” - -He remembered that her answers had never left him any the wiser; he had -never come near to what he really wanted to know. - -What was it, indeed, that he had really wanted to know? the whole -secret of her being, to be explained in a dozen words? - -He said to Olver, “It is night, it is cold; have they lost their way -out on the hills?” - -Olver laughed at him. “Lost? They?” - -“They are only human!” cried Calladine, afraid. He got up and stood -over Olver. “Tell me, they are human, aren’t they?” - -Olver laughed again. - -Calladine went to the door. He opened it and looked out; the cold met -him, and the stars in the blackness. “Clare!” he cried. “Clare!” - -“I am going mad,” he said to himself. “I am going out of my mind.” - -Looking back into the hut, he saw Olver still on his knees on the -floor, prodding at the meat over the lamp. He went back, bent down, and -cried close to Olver’s ear, “What are we doing here? they are keeping -us waiting.” - -“We don’t count,” replied Olver indifferently. - -He began his song again. He had taken his mirror from his pocket, and -was squinting into it, at the reflection of the hut; on each beat of -the measure, he nodded down towards it. - - - “Her hair was tangled in the reeds. - Her hair so gold and gay,” - - -he sang. - -“Would you like to look into my mirror?” he asked Calladine. - -An idea took him; he scrambled to his feet. - -“They’re all afraid of my mirror,” he said. “_She_ wouldn’t look into -it, for fear of what she might see there. But you shall look. Look into -it now, and you’ll see them; you shall see them as they were in here, -last night.” - -Calladine pushed him away; made him stagger against the wall of the hut. - -“You would see them! you would see them!” cried Olver, delighted. - -Neither of them noticed that the door had opened, and that Lovel stood -in the hut. - -“Nicco!” cried Olver. - -Calladine wheeled round. Clare came into the hut, and her face shone -out like Lovel’s, both golden in the light, both arrested in the midst -of their carelessness. - -Lovel spoke to Calladine. - -“This was the only place we had,” he said, “couldn’t you leave it to -us?” - -Clare looked at Calladine; her face wore that oblique, fugitive look -which he had known, and loved, and dreaded. - -She turned to Lovel, and they swayed towards one another as though -something drew them. - -“We had better go,” she said, inviting him. - -“Yes,” he replied, drifting idly on the stream of her will, of their -common will, one with her. - -She gave him her hand, and in the gold light they hung briefly, -transient creatures of eternal flight. The curtain of night and stars -stretched behind them, in the rectangle of the open door. - -“The scenery is set!” cried Calladine hysterically, pointing with his -hand. - -The rays of the lantern streamed out towards the snow, gilding a path -up the whiteness, quickly lost into the dark. - -“They need no shelter,” cried Calladine. - -The hills were outside, waiting, and the stars, silent. - -“Why linger?” cried Calladine to Clare and Lovel. - -They faded into the night, noiseless and swift. Calladine ran out of -the hut, he ran up and down, he cried “Clare! Clare!” and the hills -answered him. He came back into the hut, where Olver, dancing, held the -mirror up to his eyes. “Look! and you shall see them.” He dashed the -mirror out of Olver’s hand; it smashed upon the ground. “You will never -see them again, now,” cried Olver, “you will never see them again.” - - - - -+-------------------------------------------------+ -|Transcriber’s note: | -| | -|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | -| | -+-------------------------------------------------+ - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREY WETHERS*** - - -******* This file should be named 65182-0.txt or 65182-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/5/1/8/65182 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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(Victoria) Sackville-West</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Grey Wethers</p> -<p> A Romantic Novel</p> -<p>Author: V. (Victoria) Sackville-West</p> -<p>Release Date: April 28, 2021 [eBook #65182]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREY WETHERS***</p> -<p> </p> -<h3 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by<br /> - Mary Glenn Krause, Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit, Duke University,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (https://www.pgdp.net)</h3> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/front.jpg" alt="front" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<h1>GREY WETHERS</h1> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>By</i> V. SACKVILLE-WEST</p> - -<hr class="smler" /> - -<p>GREY WETHERS<br /> -THE HEIR AND OTHER STORIES<br />CHALLENGE<br />HERITAGE<br />KNOLE AND THE SACKVILLES</p> - -<hr class="smler" /> - -<p><i>New York</i>:<br /><i>George H. Doran Company</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="title page" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">GREY WETHERS</p> - -<p class="bold"><i>A Romantic Novel</i></p> - -<p class="bold space-above">BY</p> - -<p class="bold2">V. SACKVILLE-WEST</p> - -<p class="bold space-above">NEW <img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo" /> YORK<br />GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/copyright.jpg" alt="copyright page" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1923,<br />BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br /><img src="images/logo2.jpg" alt="logo" /></p> - -<p class="center space-above">GREY WETHERS. II<br />———<br />PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>CLAIRE</i></h2> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div><i>Ces fantômes charmants que nous croyons à nous...</i></div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div><i>Ils sont là, près de nous, jouant sur notre route;</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>Ils ne dédaignent pas notre soleil obscur,</i></div> -<div><i>Et derrière eux, et sans que leur candeur s’en doute,</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>Leurs ailes font parfois de l’ombre sur le mur.</i></div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div><i>Ils ont ce grand dégout mystérieux de l’âme</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>Pour notre chair coupable et pour notre destin;</i></div> -<div><i>Ils ont, êtres rêveurs qu’un autre azur réclame,</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>Je ne sais quelle soif de mourir le matin.</i></div> -<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">GREY WETHERS</p> - -<hr class="smler2" /> - -<h2>PART ONE</h2> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">GREY WETHERS</p> - -<p class="bold2"><i>Part One</i></p> - -<p>More than half a century has now elapsed since the events which added -a new legend to the hard ancient hills lying about Marlborough and -King’s Avon. The last organised rustic Scouring of the White Horse of -King’s Avon,—from which occasion these events may properly be said to -date, although a believer in predestination might be found to contend -that they dated, indeed, from the very births of Clare Warrener and -Nicholas Lovel,—that last organised Scouring took place more than -half a century ago. The White Horse remains, the same gaunt, hoary -relic; King’s Avon remains, secluded, tragic, rearing its great stones -within the circle of its strange earthwork; the Downs remain, and every -winter, now as then, shroud their secrets and the memory of their -secrets beneath the same mantle of snow away from the speculation of -the curious. But of Clare Warrener and Nicholas Lovel no trace remains, -unless indeed they have passed into the wind and become incorporate -with the intractable spaces and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>uncompromising heights. A great many -tales are locally told of them, all too fantastic to be set down in -print; the chalky soil, so unpropitious to other crops, grew at least -a rich crop of superstition, especially in an age and district when -stories of witches and burnings were curiously mingled in the minds -of the ignorant with the opening of barrows and the fable of British -princes. So it is not surprising that the disappearance of these two -persons should have given rise to a jabber of conjecture which rapidly -came to be explained away by a variety of legends following the line of -approved local tradition. It is not the business of print to enter into -these conjectures or their interpretation. It is the business of print -to set down, in as practical a manner as may be, the circumstances -leading up to the final catastrophe,—or fulfilment, call it which you -will, according to the point of view from which you approach it,—and -to leave the reader to carry on the narrative for himself in the manner -best suited to his own fancy and requirements.</p> - -<p class="space-above">A peculiar silence reigned over the village; no children shouted, -and no young men or girls passed down the street with that exact air -of energy and enterprise that youth alone can produce. Somnolence -predominated; it seemed a village inhabited only by the aged, and by -those sparsely; a small gaggle of geese quacked and pried with their -flat beaks along the cobbles; but for them, the cats and the old men -had the place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> to themselves. The cats slumbered, curled round in the -corners of doorsteps, where the sun struck hot on the stone; and on a -bench outside the Waggon of Hay the four old men sat in a row, leaning -on their knobly sticks, and holding pewter mugs in their hands. Brown -old men, brown of hide and brown of garment, so that it was difficult -to tell where their clothes began or their hands and faces left off. -Eight boots of similar pattern set squarely side by side on the stones; -four heads of almost equal similarity nodded together over the pewter, -sagely and immemorially, for it would be safe to say that those four -old men of King’s Avon might have been at any moment replaced by -another set of four old men out of another century, without a casual -observer remarking on the difference. It was the day out of half a -score of years when they were left in supreme sovereignty over the -village. The Waggon of Hay became then what they considered it always -ought to be, and what they chose to maintain it had been at that epoch -of time called “when we were young,” a place of meeting sober and -stagnant, undisturbed by the rude, hobnailed entrance of young men, -calling for spirits in a tap-room where they should have been content -with beer or cider. It was the day when they might sit at peace in -their row on the bench, sure that no lout of a blunderer would stumble -over their toes. It was the day when they might indulge themselves to -their hearts’ content in gossip and politics, uninterrupted by the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>revolutionary opinions of their juniors. They could go back to the -time when no railway disfigured the valley of the Frome, when the old -horned breed of true Wiltshire sheep wandered upon the heights, and -when no man dreamt of threshing his wheat save by flail, or of crushing -his apples in any but a wooden press. They could recall without effort -those days in the ’thirties, when, themselves but little older than the -century, they had gone in bands with rude weapons to break up the new -and hateful machinery in the farmers’ barns. They could tell again the -tales of superstition, and the sights which their fathers’ generation -had seen; and above all, most succulently, they could recall how old -Mother Lovel had been burnt on the top of Silbury Hill for a witch, -the bogey their mothers had used to frighten them with; and, nodding -together, the four heads coming closer, whisper that Nicholas Lovel -had all the black arts at his disposal, and had in a fit of rage put -a curse upon his own brother, so that the lad no longer had his wits -about him, but loitered around, the anxiety and disgrace of the village.</p> - -<p>They had the whole day to themselves, in which to say over and over -again the things they had said many times before, and, greedy, would -have liked to have the evening too, but far from it, the evening of -that day was worse than any other evening, for the young men returned, -already uproarious and in their numbers, full of song and boastfulness, -their boots white with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> chalk of the Downs, and their broad hats -stuck round with the grasses and sorrel that grew up there on those -unfertile heights. The old men would collect together in a corner, -remotely grumbling, watching the young men as they lounged against -the bar, filling the tap-room with their ribald good-humour and their -tobacco smoke. The old men disapproved of the young because they feared -in them the jostle of the oncoming generation, but the young men merely -laughed carelessly at the old, having from them no longer anything to -fear. The young men, on the evening of that particular day, would be -more than usually vainglorious, bragging of their exploits, growing -with every glass more direct in their modes of expression and more -hilarious in their laughter. It was the day when all prudery was thrown -aside, when each girl must look after herself as best she could or -would, when from the earliest hour of exodus from the village along the -road to the Downs the band of youths and girls fell into two primitive -groups of hunter and quarry, a scramble of catch-who-catch-can, an -escapade of wholesome license over the slopes of the Downs. It is true -that they started out armed with trowels and rakes, but even these -implements of homely design were soon garlanded with vetch and campion -torn from the hedgerows as the party went along, nor were these, the -ostensible justification of the expedition, the true weapons of the -day; the true weapons were the muslin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> frocks, the black shoes and -white stockings, the ribbons, the sunbonnets, and the eyes and curls -beneath the sunbonnets; and the leather leggings of the young men, -their strong brown hands, their belted smocks, their insolent air. -Impossible that a few wounds should not result from the marshalling of -such an armoury. And while the girls on their return must needs carry -away to their bedrooms the secrets of the day, evading the inquisitive -eye of their mothers, who, not condescending to ask, although burning -to know, remembered with a sigh similar feasts of their own youth, -the young men might gather in the tap-room and between hints and -guffaws convey to all who cared to hear that they were fine young men -worthy of their sex and of a sound country tradition. It was perhaps -from an unacknowledged flicker of envy that the old men frowned upon -their honest coarseness, for occasionally one of them, forgetting -his attitude of rebuke, would let out a cackle of enjoyment and -appreciation, much to his own dismay, and much to the amusement of the -youths, who would cry, “Hey, gaffer, don’t you wish you’d be with us? -Don’t you, you old dog?”</p> - -<p>But until this lusty return filled the tap-room with its uproar, the -cats and the ancients of the village were left undisturbed. Both in -their several ways made the most of their opportunity, the cats to -sleep, since little boys who threw stones had gone with the party, -hangers-on and peeping-Toms of the day, and the ancients to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> utter -their sage words, to echo approval of one another, and to bury their -faces deep in the pewter mugs, from which they emerged with beards -dripping foam. A suck of the lips, a wipe with the back of the hand, a -long “A-ah,” of contentment, and the mumble of anecdote flowed again -upon its course. Sitting there in the sun was favourable to such -occupations. Since the strenuousness of life’s work was over,—the -early winter rising, the trudges after a lost ewe across snow-swept -Downs, the unearthing of mangolds from the frosted ridge, the hours -of scything swathe by swathe under burning midday,—what could remain -better to do than to sit upon a bench in the sun, with companions -who in colour and outlook were the very spit of oneself, to grumble -against new-fangled notions, and to wet one’s gizzard with a long pull -of ale, which, at all events, however ignominious to admit it, had not -deteriorated in quality since one’s youth?</p> - -<p>Amongst the four old men, he who carried perhaps most authority, if -any difference could be said to exist amongst the ancient cronies, was -John Sparrow, who out-topped them by a year or so of age. Not that -this fact in itself constituted so marked a superiority; it placed the -senior rather at a disadvantage, since there existed amongst the four a -tacit competition as to which should outlive the other, and each within -his own mind dwelt upon the day when a fresh mound should be turned in -the neighbouring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> church-yard, and a shrunken row of three should sit -upon the bench, and the new topic, surprising by virtue of its very -novelty, be introduced among them, the topic of their missing member. -Each probably knew his companions well enough to hope for little -charity at their hands. It would be fine fun, to have John Sparrow, or -Caleb Patch, or Timothy Cutbush, or Eli Sheppard, lying there silent -and unable to protest, to pick to pieces at their leisure. No, the -few additional years of John Sparrow were not precisely the reason of -his weight of word. But Sparrow’s daughter Martha, called “my gal,” -although she would never again see sixty, was servant at the Manor -House, where lived the only gentry of the village, and consequently -whenever Sparrow began his phrase, “My gal says,” his utterance was -awaited with a certain degree of respect. The village was proud of its -gentry; Mr. Warrener was a scholar, and Miss Clare a lady. Although she -went everywhere alone, and rode her pony like a boy, her ladylikeness -could never be in question. Hence it came about that John Sparrow’s -quotations from Martha held a little flavour of high life, a very -remote echo of fashion; nothing more vicarious could well be imagined, -but to the fuddled minds of the other three it sufficed: John Sparrow -was in touch with elegance. He did not much look like it, as he sat -at the end of the row on the bench, the colour of a hayseed, having -now deposited his empty mug on the bench beside him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> and drawn from -his pocket a long clay pipe whose small bowl he was very carefully -ramming with tobacco. His daughter Martha was altogether a different -question; she wore a lilac print dress and an apron over it; her grey -hair was partly covered by a cap; she had a sedate manner and shining -old cheeks; she was clean and respectful. She had entirely ceased to -live at her father’s house, having her own bare but immaculate attic -bedroom at the Manor House, and periodically she allowed her father -to come there to tea in the kitchen, where he sat very neat and -intimidated and impressed, enjoying most that part of his visit when he -was boasting about it to his cronies afterwards. Being without subtlety -they betrayed every corner of their envy and curiosity, to which John -Sparrow was not loth to pander. They had had a table-cloth, and cups -and saucers—china, not tin—and Martha had put flowers on the table. -After tea Martha had played the musical box, but in the garden he had -heard Miss Clare laughing as she strolled up and down with her father. -That young lady was getting to a marriageable age; and here John -Sparrow’s recital, which began with veracity, was apt to go astray. He -would make a feeble attempt to convey a sense of his privity to secret -counsels by pursing up his lips, nodding his head, spreading out his -hands, and suchlike indications, without actually committing himself to -the indiscretion of words; but presently under the fire of questions, -the “Come now,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> John, out with it,” and the final shaft of scepticism -to the effect that he knew no more than they did themselves, he would -invariably be led into confidences which had no bearing whatsoever upon -the truth. Martha had whispered this, Martha had told him that, Miss -Clare, he doubted, was not in truth the daughter of Mr. Warrener; or, -if so be she was his daughter, then no daughter that he ought to own -to, but rather should pass her off as his niece or his ward.... The -other three accepted all such statements round-eyed, and the more they -gaped the more inventive he grew. Their credulity was his undoing.</p> - -<p>And as they drowsed and maundered, they saw Miss Clare emerge presently -from the gates of the Manor House, with their glimpse of garden, lawn, -and cedars, riding astride upon her pony, whose little hoofs came -slipping and shambling over the cobbles, down the street, past the -old men, and took the road out towards the Downs. The old men raised -their heads at all this little clatter, and a greeting passed between -them and Miss Clare; they touched their hats, she waved her whip to -them and called out something which they were too deaf to catch, but -to which they responded with the “Ay, ay” and the gesture of tolerant -encouragement accorded by age towards popular youth. There was a mumble -amongst them after she had passed, of unspecified vague approval, -before the straggly old beards drooped again upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> chests, and the -street resumed the quiet broken by that small disturbance.</p> - -<p class="space-above">It was not a very great wonder that the village should look upon -its gentry as so exclusively its own. Its situation was such, that -everything which took place within its enclosure was peculiarly -focussed and self-contained. In the first place, it was isolated far -from other villages, at the foot of the Downs, which loomed over it on -three sides like a huge natural rampart, and in the second place it was -entirely surrounded by an ancient earthwork in a complete and perfect -circle. This earthwork was broken only at two points, to allow the road -to enter the circle, and to leave it again on the opposite side. Within -this little enclosed ring of thirty acres lay the village, complete -with church, Manor House, and village street, incapable of expansion -in any direction, unless it overflowed its boundary, which it had -never done. A few outlying farms at a little distance were included, -properly speaking, in the parish, but they were either too remote or -too well screened by voluminous trees to distract the eye from the -compact symmetry of the little town within the circle. Strangers to -the country, coming unawares upon this singular encampment, were at -first amazed; but presently there crept into their minds the sense -that the whole country traversed by them had been, in a way, but the -natural preparation to precisely such a mysterious and secluded patch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> -of human habitation. They recalled the straight white road driven -across the Downs; the pits of poor blanched chalk; the shaven clumps -of beech, like giant ricks, upon the skyline; mounds and barrows; the -perfect cone of Silbury Hill, which, rooted in its greater antiquity, -had forced the Roman road to deflect from its course; the loneliness -of the magnificent Downs; the primitive shapes surviving in the White -Horses cut as landmarks upon their flanks. Above all they would recall -those strange monuments of English paganism, the sarsen stones, -hewn by Nature and transported by man to be the instruments of his -superstition, left where they had fallen, singly or in rings, obscure -in a fold of the Downs, or reared to accord with the eternal procession -of the heavens in the gaunt majesty of Stonehenge.</p> - -<p>The stranger would recall these stones as he followed the road through -the gap into the circle of King’s Avon, for there in an ordinary field -to the right of the road, just within the embankment, he would see, -standing upright to the height of ten or twelve feet, a number of -these stones, standing there with such apparent fixity and permanence -that it was disconcerting to observe, on a closer inspection, an equal -number of the stones fallen flat and half-buried in the ground. Their -impressiveness grew, as the beholder began to realise from their -symmetrical disposition that what he was considering was no less than -the ruins of a temple. The village<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> lay just beyond the field, and in -the rough ground, near the field,—partly ditch below the embankment, -partly undergrowth,—many more of the stones might be discovered, -half-hidden by dead leaves and mosses, or even by tins and rubbish, -and in one or two cases made prisoner, like some inarticulate Laocoon, -by the serpenting roots of a beech overhanging the scarp. And as the -stranger, after poking about among this tangle, proceeded along the -lane towards the village, he would come upon other isolated stones, -either embedded in the bank below the hedge, or used as a gate-post -into a paddock, standing there patiently enough, towering above the -gate and above the hedge, indifferent to the fate that had come upon -it; and one, by the roadside, had been made to do duty as a milestone, -and bore upon its face the distances to Bath and Marlborough in -eighteenth-century script and Roman numerals. But, although -the stones were now thus scattered and even totally removed for -purposes of quarrying material, a patient observer might still piece -together the design and dimension of the temple, standing once like -Stonehenge in rings, when no human dwellings were there, in, as it -were, a cup of the Downs, open to sun and rain. But this imaginary -stranger would probably dwell rather upon the relationship between the -stones of King’s Avon, and the stars that they had known unaltered, and -the barrows humped upon the Downs, and the roughly-hewn flints turned -up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> by the plough, the bones and antlers, and the stray tokens left, -with very little fame, about the country, silent and enduring while -religions perhaps slightly more enlightened because more charitable -passed with the ages above their surfaces.</p> - -<p>This paganism of England, he might have reflected as he made his way -slowly from stone to stone, pausing before each and finding in each -the same monotonous and uncommunicative austerity, this early English -paganism, how bleakly different it was from the paganism of the South! -Indeed, he might wonder whether to call his forebear pagan, which had -a rich full-blooded sound, or, stripping him of garlands, to call him -simply heathen. Here, in this flint country of the small northern -island, no flowers and fruit had surrounded the sacrifice, no cymbals -clashed, no grapes and plaited maize wreathed the horns of the victim, -no songs accompanied the priest. A stone, a knife, and blood, red and -grey, sufficed their ritual. This was no country to see nymphs in the -streams and oaks, to hear the flute of a satyr in the beechwood. Yet -there was a harsher dignity, beside which the Southern paganism was -soft and ample, over-ripe with sweetness. It was a creed which would -not concern itself with the fruits of earth; Demeter was not for it, -nor lecherous Pan, nor a god clothed in the plumes of a swan. It would -concern itself with nothing lower than the most majestic of human -contemplations, the sun and the stars in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> their courses, so that after -the lapse of centuries the upright stones still aspired to celestial -communion when the gentle or the angry dawn broke over the rounded -Atlantean shoulders of the Downs.</p> - -<p>Clare Warrener rode idly along the leafy lane, her pony’s hoofs raising -little grey puffs of dust. Nothing in particular occupied her mind, -beyond the sight which she was going to see, and which for weeks now -she had been anticipating. She had promised herself that she would ride -on this day up on to the Downs, cast her eye over the festivity, and -ride on again, with perhaps a slight resentment at this invasion of the -hills; a resentment she knew to be absurd, since the rustic youths and -girls at their celebrating had a better right to the hills than she -had herself, they who were the descendants of shepherds and farmers, -wresting for centuries a living from the poor stony soil. She loved in -the hills their spaciousness, and their refusal to yield to tillage; at -most they would grant pasture to the sheep crawling on their slopes, -but for the rest they remained eternally, in the heart of an amenable -and complacent island, the untamed spot—they, and the moorlands, and -the hills of Wales and the North.</p> - -<p>The shady lane which she had been following soon ceased to be bordered -by trees and took an upward direction leading to the foot of the Downs. -It became a steep white road mounting straight up the unboundaried -slopes, with high<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> banks on either side, and the winter rain-runnels -marked in little zig-zagging ruts and pebbles. Some clumps of furze -and a few thorn-trees grew on the lower reaches, but presently even -these ceased, and the short turf was the only vegetation. Up here the -air was pure and sharp; the grasses waved as they were blown by the -breeze; in some places fires had left their blackened patches; a trail -of smoke-coloured sheep moved cropping in the dip of a valley. Larks -rose continually, soaring straight up into the air, impelled either -by some impulse of their own or else disturbed by the sound of the -pony’s passage. Clare rode with loose reins, letting the pony pick his -own way among the pebbles. The road began to wind; it curved round a -shoulder of hill, dipped into a hollow, rose steeply again, and all -the time its direction was hidden round the next corner. At moments -it reached a high point of vantage, whence Clare, looking down in the -direction she had come, could see the low fertile lands, the farms, and -the clump of trees pierced by the church-spire which was King’s Avon. -But to north, east, and west, nothing but Downs, the great back of the -south of England. She rode on. The pony climbed, his head down, his -withers high. She felt the muscles of his flank moving warm beneath -her leg; he climbed, strong and willing, and she put him at short cuts -which entailed mounting an almost perpendicular slope of grass, for the -pleasure of feeling him buckle to the effort. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> - -<p>Presently she heard voices and laughter borne to her on the wind. -Before long she reached a kind of plateau of grass, the highest point -of all, which commanded a wide view of both Downs and the chessboard -landscape far below, crossed by the white roads like streamers from -a Maypole; and at the further end of this plateau she saw scattered -in pairs over the grass, and assembled at one point as a nucleus from -which these couples had detached themselves, the youth of the village -of King’s Avon in holiday clothes with wild flowers strung about them. -She reined in her pony, not liking to interrupt their fun by drawing -too near or seeming to admire them as a curiosity. She could recognise -most of them at that distance; she picked out the red head of Daisy -Morland, the long limbs of Peter Gorwyn, the sunbonnet of Phoebe Patch, -the silly laugh of young Baskett, the straw-coloured shock of hair -belonging to Job Lackland, the black strap-shoes and white stockings -of Annabel Blagdon, who was the belle of the village, and, finally, -prowling on the outskirts rather like a pariah dog, the indefinably -misshapen form of Olver Lovel. Near by the group were set down the -wicker baskets in which they had brought their meal, also the trowels, -spades, turf-cutters, and hoes, apparently forgotten. The occasion of -the expedition was rendered completely invisible by the sprawling of -the persons seated upon it. This was none other than one of the famous -White Horses, which on that day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> must be scoured, that is to say, -cleaned of ten years’ accumulation of weeds and grasses; though it was -said that less plantains were uprooted than matches made that day, and -that the true business of keeping the White Horse duly scoured was -performed by some sober shepherd with a pocket-knife, idling away the -hours while his sheep moved slowly within his sight. Nevertheless the -tradition must be maintained. Clare felt a slight wistfulness that she -might not join in with the party, but she had been for so many years -strictly forbidden to do this by an indignant Martha Sparrow,—“’Twould -not be befitting your station at all, Miss Clare, indeed, to go with -those rough louts of boys and hoydens of girls,”—that she had come to -accept this ban as a law of nature, without question. She therefore -sat her pony at a distance, looking on enviously at the clumsy fun -in progress, watching the boys roll over and over down the slope and -get up dusting themselves and laughing, or wrestling with one another -on the grass and making a show of their superior strength before -the girls, who laughed and applauded. She felt especially envious -when she saw Job Lackland pick up his fiddle, settle it firm under -his chin, and begin to play, the notes of the old-fashioned tune -reaching her as clearly as notes struck on a bell, and she could see -the sprigged waistcoat and cut-away coat which Job always wore on -feast-days when he thought he might be called upon to play the fiddle. -The others scrambled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> to their feet and began a country-dance, a sort -of combination of a Morris dance and Sir Roger de Coverley, for they -fluttered their handkerchiefs as they danced, and at the same time ran -in couples up and down between two lines formed by the other dancers.</p> - -<p>The muslin dresses and coal-scuttle bonnets of the girls, and the -smocks of the young men, together with their fluttering handkerchiefs -and their hands gaily clasped high as they turned and twisted beneath, -made a coloured and merry patch on the top of the hill, like a lot of -butterflies.</p> - -<p>Job fiddled with increasing energy, and as he fiddled he tried to -beat time for the dancers with his bow, so that every now and then he -would miss out a bar while he waved his bow to re-establish order in -the dance which threatened to become confused. At last they all fell -exhausted upon the grass, and cider was passed round, and the old White -Horse, who had been temporarily revealed during the dance, was once -more hidden from view by the spreading frocks and sprawling limbs.</p> - -<p>There were other preparations now in evidence, for to emulate the -scouring of the greater White Horse of Berkshire the youth of King’s -Avon indulged themselves in more or less organised games, which again -were but a cloak to their braggart vanity towards the girls. A rude -platform was erected on trestles on the flat summit of the hill, and -towards this the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> whole company surged, leaving the white scar of the -Horse once more exposed and placid upon the hillside. The direction of -the games was in the hands of young Gorwyn; he beat a small drum to -call his audience to order; he marshalled the competitors; he posted -tow-headed Lackland with his fiddle to strike up a tune during the -intervals.</p> - -<p>The competitors stood in a group to one side, suddenly sheepish; the -audience, which by now consisted almost entirely of girls, ranged -themselves beneath the platform with the nudges and upturned faces -of anticipation. Clare could only see the crowns of their hats and -sunbonnets.</p> - -<p>Half a dozen young men stood up on the platform, exposed to the jokes -and encouragements of their friends; in their embarrassment they did -not know what expression to assume; some scowled, some tried to stare -with an indifferent gaze out over the distance, some sought the faces -of their special friends among the audience and grinned awkwardly. All -were in the same predicament as to how to dispose of their hands and -feet; some stood stiff and erect, with arms folded severely across -their chests; others thrust their hands down into the pockets of their -breeches; others bent to fidget with a bootlace.</p> - -<p>Some were for wrestling, others for the races; the bolder spirits, and -the most admired, were for broadstick. Gorwyn himself, the broadstick -champion of the village, was, as the last and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> principal event of the -day, to challenge the winner.</p> - -<p>Clare, growing interested, rode a little nearer; the young men touched -their foreheads to her, some of the girls dropped a curtsy; her advance -caused a little ripple in the crowd. Again she felt the slight regret -that she might not mingle freely and on an equal footing with them; -surely they were clean, English young men, honest enough if a trifle -crude, and the girls were healthy and fresh in their muslins; but she -was too simply a child to dream of disobeying Martha’s mandate. She sat -her pony at her distance, looking on.</p> - -<p>The first event was a bout of wrestling; not perhaps, a very scientific -exhibition, but the rivals went at it with a will, good-tempered and -full of zest, staggering about the platform, their fine, young-men’s -bodies knotted together like a piece of ever-changing sculpture in -a natural setting, not cooped into the dinginess of a studio or a -gallery. Clare saw the shock heads imprisoned under an arm, or going to -butt lowered like young rams; she could hear the deep breathing, and -the muffled shock as limbs and torsos closed anew together.</p> - -<p>And the audience of girls cried out and applauded, or uttered little -screams when a fall seemed imminent; but the wrestlers themselves were -silent, save for their heavy breathing; and the feminine cries and -rustlings of admiration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> or dismay formed the natural accompaniment to -the masculine concentration.</p> - -<p>The wrestling over, the wrestlers descended to mix in with the girls, -and the competition was eager and frank among the girls to get -possession of one of these heroes and to keep him by her side for -the rest of the afternoon. Only Annabel Blagdon, the belle, remained -unexcited and scornful; she affected to despise the mere wrestlers: -broadstick was the only game for her, as she had already advertised, -and her smiles were reserved for some broadstick champion with his -broken head. Therefore the wrestlers made for her all the more; made -awkward advances towards her, neglecting the blandishments of the -others which were lavished too cheaply upon them. But she scarcely -answered; she knew her power, she knew and savoured the irritation -of her sisters; she tapped her foot in its white stocking and black -strapped shoe, and scorned the wrestlers for their undamaged skins, -though secretly she could not help esteeming their broad shoulders and -their narrow loins.</p> - -<p>Job Lackland meanwhile had struck up a tune on his crazy fiddle, and -made the air gay with his old jingling melody, until the tapping of -Gorwyn’s little drum announced a fresh event; this was a race after a -cheese down the steepest side of the hill, an all-but-perpendicular -bank, round which the ordinary pedestrian would have skirted, but the -lads started down it helter-skelter after the round cheese which was -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>bowling down, bumping and jumping, after its send-off push. Some few -of them kept their feet, others slithered down on their backsides, like -boys on an ice-slide, some in their effort to keep upright tumbled head -over heels; one, a wag, went down, rolled round in a ball, hands locked -under knees, in a series of somersaults.</p> - -<p>No one was hurt, and the girls peering after them over the top, laughed -and danced in delight as the medley of arms and legs and bodies -reached the bottom, and a scrum for the prize ensued. It was finally -carried off by Olver Lovel, who, it was averred, crept in between the -scrambling legs and fetched it away in a moment when the object of the -race was forgotten, and only the fun of the scrimmage remembered.</p> - -<p>No one quite knew in what spirit to take Olver’s success. It was too -unpopular for congratulations to ring genuine, so most of the party -turned aside and pretended to be busy with other things, sooner than -betray their disappointment,—for they were kindly folk,—and to spare -themselves the necessity of smiling to Olver. In fact, it was felt -that a slight chill had been cast over the afternoon by the simpleton -getting the better of the cheese.</p> - -<p>As for Olver he was quite happy with his cheese, which was large and -round, and beside which he sat at a little distance on the grass, -occasionally patting it and stroking its smooth cool rotundity. Clare -let her interest stray from the platform, in order to observe him; like -most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> of the others he had put a wreath of sorrel and grasses round his -hat, but whereas the others acquired thereby merely a merry-making, -country appearance, Olver was made to look crazy and erratic, and twice -as simple as usual. He sat now on the grass making a daisy-chain to go -round the belly of his cheese; his legs were stretched out childishly -straight in front of him, and his shovel hat with the waving wreath was -bent down over his occupation.</p> - -<p>Simple, thought Clare; but how quick and cunning were his fingers! that -was no unmixed simplicity.</p> - -<p>He reached out his daisy-chain to measure against the cheese; he was -engrossed and took no notice of any one or of anything. She wondered -whether Nicholas Lovel knew that Olver was up here; usually he kept his -brother away from any gathering of the villagers, lest he annoy them in -any way. She had already noticed that Nicholas was not of the party and -smiled to imagine him as one of that hearty gang. She even wondered the -more, so aloof did he keep himself from the rest of the village, that -he allowed his brother to join with them. But she remembered then that -he made laws for himself only, and did not expect others to keep them; -he was too indifferent, rather than too tolerant, for that.</p> - -<p>Clare thought that she would wait to see the broadstick contest, which -apparently was about to take place, and that she would then ride away,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> -for she knew that as the afternoon advanced, and especially as the -discreet twilight arrived to throw its veil over the passions aroused -by the prowess of the games, the party would become less rowdy, less -athletic, and more sentimental, more inclined to break up into couples -and to dispose itself thus about the grass, where no cover existed, -but where privacy was guaranteed by a tacit convention that all wore -blinkers. Clare remembered then,—what Martha Sparrow, gossiping, had -told her,—that Olver Lovel sometimes made himself very unpopular by -creeping up noiselessly behind some pair just as they were circling -round the most critical stages of their courtship, either to shout -loudly in their ears or else to tickle the backs of their necks with a -straw, so that it had even been discussed in the Waggon of Hay whether -he should be ostracised from the festival of the scouring. The threat -of ostracism, however, had not been carried out. They were all too -much afraid of Olver and of the tricks he might play in revenge on -them, worse than shouting in their ears, or tickling the backs of their -necks, or even than putting caterpillars up girl’s legs, which he had -been known to do; and in a less degree they were also afraid of his -brother Nicholas, not to mention the old mother, whom none of them had -ever seen, and for whose continued existence they had to take Nicholas’ -word for granted.</p> - -<p>Perhaps this fear of the Lovels, and of the queer powers they were -reputed to possess,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> weighed even more with the ignorant village folk -than the rough, kindly pity they felt for Nicholas in the affliction -put upon him.</p> - -<p>Clare was eager to watch the broadstick play, which she had never -seen; Martha had told her that those who had taken part were to be -seen going about for days afterwards with bandaged heads, and even -kept the bandage on for longer than they need, as a badge that they -practised the old sturdy sport, and that he who carried off the honours -was entitled to the respect of the men in the Waggon of Hay, be they -natives or strangers passing through, and that there wasn’t a girl -in the parish would refuse him her lips. Martha, quite carried away, -had given her these accounts with enthusiasm. Clare had teased her, -“I believe you remember a scouring when you were young, Martha,” and -Martha had blushed and bridled, and declared she saw no harm in having -once been as young as Miss Clare herself, and went on to relate that -once she had been to the scouring of the great White Horse of White -Horse Vale, where teams of the Wiltshire men met teams of the Berkshire -men at wrestling and broadstick, so that it was not the little family -affair of the King’s Avon White Horse, but a great celebration that -lasted two days, and included roundabouts and side-show booths. But -broadstick play was dying out, and young men were not so keen to get -their heads broken as once they had been, which was a pity, for it -showed up their manliness, in spite of what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> the parsons might say; -that was Martha’s view.</p> - -<p>Therefore Clare was especially anxious to see the play, for she thought -she might never have an opportunity of seeing it again.</p> - -<p>Just then she heard the trot of a horse on the turf behind her, turf -baked so hard that it rang hollow. She did not turn round, but sat -waiting for the horseman to come up beside her. “So,” she thought to -herself, as a little expectant smile parted her lips, “Lovel has come -after all to have a look at the scouring.” The trot slackened into a -walk, and the head of a horse came alongside that of her own pony. A -voice said, “Good afternoon, Miss Warrener,” and looking round she saw -a man with iron-grey hair in the act of lifting his hat to her; but he -was not the man she had expected.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Calladine,” she said, smiling after her first little shock of -surprise and disappointment.</p> - -<p>“So you, too, have come to look on at the scouring,” he began. -“Whenever I hear of a scouring in the neighbourhood I am enticed to -watch it, and every time I go home realising that I have wasted my -time. But, after all, as well ride here as anywhere else, and better, -if I am to have the good fortune of meeting you.”</p> - -<p>Clare was far too unpolished and simple to know how to reply to such -compliments. She only blushed, was angry with herself for blushing, and -stared the harder in silence at the party on the grass. Calladine saw -her deepened colour,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> and savoured to the full its unconscious charm; -he leant forward with a creaking of saddle-leather, his gloved hand -resting with the bunch of reins on the peak of his saddle.</p> - -<p>“Will you ride a little way with me? There is not much more to be seen -here, and I fancy they have noticed us, and are getting shy. Ah, it’s -too late, for here comes young Gorwyn to offer us a drink. We must -accept it, I suppose, and only pray that ’tisn’t in a cup they have all -been using.”</p> - -<p>Young Gorwyn, the master of the ceremonies, the son and apprentice -of the blacksmith, carried the cup of cider very carefully in his -immense hands, like a child carries a nest, as though he were afraid of -crushing it between them.</p> - -<p>“Farmer Morland’s brewing,” he said, grinning foolishly as he offered -it.</p> - -<p>Clare drank; it was clean and sweet, pure apple-juice and sugar. She -was then confronted by a difficulty with which she had no idea of how -to cope: ought she to offer the cup to Calladine after having drunk -from it herself?</p> - -<p>She had always the uneasy feeling in Calladine’s company that more -ceremony was necessary than in her dealings with other human beings, -conducted with perfect and unthinking naturalness. But Calladine, who -was so grave and courtly, and who looked at her so intently while -speaking to her, and again so intently while she replied, seemed to -exact a different standard of manners. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> - -<p>In this case, fortunately, he saw her unhappy hesitation, and solved -the difficulty for her by stretching out his hand for the cup and -draining it right off.</p> - -<p>But Gorwyn was watching, and, kindled by the unusualness of the day, -winked broadly as Calladine drank, and said heartily, “There’s luck to -you both!”</p> - -<p>“I hope so,” said Calladine in a low voice. He glanced quickly at -Clare; she had either not heard, not noticed, or failed to interpret.</p> - -<p>“Admirable, Peter!” he said in a louder tone, as he handed back the -cup. “Tell Daisy Morland from me and Miss Warrener, that her father’s -brewing, which I suspect she superintends, is first class.”</p> - -<p>Young Gorwyn grinned again. “But you’ll stay to watch the broadstick, -now you’re here?” he said eagerly, since to him it was the great event -of the day.</p> - -<p>“Well, I think perhaps broadstick is scarcely a suitable entertainment -for a young lady,—eh, Gorwyn?” said Mr. Calladine. “Races, or even -wrestling, but scarcely broadstick,—a rough game, and usually -unpleasant to watch at the end. I think Miss Warrener and I will ride -away and leave you to your sports.”</p> - -<p>Gorwyn, who had at first looked astonished, opened his mouth to -protest, then a look of contempt came over his ruddy face, succeeded -by a sudden shyness; he mumbled something, and scampered back to his -companions. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, but I wanted to see the broadstick,” began Clare.</p> - -<p>“My <i>dear</i> young lady,” said Mr. Calladine, leaning sideways in -his saddle towards her, “may I, for once, stand in the place of -your father, and say that I am sure he would never approve of your -witnessing this rough display, and indeed would be most grieved if it -came to his ears that you had done so? May I beg you to have confidence -in my judgment? Come, now, let us ride away together, and if you can -obtain your father’s consent I will promise to escort you to some fair -where you may see the game,—will that content you?”</p> - -<p>Clare, greatly disappointed, was too young to question Calladine’s -decision. If he said her father would disapprove, then he must be -right; although, privately she thought that her father, mild and vague, -would have no views at all on the subject. Obediently, however, she -wheeled her pony after Calladine’s horse, and they rode quietly away -along the top of the ridge. She was thinking how sorry she was that he -had come instead of Lovel. She did not very much like Mr. Calladine, -although she was kind to him out of goodness of heart, because she -thought he seemed lonely; indeed, he never ceased talking to her about -his loneliness.</p> - -<p>He lived some way out of King’s Avon, right in the country; it must be, -she thought, very lonely in his small farm-house in the evenings,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> so -she sometimes persuaded her father to ask him to dinner.</p> - -<p>On such occasions, not knowing how else to entertain her father and -guest, she would play to them both such simple airs as she could -command upon the piano, and sometimes would sing, accompanying herself, -such little songs as she had picked up from Martha Sparrow or the -country people. Mr. Calladine would come then and lean over the top -of the piano, watching her in the candlelight in that intent way he -had. She did not like this either; it was part of his elaborate and -disturbing manner, but she had too much pity for him to ask him to -desist. He seemed to like her singing; he always clapped his fine hands -softly together and begged for more. On the whole, she did not much -enjoy the evenings he spent at the Manor House; they were strained and -difficult; or, at least, so she thought, although he appeared unaware -of this, perfectly content, and in no hurry to take his leave. When -he at last did so, Clare, whose country idea of hospitality involved -accompanying her guest to the front door to see the last of him, was -always slightly relieved when she watched him button up his greatcoat, -climb into his gig, gather up the reins, and drive away into the night.</p> - -<p>His horse paced now beside hers, and, riding with his beautifully -light hands, he restrained its paces to suit her pony’s, all with that -air of chivalrous deference which she found so subtly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> irritating. -It conveyed that she was not able to take care of herself, but that -he must do it for her, in a playful, tactful way, while allowing her -apparent liberty, and she felt now that he had taken her away from the -games as he might have taken a little girl. It made her inclined to -start her pony off into a gallop, but she reproved herself, remembering -that Mr. Calladine was very much older than she was,—he must be -quite fifty,—and that it was kind and condescending of one so fine -and cultured to desire her company. At the same time, she could not -help contrasting his manner with Lovel’s; Lovel was often brusque and -even rude to her; he lost his temper with her sometimes, and never -apologised afterwards; it was all the more insolent in Lovel, for he -was not the gentleman that Calladine was.</p> - -<p>But she never felt with him the sense of strain that she felt with -Calladine. It seemed to her as natural to meet Lovel upon the Downs as -it would have been to meet a flock of sheep, and it never occurred to -her either to mention or to conceal the fact to her father. Calladine, -on the other hand,—she knew that when she got home, some obscure -instinct would impel her to say, “Father, I rode with Mr. Calladine.”</p> - -<p>They had allowed their horses to follow their own course, which in that -open country was possible for miles, and Clare now perceived that they -were being carried in the direction of a group of Grey Wethers. She did -not at all want to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> go to these particular Grey Wethers with Calladine; -but when she tried to head her pony away he immediately said, “Do let -us ride on as far as the Grey Wethers, Miss Clare. We have never been -there together, and I have a fancy to go there with you.” Clare gave -way; it was not worth hurting his feelings, perhaps, for a whim. They -rode on accordingly until they came to the strange derelict stones, -where, at Calladine’s instigation, they got off their horses and sat -down side by side on one of the stones. Clare wondered what the object -of this pause could be; then, looking at Calladine, she saw that he was -nervously twisting his fingers together, and appeared by the agitation -of his manner to have something on his mind which he was trying to say. -She was not much surprised; she had often seen him break out under the -influence of some unexplained emotion, and waited quietly for what was -to come. She was not much interested either; but if it did him good to -speak, then, poor man, by all means let him speak his fill. Finally, -she prompted him, almost with mischief, “You seem full of disturbing -thoughts, Mr. Calladine?”</p> - -<p>“I have something to say to you,” he began. “An explanation, more than -a confession. What do you know of me, after all? Very little, beyond -that I am a stranger settled in these parts, living a lonely life in -a remote farm-house with one old servant and a groom. You know that I -have no regular occupation; that I read the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>classics in a desultory -way; dabble in archæology, and interest myself in the local customs and -topography. You know that my leisure is unlimited, and my means ample. -You appear to take me for granted, but then I never attributed to you -an inquisitive mind. Have you ever wondered where I came from, and -why? have you, above all, never despised me a little for my idleness -of a dilettante while all around you you saw other men work for their -livelihood?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I have despised you a little for that,” she said frankly. “As -for the rest, no, I don’t think I have wondered. I don’t see why you -shouldn’t lead the life that pleases you best.”</p> - -<p>“Nevertheless,” he said, “I should like to give you my explanation, -if you will be patient enough to listen. I loved a woman once,” he -said, in a low mournful voice, as though he were disinterring the -memory of the dead from his very bowels, and while he spoke he kept -his eyes averted from Clare and held his unseeing gaze upon the clump -of beeches on the high skyline; “she was wholly a woman, yet every -great quality of woman she lacked; I mean to say, that in every mood -of capriciousness and grace she was as wholly and divinely a woman -as any woman who ever enchanted man and coloured the loveliness of -his days, but under the test of all graver issues her fluidity turned -to falseness and she slipped between my fingers. I never held her; -no, though I held her in my arms she eluded me; even while I thought -to possess her, her soul slid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> away from me in some new protean -shape, and danced and laughed and mocked my pursuit. Oh, she was a -will-o’-the-wisp dancing across the marshes of my life. For my life was -indeed a marsh in those days; I sank in quicksands; I struggled out -on to a tussock; I trusted myself again on what I took to be firmer -ground, I sank once more, I was sucked back at every step, I was -tempted to let myself sink for ever from sheer weariness and despair. -But she,—she was at home among the treacheries and miasmas where she -had led me; that light, vain soul could skim where I could only sink. -Do you wonder,” he said, letting his eyes travel slowly round the clean -sweep of the Downs, bare of all softness, and bringing them at last -to rest upon her face, “can you wonder that I came to repair my life -in this old, hard country? You may believe me or not, as you choose, -but I got that image of the marsh so firmly fixed in my mind that to -this day I can’t bear to walk across a bit of swampy ground, or even -along a muddy lane. You have water here, in your country, that’s true, -and plenty of it; but it’s straightforward water: running rivers, and -dew-ponds up here on the heights.”</p> - -<p>“It’s true,” she said; “’tis an old, hard country; and such ghosts as -there are are bleached bones by now, dry and clean; there’s no decay -about them. Why, I think that the ghosts that walk among the stones -must be as stern as the stones themselves; and that’s my fancy.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And mine too,” he replied, considering her; “and if anywhere the -uneasy dead return from their sleep,—though I am not saying that I -believe it to be so,—it should surely be hereabouts, for in the last -century there were enough tales current of witches and wise men, and -similar fascinations of the simple, to raise the longest-dead of old -Britons from his grave. But I scarcely think the local folk are much -troubled with such ideas. They come more readily to you and me, for I -am a stranger, as strangers are reckoned in country districts, where -the years only begin to count as they pass into centuries; the space of -time for an acorn to grow into an oak; and even you, who have been here -all your life long, are not native born. The spirit of this country -does not come to either of us as a natural right. We have learnt it, -and so must remain always more conscious of it than those to whom it is -as native speech.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him with the faintly puzzled expression of one who is out -of his depth.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she murmured uneasily, looking down at the ground, and kicking a -lump of chalk into powder with the toe of her shoe. She deeply resented -this association of herself and him as strangers to the country; Lovel -would not have spoken so!</p> - -<p>“You and I,” he went on, for it caressed his soul merely to utter -those words thus coupled, “tread at least as reverent intruders among -the rings and barrows. We do not rest among them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> as the shepherds -do, simply for shelter against the winds and sleets. I came to them -for healing; and you, even had you not been born with the capacity -for awe,—as you were, oh, as indeed I know you were!—would have -learnt it from that wise old man, your father. I have thought watching -him at that delicate fingering of his shards, how he had dealt out -to you the store of his scholar’s brain. To him, neat, tabulated, -chronological, precise, but filtering through to yours in a strange -jumble,—the painting of a bison on the wall of a cave, a man in thongs -and bearskins sharpening a flint, slow glaciers crawling over England, -kings buried on horseback in full panoply under a mound.”</p> - -<p>“And did you find healing?” she inquired, catching on to the remark she -could pursue with the least resentment.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I found it, yes, I found it,” he replied, morosely, “if I may call -that healing, which but exchanges one wound for another,—a poisonous -wound, let us say, for a clean sharp one. Yes, I may call it healing, -I suppose, for although my heart’s blood ebbs away through the fresh -wound, there is no longer any gangrene in my system. I am purified; -true, I may be dying, but at least I am purified. Yes, I found healing.”</p> - -<p>“Dying?” she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I spoke figuratively,” he replied with a toss of his hand; “don’t -be afraid, Miss Clare, that in the course of your rambles you will come -upon my body toppled down the side of a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>barrow,—though how should -that distress you, indeed, beyond the ordinary shock of stumbling -across a man recently dead? I am healthy enough of limb for a man of my -age. Fifty, I am, you know,—old enough to be your father. It was kind -of you to ask whether I found healing, and I am thankful to be able to -tell you that I did find it; the winds of my first winter, which nearly -blew my head off my shoulders and sent it bowling along these slopes, -blew away my noxious thoughts. I told you I was led into miasmas; well, -I brought them up here, clinging about me like a cloud, and the wind -blew them away.”</p> - -<p>“Yet you spoke of that woman just now with a good tang of bitterness,” -she said shrewdly.</p> - -<p>“Ah, well, I grudge the wasted years,” he returned, as though desirous -of dismissing it thus lightly. “You may take my word for it, Miss -Clare, that I have never bared that story to a soul except yourself; -and probably should never have bared it to you but for some foolish, -trivial reason I was anxious that you should hear it. Now that you -have heard it you shall not be troubled with it again, I promise you. -It is, moreover, an old story now; a score of years old, I should say, -though I have forgotten the dates, and in the ordinary way of things I -never think of it now. But people hereabouts have gossiped about me, I -know, as was only natural, and lest any story should come to your ears, -I prefer you to know the true one. You know it now; you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> know I am -neither a prisoner escaped, nor a deserter from the army, nor a hunter -of buried gold, nor any of the things which I have no doubt the village -has credited me with, but simply a man once disappointed in love, as -the saying goes, though Heaven knows whether those who coined that -saying knew what they were talking about, or to what tragedy they were -putting a name.”</p> - -<p>“All that’s said for my benefit,” said Clare sturdily; “you do think -on it now, and you haven’t forgotten the date; though maybe you will -cease to think on it, since you’ve spoken it out; and it’s no longer -simmering in your heart.”</p> - -<p>He was gratified that she should so readily have caught that inflection -in the voice which was meant to convey courage under sorrow, rather -than forgetfulness after the passing of years.</p> - -<p>“And should trouble come upon <i>you</i>,” he said very earnestly, “would -you place your confidence in me? I ask it as a favour,—as a slight -return. Whatsoever a duty a man might perform for you, will you call -upon me and no other? You cannot know how happy your promise would make -me. You are youth incarnate amongst these ancient hills.” He dared not -say more, but continued to gaze at her with urgent and beseeching eyes.</p> - -<p>“Why, I think I can promise that,” she said slowly, though puzzled -again and perplexed by his earnestness. “I think one could place -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>confidence in you, although you are so strange and unaccountable -both in your ways and talk. I think you would be as vehement in your -friendship as you seem to be in your thoughts. I think you would grieve -very much,” she continued, examining him, “if you were to fail in -carrying out a mission for a friend.”</p> - -<p>“For you,” he interjected. “My service is not so freely placed at -everybody’s disposal. You will have no rival claimant on my obedience.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I will give you my promise,” she said, “though I would have you -understand, Mr. Calladine,” she added with a childish importance, “that -I am not in the least likely to make any call upon you. I am very well -able to take care of myself, nor is any trouble, as you say, likely to -come upon me.”</p> - -<p>“Hush, don’t boast,” he cried, looking fearfully round, and half in -mocking he added, “Who knows what sardonic spirits may be listening to -your boasting? Anyway, you have given me your promise, and I should -like you to seal it. Give me your hand,—not so reluctantly,”—for he -had felt it struggle faintly like a caught bird,—“we are friends, you -know,—and for one who professes to have confidence in me, I declare -you give proof of having very little,—now lay your hand upon this -stone, and I will put mine over it,—now repeat this vow after me....”</p> - -<p>“No, no,” she said, frightened, and trying to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> draw her hand away; -“it’s profane; that may be a sacrificial stone for all we know....”</p> - -<p>“And so resent the invocation of a Christian God?” he completed for -her with a laugh, but the extreme agitation of his manner underneath -his laughter alarmed her. “Or is it of me, and not really of the -stone, that you are afraid? Surely you cannot think that your own Grey -Wethers would harm you? So it must be of me,—a bad beginning to your -confidence! Why, before very long you will be giving the same promise -to another man lest you should require defence against myself.”</p> - -<p>“I was never afraid of any one yet,” she said, flaming up, “Mr. -Calladine, and as a proof of it there is my hand; now do what you like -with it. I think that you are very bitter and wild, but I am sure that -you would not make the worse ally for that. And no woman would say less -than that you were wild and bitter, if she had heard you talk the way -I have often heard you talk; but that does not mean that I am afraid -of you, for I am not, nor of any one in this world,” she repeated, -challenging him to contradict her.</p> - -<p>“No, daughter of the Downs,” he said with much gravity, still holding -her hand in his own.</p> - -<p>She stamped her foot.</p> - -<p>“You laugh at me, Mr. Calladine; well, if you treat me as a child, why -exact such promises from me as the one you have just asked for? But I -am not a child; I am nineteen,” she said.</p> - -<p>“My dear,—my dear young lady,” he said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> amending the endearment into -that conventional phrase, “it is only because you are, or soon will be, -so very much of a woman that I besought your promise. Come, solemnize -it without any further delay; swear, not by the Christian God, but by -the Grey Wethers themselves, by their age, and their mystery. You will -have the advantage of me if you can devise an oath more potent or more -occult.”</p> - -<p>He laid her hand, which he had not relinquished, palm downward upon the -stone. The stone was cold to her touch, but Calladine’s hand pressed -over her own was by contrast dry and burning. She swore as he had -commanded her to do, half in derision of his fancifulness, half still -in the lurking alarm she was too proud to betray. He appeared to be -satisfied, and released her, though not without reluctance at letting -her hand go, and for a moment he wished he had never taken possession -of it, when he noted the alacrity with which she took it back, and -the surreptitious rub she gave it on the side of her riding-coat. “So -that is how she feels about my touch!” he said to himself, but only -a greater gentleness stole into his manner as he thanked her for her -compliance and held her stirrup for her to mount her pony. She sat -easily, boyishly, in her saddle, looking down on him, and a certain -melancholy, that was not without its solicitude on her part, and its -wistfulness on his, overcame them both in reaction to the overcharged -scene which had taken place between them. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I don’t want you to be unhappy,—indeed I don’t,” she said, “Mr. -Calladine; and please do not think it impertinence on my part to -assume that you are. I know of course that I am too young to pry into -your affairs; I haven’t the wisdom necessary; in fact I haven’t any -qualification except sympathy, and I do ask you to believe that I have -that. We have been friends for such a long time,” she said, looking -down at him as though she felt a passing though true impulse to come -closer to the bitterness of his spirit.</p> - -<p>His hand resting on her pony’s neck, he looked up with a rueful -gratitude, by no means displeased that she should use the words “wild” -and “bitter” about him, or treat his sorrows with so much veneration. -He had not the heart to break her illusion of her own kindness with -scornful words, but gave her a smile, which cost him a greater effort -than he would have cared to acknowledge, and which he hoped would be -adequate to reassure her. She smiled back at him, brightly; and with a -touch of the heel put her pony into motion. He watched her ride away, -along the ridge of Down, her slight figure swaying easily to the pony’s -walk; and presently he saw her break into a canter, and heard the beat -of the pony’s hoofs on the hard turf, until she was carried out of -sight and hearing over the curve of the hill.</p> - -<p class="space-above">It was so characteristic of Nicholas Lovel to keep away from the -Scouring! Clare thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> how the rest of the villagers must dislike -him for his detachment. Not that he cared what the villagers said, -beyond wishing that they would leave him and his affairs alone as far -as possible,—a vain hope. Clare knew quite well that she could never -have inveigled him into making friends with her but for their very -early friendship when she was a child and he little more than a boy, -when, in fact, he could not fear a rebuff from her, and, meeting her -on the Downs, he had told her how to ride her pony, how to read the -signs of the weather, and a dozen scraps of country craft which she had -assimilated with great respect for his wisdom. They had drifted into -a curious, desultory intimacy. Because they knew each other only in -this detached way,—etherialised, as it were; stripped of the ordinary -routine of friendship;—because she knew nothing of his life, and he -nothing of hers; each knowing only the other’s Down-life; each admitted -only into the other’s solitude, a part of that solitude rather than an -intrusion; because they were really strangers to one another,—there -existed between them a complete ease and understanding. All formalities -were absent; they never thought of greeting one another when they met; -they never thought of talking except when they could continue the -current of their thoughts aloud. When they sighted one another upon -the Downs, they simply converged until their horses fell into pace -side by side. Often their first remark, spoken after long preliminary -silence,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> was without context or explanation, like a bubble rising to -the surface from what had been going on within their minds beneath. To -be together was like being alone. Clare never talked to Lovel about -her father, or about the Manor House; Lovel never talked to her about -his difficulties, or about his pursuits, legitimate or illegitimate. -At times their talk was purely practical, when he would show her how -to cast a fly, or how to throw a sheep for shearing, or how to twist a -rough basket out of osiers; at other times it was all theoretical, and -there was no puzzle, discontent, or aspiration they would not touch on -or thrash out. Quite abruptly, sometimes, he would break off and leave -her. She never thought of asking him, next time, why he had done so, -any more than she would have thought of asking the breeze why it had -dropped. There were weeks together in which she never saw him at all; -he came and went in her life like the rover that he was. When they -passed each other in the village, they gave no sign of recognition; -they had never alluded to this, yet each knew that the other was -amused by the tacit convention. She knew, of course, where he lived, -though the site, appearance, and actuality of his dwelling seemed to -her singularly unimportant. Half way down the village street stood -a house, small, but very massively built of grey stones, quarried, -in point of fact, barbarously from the monoliths that had been the -constant resource of the local builders. The front door, when it stood -open on to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> street, showed to passers-by a long dark passage, -like a tunnel, at the further end of which opened suddenly the light -and glow of the square walled garden, with its brilliant green turf, -its one dark cedar, and its patches of sunlit flowers. The front door -was surmounted by a porch, resting on two round columns; along the -architrave of this porch was painted in neat black lettering the name: -<span class="smcap">Nicholas Lovel</span>. It might have seemed curious to a stranger -that no further indication should follow on to this superscription; -there was nothing to inform the ignorant whether Nicholas Lovel was by -trade a farrier, a joiner, a shoesmith, a tailor, or even the keeper -of an inn; whether one might enter by the open door, and, taking -one’s seat at a table within, rap against a glass and call loudly for -the landlord. But strangers were few and far between, and among the -habitual population of the village the circumstances of the Lovels had -been threshed out so often that you might have imagined the topic would -fall upon wearied ears. There were few trades to which young Lovel -could not turn his hand. He could plough a field,—and in straight -furrows, too,—he could build a rick, and thatch it when it was built, -he could repair a waggon or repaint a gig, he could get the better of -a horse-coper at his own job, or of a pedlar at his own chaffering, -he could cure a sick ewe and bring back to life a weakling lamb, he -could cane a chair and twist up a basket of osiers in less time than it -takes to tell, he could snare a rabbit and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> slip under the very nose -of the keepers, he could drink most men under the table and walk most -men off their legs, and amongst the girls of the village there was not -one who at one time or another had not set her cap at young Lovel, and -got from him in return neither a civil nor an uncivil word. Yet for -all these, and other, accomplishments, there was no one trade which he -regularly practised. Any man might call him in for a stray job, whether -as a farm-hand, a carpenter, or a shepherd, and many were the bribes -which had been offered to induce him to accept regular employment: he -declined them all. Gipsy Lovel, they called him in the village; whether -on account of his name, his looks, or his vagrant practising, was -not defined, probably all three. In appearance he was dark and lean; -his Roman features bronzed to a polish, so tightly his skin seemed -stretched over his bones; and with the brown corduroy breeches of an -ordinary yeoman he usually wore a dark red shirt, which accentuated his -already outlandish appearance. In speech he was reserved and sardonic, -as might be expected by those who knew,—at least by report,—the -circumstances of his life at home. Except by report, none could know -them, for no one was ever invited to cross that most inhospitable of -thresholds.</p> - -<p>And further, there was Nicholas Lovel’s younger brother Olver, by the -kind-hearted given occasional employment on odd jobs of carpentering, -house-painting, and the like, for he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> skilful enough as a workman, -and could be trusted to carry out his directions with the fidelity of -that kind of brain commonly known as “simple.” He might have passed -as a good-looking youth, with tight, chestnut curls and eyes of a -curiously pale blue, rimmed with black round the iris, but for the -oblique and cunning expression that was apt to cross his face like a -cloud drifting across the moon, and the slight hint of deformity that -clung about him,—a deformity so indefinite, that it was impossible to -say precisely where it lay, whether in his neck being slightly sunk -into his shoulders, or in his head being slightly too large for his -body, or in his hands being slightly too well-formed, too sensitive -for the hands of a workman, or in his tread being slightly too catlike -for one of his build and bulk. He had in the village the reputation -of slyness, a sudden shrewdness, that was disquieting and therefore -repulsive in one whom mere simplicity would have entitled to the -charity of all men. From this reputation of cunning the legend had -grown in the village, as such things grow always in that fertile virgin -soil of ignorance, the legend had grown into a variety of sinister -shapes, all ornamented with copious and more or less picturesque -detail: Olver Lovel’s grandmother had been burned for a witch; his -mother, who was kept in such seclusion now by the severity of Nicholas, -was a witch also; Olver himself practised wizardry; he went out of -his mind when the moon was full; he was mortally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> feared by all -animals,—this indeed was true, and a matter of common knowledge;—he -controlled his evil impulses only through fear of his brother, but -if his brother were to be taken away, then God help them all! These -were only a few of the things that were openly uttered about Olver -Lovel. Nicholas himself was not above suspicion. He had the same eyes -as his brother, of the palest blue with those curious black rims, -and the effect in his dark face, with his black hair, was certainly -very strange. But people did not fear Nicholas as they feared Olver. -Nicholas was a straight-forward man, reserved and uncompromising -because his pride had so much to suffer, and no doubt his endurance -too, living as he did between his two unusual relations; they had, on -the whole, a good deal of sympathy and respect for Nicholas. It was -no life, they said, for a young man. But who could help him? He would -let no one near him, either literally or figuratively; pride was the -hardest defence to deal with. A harsh young man; but he had much to put -up with. And if he was harsh towards himself and forbidding towards -other men, let them at least do him the justice to say that towards -dumb beasts he had the gentleness of a woman for a child; ay, and the -instinct too: the quick kind touch, and the certain remedy.</p> - -<p class="space-above">The villagers thought him lonely,—even lonelier than he actually was, -for they knew nothing of the friendship between him and Miss <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>Warrener. -They knew, certainly, that he sometimes went fishing with her down -to the Kennet, but they thought nothing of that, for any young lady -might be expected to take a man to carry her rod and landing-net, to -fix her bait, and to deal with her catch. It wasn’t likely that even -Miss Warrener would care to dabble in a mess of worms, or to get her -fingers covered with scales, slime, and cold blood. No, nor to have -the troublesome job of killing a pike, who of all the animal creation -surely clung the most tenaciously to life. What they did not know of -was the Down-life shared by Clare and Lovel; for on those splendid, -solitary heights they could meet and meet again, unobserved by any save -the sheep, the larks, and the circling hawks, indifferent to the pacing -side by side of the two horses over the bitten turf. Various were the -avocations which took Lovel to the Downs, and if occasion required he -would call on Clare to lend him a hand, ordering her about, and she, -meekly, followed his directions as an apprentice. She had even been in -his shepherd’s-hut with him all day during the lambing season, when -a blizzard swept across the hills, and he had his hands so full with -his poor ewes that must be tended and sheltered that he had no time -left for niceties to spare Clare’s feelings. With set teeth she had -helped him that day, and had counted his brief comment at the end as -a well-earned reward. And she had ridden away in the evening with her -head held down against the driven sleet, and her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> pony’s mane blown -right across his neck with little lumps of ice in the rough hair, and -behind her the yellow light that shown in the window of Lovel’s hut had -grown smaller and more distant, and she had known that during the whole -of the night and of many days and nights to follow he would keep the -vigil attendant upon his trade, and would lay on the straw beside his -little paraffin lamp the poor weak new-comers into so unpropitious a -world.</p> - -<p>In all seasons and weathers she had known the Downs with him, and like -sailors at sea they had accepted the bad with the good, without thought -of avoidance. Like all English country people, they disliked extremes -of heat as well as extremes of cold; a high summer’s day, when the -heat winked along the ridge of the hills, held for them none of that -poetic quality it holds for the idle. Their point of view was sober -and practical; if feed grew short, they hoped for rain; if the corn in -the lowlands were flattened by rain, they hoped for fine weather; it -was simple. If the day were a holiday,—that is to say, if Lovel had -taken no job,—then they were as content as any other idlers to lie -soaked in sun upon the most exposed flank of upland they could find. -They would pull the long grass to nibble it down to the juice at the -end, or Lovel with a blade of grass drawn taut between his thumbs would -shrill the empty air with strange whistlings, or they would tease the -ants and small insects by walling them in with a circle of miniature -chalk cliffs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> Their laughter spread with the song of the larks as -fresh and clear as water, and the great spaces lay all around them with -the cloud-shadows chasing one another down and over the slopes, and -creating in their overhead passage the perpetual variety of mood and -colour of the Down-country.</p> - -<p>Down-country, so temperamental; in halcyon days bright and blithe; -candid in its well-being, wholesome in its wind-cleaned delight; yet -keeping in the valleys and sweeping folds the deeper shadows which -gave it tone like the soberness of some latent melancholy. Upon the -heights it would receive the sun, and glitter and rejoice like a woman -in love, but the cup of the valleys was deep with a greater richness, -with remembrance, and foreboding. So, although simple and large in -outline, the country,—to Clare and Lovel personal, not inanimate,—was -not simple with a shallow or trivial simplicity; not the simplicity -of ignorance or emotional poverty; but with a wisdom that still -had the courage to be gay,—the reckless gaiety of the profoundly -tragic. No monotony was possible over that landscape of sunburnt tan, -of blue distances, and stains of a lowering purple. No monotony, -no sentimentality; the moods all visible at once over the range of -country, all definite and certain of their intention, whether the naked -sunburnt heights, or the brooding plunge of shadow.</p> - -<p>Only in winter that ever-present reminder of tragedy fulfilled -itself. In summer and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> autumn it robed itself in peacock colours, -blue and bronze, a sorrow as sumptuous as the sorrow of a queen. But -in the winter the splendour was gone, only an austerity like stone -remained; grey disillusioned Downs, shaven by the winds, shelterless, -inconsolable. Then came the snow; and up here, where no trees but -the beech-clumps broke the white, where no hedges strove with their -little maudlin pretence of security to lessen the rigour of the country -towards the softness of man, here no flinching availed; grief was -naked as joy had been naked, to be met and fought with, until that -despondency should pass and the heights leap out once more into the -sun of spring, with only the reverberations of the storm rolling still -about the valleys.</p> - -<p>Lovel, who resembled the Downs themselves both in his exuberance of -spirit with the threat ever-lurking, and in his despair, which was so -extravagant and so profound when it overcame him that it seemed he -could never again lift himself out of the slough,—Lovel who for all -his thought and his reading had never looked into himself or named what -he would have found there,—Lovel who could no more control his moods -than the Downs could forbid the sun to burnish their gold-brown slopes -or the blizzard to rack them with a hell-ride of gale and sleet,—Lovel -came upon Clare standing in the sun knee-deep in a dew-pond on one of -the highest ridges of the Downs.</p> - -<p>Her patient pony, well-accustomed, strayed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> and browsed near at hand; -he snuffed the dry thymy turf; he plucked with disdain at a tuft of -grass fit only for sheep-pasture. This was not horse-pasture, this -bare beggarly brown turf up here in the glitter of the sun, beneath -the exposed and unsheltered windiness of the sky. Open country, open -country; no higher peaks to climb; miles of open rolling country -on every side. The clean and airy liberty of open country under a -blue-and-white heaven. Clare stood in the circle of the dew-pond -holding her skirts picked up above her knees. She was laughing; she had -seen first the ears of Lovel’s horse prick up over the rim of the hill, -then she had seen Lovel himself, not looking to find her, then the -shoulders of his horse, breasting the sharp climb, then the complete -slim silhouette of horse and rider and two dogs at heel. And she had -hailed him; a shout of laughter mingled in with his name; she had -hailed him. At the top he had drawn rein, shading his eyes against the -sun, and looking down he had seen her, standing down in the bowl of the -dew-pond. He had caught her in the act of hesitation, afraid lest she -should venture out of her depth. Capless, she stood in the dew-pond, -holding up her skirts, and her white legs disappeared just below the -knee into the water. She laughed up at him, holding her head a little -on one side in the way he knew well, which gave her a fleeting and -elusive appearance, so that her mouth and eyes seemed to slant upwards -with a fugitive and sylvan air, which materialised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> but rarely,—or -when, as now, he caught her at an angle,—but which always hovered -there, not always willing to be revealed, but ready to glance out at -the right summons, to whomsoever should hold the shibboleth to produce -it.</p> - -<p>He drew rein, looking down at her, and her pony whinnied a recognition, -and strayed loose to join Lovel’s horse.</p> - -<p>“Not deep!” he called to her.</p> - -<p>She ventured a few steps further.</p> - -<p>“You have seen it empty,” he rallied her.</p> - -<p>“Do you know the secret?” she asked, stopping. The water, disturbed by -her advance, rippled round her knees.</p> - -<p>“Very few know it,” he replied cryptically.</p> - -<p>“Ah, but you, Lovel, you know all those secrets. How do they puddle the -clay? How, to hold the water? I am sure you know it, Lovel! Are you a -dowser, too? they say so, in the village. They say you can pace over -the country until the hazel-twigs jump in your hand. Is it true?”</p> - -<p>“They say a lot of things in the village,” he replied laughing.</p> - -<p>“Does it matter to you what they say?”</p> - -<p>“Not when I’m up here,” he replied, tossing his head, and his horse -tossed his head too, and the bridle jingled.</p> - -<p>“Well, but tell me the secret of how they make the dew-ponds,” she -persisted, kicking with her foot into the water.</p> - -<p>“The secret would soon be a secret no longer,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> he answered, putting -her off. “And I never said I knew it.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but you do,” she said; and thought that those who knew the secret -of the dew-ponds got their knowledge in a straight line of tradition -from the earliest inhabitants of those regions. “Oh, I do envy you, -Lovel,” she said, forgetting that she stood in water and stamping with -her foot so that it splashed up round her, “I do envy you all the queer -things you have got behind you,—they all seem to run into your fingers -with your blood.”</p> - -<p>He laughed again,—he seemed to be in a good humour to-day, and well -he might be, with the bright grass glistening round his horse’s feet, -and over his head the bright blue-and-white spaces where the kestrels -hovered like little specks, and the green pattern of the fields far, -far below. He leant over in his saddle to pat the neck of Clare’s -muzzling pony; they were very much alone up there, with the two -horses and the two dogs, and the clouds racing by. She stood in the -dew-pond with that fleeting look still upon her face, as though she -were a nymph,—a nymph of English uplands, of so fresh and candid and -sky-mirroring a thing as a dew-pond. The olive and the myrtle were -alien to her; the pony and the sheep were her beasts, not the goat; -the round pool of water at her feet shone like the fallen shield of a -young Amazon. He looked down at her; she looked up at him; they both -represented their own particular aspect of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> romance, each to the other. -“Lovel!” she said, happily. They shared well-being; their own physical -well-being, and the wholesome cleanliness of the Downs and sky.</p> - -<p class="space-above">It was some days after this that Clare received from Calladine an -invitation to visit him at Starvecrow. Although she was immediately -aware that she would not reply with a refusal, she felt a shiver of -chill as though she had been beckoned in from the warm sunshine to a -cold and cavernous place. The impression was alarmingly vivid both -in generality and detail. She had met the groom coming up the short -carriage-drive of the Manor House, and after reading Calladine’s note -looked up at the gaunt, raw-boned animal that the groom was riding, at -its ugly quarters, and long melancholy head; she looked into the basket -in which Calladine had sent her an offering, and saw the trout lying on -their bed of long grasses, neatly ranged, pointed nose alternating with -forked tail. The gift seemed to her gruesome and faintly absurd; trout, -cold, plump, and dead. Yet on the evenings when she had gone fishing -with Lovel under the willows, the trout as they laid them in the long -lush grass had seemed gleaming and iridescent, cool from the water, and -together they had examined the scales on the meshes of the landing-net. -Lovel had lifted up their gills with his fingers, and had compared -them to the under-side of a mushroom. But these trout of Calladine’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> -were merely dead; their eyes protruded; their gills were closed. She -glanced up at the groom, and fancied that a despondency clung about -him as about his horse, an absence of joy; and then she thought that -this gloom came upon Calladine’s possessions because he revelled in -having it so; the very name of his house, Starvecrow!—had he taken the -house for the sake of its name! had he bought this horse because of its -starting bones and dejected droop? engaged the groom for his sallow, -unshaven appearance and lank hair? dismal envoys that he might send in -reminder from Starvecrow out into a cheerful world?</p> - -<p>She turned slowly towards the house, carrying the basket of trout on -her arm. She had sent back a message of thanks to Calladine with an -intimation that she would visit him on the following day, and already -the prospect of this visit was hanging over her, damp and chill. -Listlessly, when the afternoon arrived she put on her muslin frock and -her big straw bonnet, listening meanwhile for the sound of wheels on -the gravel; she saw her own reflection in her mirror, saw herself cool -and outwardly serene, but the picture gave her little pleasure. This -with Calladine was one of the few appointments she had ever made in -her free life, and it irked her curiously. From the first moment of -her waking in the morning she had felt tied. Like a hobbled colt she -wanted to kick herself free. That her afternoon should be restricted, -ordained in advance,—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>in the midst of her resentment she had laughed -at her childishness, had been ashamed of her egoism. What would become -of her were she suddenly to find herself bound for life? She had been -content to look after her father’s innocent wants; she had not shown -herself selfish towards him; she could absolve herself from that -charge; but then, he had not encroached on her comings and goings; she -had given freely from love what she might have refused from duty. This -appointment with Calladine was a duty; now she was tied; she could not -take her pony or her fishing-rod this afternoon if the whim seized -her. No, she must wait obediently for the arrival of Calladine’s gig; -she must climb into it and sit meekly beside the sallow groom while -he drove her to Starvecrow. Arrived there, Calladine would be waiting -for her, and his pleasure would be her irritation. The appointment -which had been a restraint to her would have been only a delight to -him. A sulky child, she stared out of the window for the approach of -the gig. She heard it now; the scrunch of the wheels, the clop-clop -of the horse’s trot, and now it came into sight, the familiar high, -ramshackle affair, gaunt horse and all, clanking up the carriage-drive -and stopping in its abrupt, dislocated way in front of the door. Clare -went down. Martha Sparrow was in the hall; she crooned over Clare in -her lilac-coloured gown. “A flower come to life, my pretty child....” -Mr. Warrener came out of his study; he saw Clare standing in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> the -shadowy hall with Martha fingering round at her flounces; he pushed his -spectacles on to his forehead. “Why, Clare, where are you going?” “To -Mr. Calladine, father, I told you.” “Ah, to be sure, to be sure; well, -he has all the luck; you’re a pretty thing to see.” She kissed him, -laughed, sprang up into the gig, it started off clumsily, swaying from -side to side, and the Manor House was lost to sight behind the trees.</p> - -<p>The gaunt horse spanked along the lanes; Clare did not talk to the -groom, who drove with a serious concentration which promised no -unbending. She wondered whether all the servants with whom Calladine -surrounded himself were as unprepossessing. She was often more than -a little impatient with Calladine for his deliberate mournfulness; -but, more especially since he had told her in so strange a manner the -history of his life’s passion, she had tried to school herself into a -reverent sympathy. She felt that she was very young and consequently -ignorant, and that he was old, sad, experienced, and entitled to her -respect. Instinctively she folded her hands in her lap, and sat demure. -But in a moment she was again laughing at herself, and, although she -tried to reprove herself for the levity, at him. The vexation of the -appointment was lifting from her; her spirits rose, now that she -was out in the lanes and could watch the caterpillars hanging from -the oaks; she would not be affected by Calladine’s gloom, by his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> -soberness, his measured smiles. Of what use could she be to him if -she allowed herself to become as repressed in his presence as he was -himself? Turning to the groom, she began to talk to him, persevering -until she got a response, and even some growls of information about -Mr. Calladine’s stable; as Clare uncovered her own knowledge, the man -became less grudging, and presently as their argument developed along -lines of expert interest he was impelled to say that Miss Warrener -evidently knew a horse when she saw one. Clare laughed merrily, and -valued the compliment extremely. What she knew, she replied, she had -learnt from experience and from Gipsy Lovel,—for she was glad of an -opportunity of pronouncing his name. Ah, that was a chap for a horse, -he said; or indeed for anything that went on four legs; that was the -chap to go to a horse-fair with; Miss Warrener would never be cheated -if she had Gipsy Lovel to give her advice. He seemed to have a feeling -about horse-flesh; no need to pull their mouths open or run his hand -over their fetlocks. He, the groom, wondered that Lovel didn’t set up -as a horse-dealer himself. He would guarantee that Lovel could take -in most men in the county; yes, and the whole West of England, for -the matter of that. Clare triumphed in his sudden loquacity. Even -the gaunt horse seemed to be sharpening its pace,—though possibly -that might be only because they were drawing nearer to Starvecrow. -The groom laid the whip across<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> its withers, and it broke into a sort -of bundling half-canter which rocked the gig up and down and obliged -Clare to cling on to her big hat; she was amused, because she thought -that this was the effect of Lovel. They had come now to a particularly -deserted tract of country, along the foot of the Downs; and, after -climbing the slope a little way, they saw a group of buildings upon an -eminence, sheltered,—if shelter it might be called,—by a thicket of -wind-blown thorn upon the easterly side. Other trees there were none, -nor any other houses within sight, nothing but the tan rolling of the -Downs and the road that climbed the hill and was lost to sight over the -other side. She descried Calladine there at his gate, waiting for her, -exactly as she had expected to find him. “I hesitated between coming to -fetch you myself, and remaining here to welcome you when you arrived,” -he said, as he came forward to help her out of the gig.</p> - -<p>She knew at once how pleased he was to see her. There was no -affectation about his pleasure. It was a tremendous event for him -to receive her at his house, and he conducted her with infinite -solicitude, and a half-hesitation which, she knew, was intended to -give her the opportunity of noticing and commenting upon every detail. -By a curious process now all the naïveté of her childishness and her -upbringing dropped from her, and she became as delicately gracious as -any skilful woman; she remained a little aloof from him, receiving -his deference as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> though it were her due, rewarding him in exchange -with her friendliness and her interest, smiling at his eagerness with -an amused and sympathetic smile, placing here and there the word of -approval he most desired, and bestowing upon his possessions the -appreciation or the gentle derision which for ever after would advance -them in his eyes. He had never before seen her in this mood. He was -bewildered and charmed. He had known her delightful and inconsequent, -wayward and perplexing; he had seen her as a child, he had thought -of her as a spirit, he had never yet seen her as a woman. Her very -gestures, he thought, were different; quieter, more secure; and yet she -had not lost that fugitive air of hers, that shy grace; the combination -enchanted him. He followed her into the house; he was sure, now, that -Starvecrow was pleasing her; he need not have been so apprehensive. To -rest his eyes upon her in his little hall, so cool in her lilac frock, -filled him with the deepest and most disturbing joy. It was he, now, -who grew tremulous and at a loss, while she remained so exquisitely -self-possessed. Seeing that he scarcely knew how best to carry on his -hospitality,—for he seemed incapable of anything but of gazing at -her,—it was she who led the way into the inner room, and touched his -books and looked at the pictures on his walls, and at the view out of -his window. Had he but known it, she was thinking Starvecrow worthy of -its name, a desolate place, in a situation without the grandeur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> to -compensate for its austerity, and without the comfort to excuse its -meanness.</p> - -<p>“You should plant some cottage roses against your house,” she said, -“and some bushes of Old Man’s Beard.”</p> - -<p>“It shall be done,” he replied, without taking his eyes off her.</p> - -<p>She sat down in his worn old leather chair, took off her hat, and -hung it on the chair-knob. She seemed to him to light the room by her -presence, the room which was dingy if not actually poor, and which had -never before had in it anything so delicate and fresh as Clare with -her muslins and her small yellow head leaning against the chair-back. -But he was afraid almost of speaking to her, lest he should scare her -away, so like was she to some small shy animal which by wary gentleness -he should have enticed into his home. “You are wearing all the colours -of the dawn,” he said, “lavender and primrose,” and ceased because he -dared not go on to the blue of her eyes, that he thought like the blue -of the early sky.</p> - -<p>She smiled at him. “You have made no garden here, in all your twenty -years,” she said. “You should build a wall round a square enclosure, -and fill the beds between your paths. The wall would protect you -against the wind and you should grow lupin and iris and tulips, -honesty, sweet sultan, and snapdragons, and a path down the centre -between cottage lilies and China roses.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> - -<p>She was speaking against her own convictions; she infinitely preferred -her Downs uncultivated; but her instinct, strangely indulgent towards -Calladine, told her what would most comfort him.</p> - -<p>“I have no heart to do such things,” he replied, “but since you order -it I will set about it immediately.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Calladine,” she said, leaning forward, “when you answer me so -gravely, are you indeed serious, or are you laughing at me in your -sleeve?”</p> - -<p>“Serious! you can have no idea how serious,” he exclaimed, tempted to -speak out his whole heart, as he had never before been tempted, by the -sight of her earnest eyes; and he got up, and walked about the room. -“Don’t you know, that your caprice would be my only interest? my only -law? You are the only person,” he said, recollecting himself, “that has -taken an interest in my poor concerns,—cared whether I steeped myself -in sorrow or dragged myself out into the wholesomeness of a new life.” -(“Ah,” cried Clare’s conscience within her, “how little I have cared!”) -“But for you,” he went on, “I should have continued in my dejection; -only your encouragement, lately, has revived me, and I have realised -that I was not the old and finished man I had resigned myself to be. If -you order me a garden, I will turn gardener at fifty,—if you, that is, -will be my critic and my adviser, if you will command me to do this and -do that.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> - -<p>She saw, then, how easily swayed he was, and how an idea could take -possession of his mind, for beyond an occasional kindness she could not -be said to have interested herself at all in his concerns or to have -encouraged him to forsake the gloomy ways of retrospect or his solitary -habits of life. Still she was very glad that his imagination should be -able to thrive on such meagre nourishment; it did her no harm, and she -was glad if it might do him good.</p> - -<p>“You have surely thought for long enough about the past,” she said idly.</p> - -<p>Again he seized upon her words, and she reflected with some amusement -that she had never imagined any one so susceptible to suggestion.</p> - -<p>“I will act on what you say,” he exclaimed. He went across to his -writing table and took from his drawer an etching of a woman, slightly -tinted, with coarse curly hair, cruel eyes, and a large beautiful -mouth. Calladine tore it into fragments; he flung the pieces on the -ground and stamped on them. “I never had the courage to do that -before,” he said, staring at Clare and breathing heavily; he looked -really frightened at what he had done, and she knew that he wanted -her to reassure him. For her part she wanted to laugh, but knew that -she must not. “You should have done it years ago,” she said sensibly, -“instead of living in the house with that locked into your drawer.”</p> - -<p>“I used to take it out in the evening and pore over it until it nearly -came alive,” whispered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> Calladine. He kicked the fragments with his -toe. “You are my angel,—my guardian,” he said, turning passionately to -Clare.</p> - -<p>She saw that the contradictory being was greatly shaken by what he -had done. “He will regret it, and be glad,—be glad, and then regret -again,” she thought shrewdly to herself. She wondered whether she had -done wisely in not stopping his hand: would he be freed henceforth, or -would he be haunted? “Now burn those pieces,” she said with authority, -“or I shall think of you trying to piece them together again, when you -sit alone here in the evenings.” The idea was half-frightening to her, -and half-absurd. “Burn them,” she repeated, pointing to the grate.</p> - -<p>There was no fire, but Calladine obediently gathered up the fragments -and burnt each one separately, holding its corner to a lighted match. -Clare watched him, thinking how familiar must once have been to him -those shredded features, how he must have kissed that beautiful mouth -and imagined that he sought for truth in those narrow eyes which only -returned him mockery. He knelt beside the grate, burning carefully, and -crumbling the charred paper between his fingers, piece by piece. She -felt sorry for him suddenly.</p> - -<p>“You must not be lonely without your picture,” she said with great -gentleness.</p> - -<p>“I hated it,” said Calladine; “let it go; you have delivered me. You -saw her, didn’t you, before I burnt her? you saw her exactly as she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> -was: I was no match for her.” Clare thought that he could probably -say this without exaggeration, and that, had she herself met the -other woman, few words would have been necessary between them for the -understanding of Calladine. How deep was the confederacy of sex! she -had never thought of it before; she smiled at Calladine with a detached -pity. “I have no longer any past,” he went on, “only the present, -hourly more lovely. Shall we go out for a little and leave the dust of -the past to settle in this room?”</p> - -<p>Clare was glad to go out, for the room was making upon her a sad and -cold impression, but she found little comfort in the exterior of the -house, ungarnished as it well could be. She began to talk to Calladine -again about the garden he must make, for not only was she really -distressed for his own sake by the bleakness of his dwelling, but -annoyed, almost, in a feminine way, by the man’s incompetence to deal -with his own existence, and not unflattered, either, by his submission -to her directions and the attentiveness with which he received every -word that came from her lips. She saw that he clung to her as his -salvation; she became more autocratic, with a pretty tyranny. She would -transform his patch of desert into an oasis; she, over at King’s Avon -would think of this Starvecrow as blooming into gaiety and colour by -her orders. Calladine watched her, and she knew that he watched. But -she never allowed him to speak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> of herself, keeping him rigorously -to the business of his new garden; her laughter rang out, and she -rallied him, awaking almost against his will the rare smile on his -melancholy lips. At moments he thought, as he followed her about, that -he must stretch out his hands and cry to her “Clare! Clare!” No one -ever treated him as Clare treated him; other people always took him at -the valuation he set upon himself, composed their faces to a becoming -sobriety as soon as they perceived his own, and quitted his grave -company with relief. He chose to construe their acquiescence into a -grim sort of flattery. But Clare was privileged; Clare might assume -whatever mood she would; he would endeavour to follow her, perhaps -clumsily, for he had lost,—or liked to think that he had lost,—the -habit of lightheartedness; still, she should teach it to him again and -he would renew his youth.</p> - -<p>He had come to the age when the sense of passing days induced a panic. -Clare had youth, Clare had a reserve of youth on which he could draw -without impoverishing her; he felt that she gave him life as surely as -if he drank it at her breast.</p> - -<p>She seemed, as she stood in the centre of the square she had designated -as his future garden, to be all the flowers which should blow there -presently at her command. He said this to her, in that courtly -artificial manner he had of saying such things, with so much froth of -emotion underneath. It was the first personal remark he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> made to -her since they had come out of the house, and it gave him relief. But -she only laughed again, and this time he could have shaken her with -rough hands for her laughter, and for her holding off the words which -would stifle him if they remained unspoken. “Clare,” he said violently.</p> - -<p>She glanced at him with that new self-possession; she was maddening -him, though not with the purpose he would have attributed to any other -woman. How she eluded him! how she would perpetually elude him! and so -hold him forever. He knew himself to be fastidious enough to esteem -only that which he had lost, or could never hope to seize. “Clare,” he -repeated, this time with a genuine despair.</p> - -<p>They went back into the house, where tea had been made ready; she noted -his preparations, the honey, the girdle-cakes, the fruit and cream. -He deprecated them, “A bachelor’s house....” “What could be better?” -she replied; and had slipped from him once more. She ate heartily, -borrowing a handkerchief to wipe the cream from her lips, unaccountably -a child again, and a new bewilderment to him. He now felt that what -he might have said to the woman of whom he had had a glimpse, he -could not say to the child who trusted herself in his house, and he -thought with baffled anger, how ably she managed her alternative of -weapons. A spoonful of honey in one hand, and a cake in the other, -she leaned forward, talking to him, he more helpless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> than ever, and -she more completely in control. He dared not think of his house when -her presence should have gone out of it; he wondered whether he would -suffer least pain by returning to his sitting-room directly the gig had -driven away, by going for a walk on the Downs and returning only after -dusk, or by driving her himself back to the Manor House. The idea of -her going at all was intolerable; perhaps he had been unwise to ask her -to come; perhaps he had only been at his favourite trick of turning the -knife in the wound. But she was speaking, she was saying, “I shall come -again to see whether you have prepared our garden against the autumn.”</p> - -<p>By her movement he saw that she was about to take her leave; he leapt -out of his own chair and stood over her, saying wildly, “Don’t go, -Clare, don’t; how can I bear your going? don’t leave me again, stay -with me a little longer, I can’t face the loneliness without you,” and -a stream of incoherent ejaculations flooded from his lips, while his -hands fumbled towards her, yet with a remnant of soberness he strove to -restrain them. Clare looked at him calmly, with wondering eyes. “But I -must go home if my father is not to be kept waiting for his dinner,” -she said.</p> - -<p>Calladine stepped back instantly and released her. “I am sorry,” he -said. “The loneliness, perhaps, gets a little on my nerves.” He passed -his hand across his eyes. “You are the first <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>visitor I have welcomed -here for many years, and your presence threw me off my balance.” He -tried to speak lightly. “Come, I will take you to the gig,” but still -he lingered, looking to see whether she had left anything behind, -in a last attempt to delay her. “Shall I drive you home?” he asked -desperately.</p> - -<p>“No,” she said, not wanting his company at all, “stay here and begin to -dig the garden.” She smiled. She was anxious to get away. Not until she -was out in the lanes would she again breathe freely. She went without -any appearance of hurry, thanking Calladine, who tore from his solitary -rose-bush all the branches he could crowd into her arms, and climbed -back into the gig as she had come. He saw her go, despair and joy and -anguish rending him.</p> - -<p class="space-above">The strain and anxiety of being with Calladine drove her, as always, -towards the wish to be with Lovel. “Brother,” she could have called -him, from the ease of his companionship. She could have put her hand -into his, simply for the trust she had in him. But she knew too well -that the indifference of his greeting would repulse instantly any -such movement of confidence on her part; he would glance at her, when -they met, and his glance would take her back into the assurance of -their old intimacy, but there would be no softening of sentiment in -it. Never that; a challenge and a bracing, but never compassion or a -caress. Could she ever go with a trouble to Lovel? Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> instinct leapt -up into an affirmative; he would listen gravely, would understand -without commiserating, would counsel quietly, and would fortify her -with a sense of his reliance in her trustworthiness. He would trust -her to behave always as he would expect that she should behave. She -would endure anything rather than disappoint Lovel. More: even in his -absence, even though he should know nothing of it, she kept herself -constantly up to the level of his standards. She winced at any thought -of his possible disapproval. She had not for him, nor could she imagine -herself having, the indulgent and,—school herself to reverence as -she would,—contemptuous pity she had for Calladine; what had she -told Calladine to do? to grow lupin and iris, tulips and honesty, -sweet sultan and snapdragons, in a walled patch of what had once been -Down-land! to <i>wall</i> the Down? was it possible that she had told him to -wall in the Down? what gulf she must divine between him and herself, -between him and the Down-country in which he had elected to live, if -she could tell him to wall in the Down. Yes, even a square, a stray -square of Down, forgotten between a lane and Starvecrow’s farm-house. -What would Lovel say, if she told him that? True, Lovel himself was -sometimes set on to plough the Down, and willingly proceeded with the -task; but that was different: that was the old struggle between man -and the soil from which he wrested his daily bread; Lovel would tame -the Down to grow <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>barley for man or roots for his cattle,—a poor crop -at best, extorted from the recalcitrant soil, like charity from an -irreconcilable spirit, a poor crop, flaunting red poppies for its last -flag of insubordination,—Lovel would plough the Down for that purpose, -and relish the tussle, meeting in mutual understanding an adversary as -stubborn as he himself; but for his mere pleasure he would not wall in -a square to grow the effeminate flowers of decoration. They would blow -and curtsey, Calladine’s flowers, until a wind swept over them from the -angry Downs and laid them low,—but stay, what had she said?—“The wall -will protect them against the wind.” Yes, and protect Calladine too: he -could not stand up against the winds from the Downs. So, in her heart, -she pitied Calladine and was disposed to see him protected? What had -he done to deserve from her the insult of that charity? She had seen -Lovel go out into a snowstorm on the heights and had not feared for his -discomfort or his danger, any more than he feared for hers. Calladine -she would have prevented with kind, firm words on the threshold of the -door.</p> - -<p>And it so happened, at her first meeting with Lovel after her visit to -Starvecrow, that she, riding, sighted him in the distance following -a plough-team over a curve of hill. He was not at work in one of the -folds of the lower reaches, the favourite position for the rare stains -of cultivation. He and his team were in outline against the sky, -following the slow and classical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> progression of the furrow over the -curve; the hempen reins looped slackly from the horses’ heads to his -hand; the man, the horses, and the plough pursued their way, disengaged -from all but the essentials of their labour, with the old inevitable -simplicity. Clare rode towards the brown patch and, reaching Lovel, -rode at a walk beside him up and down the freshly-turned furrows. -The bright share cut cleanly into the sod, turning it over. They -both watched it, as it slid through the sod, with a professional and -satisfied criticism. “Poor soil,” Lovel said once; otherwise they had -not spoken. She liked to watch him plough, appreciating his dexterity, -and the jump of the plough-shaft under his hand; she liked his voice -ringing out to the horses at the turn. The slow rhythm soothed her. -“Who are you ploughing for?” she asked. “Morland,” he said briefly. -“Shall you be finished by six?” she asked, looking across at the -westering sun; and he nodded. “I’ll wait,” she said, and getting off -her pony, she slipped the reins over her arm and stood watching Lovel -without impatience.</p> - -<p>At six he unhitched his team and came across to her, the horses -slouching along behind him. “An ungrateful job,” he remarked, staring -resentfully at the stony furrows; “they never put me on to the loam; -always the chalk for me.” “I wish you had a bit of land of your own,” -she said. “Ay, I’d get the better of it,” he replied, suddenly eager. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> - -<p>His team stood patient, heavy and shining compared to her small pony. -The curious light of sunset began to creep over the Downs, turning -their tan to a rosy orange. “Fine weather,” nodded Lovel. He turned -to his horses, and began to adjust a bit. The rooks were settling on -the patch that he had ploughed. He stooped down, and picking up a lump -of earth, crumbled it between his fingers. Clare, observing his fine, -bony, downward-bent face, knew that he was reflecting. Sure enough, he -raised it to say, “How would you bring them up, if you had children?”</p> - -<p>“Have you been thinking about children?” she asked, amused.</p> - -<p>“It’s thinking about children,” he replied seriously, “that shows -you the things we base life on. There’s money, there’s humbug, and -there’s death. What do we say over and over again to children? ‘Don’t -touch that, you’ll break it, it’ll cost money to replace.’ ‘Be -polite,’—that’s humbug. ‘Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself,’—that’s -death, really, or at any rate the fear of injury. A child doesn’t see -much difference between being alive or being dead. As for money, or -for time, which is the same thing, it takes him years to get his brain -round those two things. It’s a fine and careful system we’ve got, -haven’t we? While I was following the plough, I was having an imaginary -conversation with a child. ‘If I was dead,’ said he, ‘I shouldn’t know -that I was dead, so what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> would it matter?’ And I couldn’t find an -answer in my head.”</p> - -<p>“But if you had children of your own,” said Clare, “you would find -yourself bringing them up in the same way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, perforce,” he replied, “but that’s the end of all theories. We’re -chained by necessity; it’s the wire across the path that brings the -horse down in mid-gallop. We’ve got to teach our children caution,—the -fear of death,—merely to keep them alive until they grow up. And all -that we should enjoy teaching them is obscured by the don’ts and the -shoutings-out to keep their limbs whole and our crockery unbroken.”</p> - -<p>“Well,—and humbug?” she said.</p> - -<p>“That’s civilisation. ‘What’s polite,’ asks the child, and ‘what’s a -lie?’”</p> - -<p>“Would you like to have children of your own?” asked Clare.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied Lovel briefly, and changed the subject. “I have to bring -a handful of sheep home for Mr. Morland from the fair at Marlborough on -Tuesday. Will you be going to the fair? Horses, mostly.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go with you,” said Clare in delight, clapping her hands.</p> - -<p>“Better meet me there, as ’twere by chance,” said Lovel, suddenly a -little grim. “‘Miss Warrener taking up with gipsies,’—I can hear them -talk. No, meet me there, make out you’re interested in a pony, and -fetch me to have a look at him.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But we can ride home together?” said Clare crestfallen.</p> - -<p>“We’ll meet outside the town and come home over the Downs. I don’t want -all the gig-wheels in amongst my sheep.”</p> - -<p>She laughed suddenly, seeing how practical he was, and liking it.</p> - -<p>He slipped the reins of his team from off the gate-post where he had -hitched them, and hoisted himself, sitting side-ways, on to one of the -great elephantine backs. He sat there, slack and swaying to the horse’s -tread, in the manner of all carters, and the other two horses lumbered -after him, their hoofs going plop-plop in the thick dust of the road, -and the hair round their fetlocks flopping as on spaniels’ paws. Clare -followed him, light on her pony. They did not become him well, she -thought, those great horses; he demanded the slimmer, swifter animals -of creation, hares, Arabs, or deer. But it amused him to play the -plough-boy. How indifferent he seemed, she thought,—scarcely looking -at her, riding on with his gaze held towards the sunset; how different -from Mr. Calladine’s eagerness to propitiate her; and a tiny sore of -feminine vanity was pricked. Then she laughed at herself, immediately; -what was she expecting from Lovel, her Lovel? expecting him to be -different from himself? she would not like it if he were. And she knew -that he was content to have her there, even though he never troubled to -look around. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> - -<p>Lovel set off in a practical mood for Marlborough fair. He was thinking -of the sheep he had to buy and bring home for Farmer Morland; in a way -the farmer’s trust provoked in him a sort of contemptuous pride, and, -poacher and free-lance though he was, he would have scorned to make -a penny’s profit for himself out of the transaction. The commission -was given him to execute; the farmer relied upon his honesty and his -knowledge; the thing was simple: that was a trust of which he would not -take advantage. On his lawless expeditions, he was betraying no man’s -confidence; the keepers all knew him, and, meeting him unprofessionally -in the lanes, would exchange with him a grin and even a wink of -understanding. They stood for the law, and he for the skill that would -defeat the law; they knew it, and he knew that they knew it; that was -a frank challenge, with sport in it on either side; but as for Farmer -Morland’s sheep, a mere matter of money, he would never demean himself -to a bargain with the middle-man, and the farmer’s interests, for the -moment, were his own. He might next week be snaring the same farmer’s -ditches; that was a separate matter.</p> - -<p>At the back of his mind, as he rode ambling along on the strip of grass -at the roadside towards Marlborough, he retained the knowledge that he -had arranged with Clare a meeting at the fair. The knowledge lay there, -like a warm patch in his consciousness, and he enjoyed <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>keeping it just -out of sight, while he directed his thoughts on to the sheep, and noted -the farmers, shepherds, and cattle-men who streamed along the road in -the same direction that he himself was taking, some on horseback going -at a quick trot, some in their high spanking gigs, and some crawling -in farm-carts with pigs and calves bundled up under a net. All the -pastoral population of the district seemed to be streaming towards -Marlborough along the great arterial road, and Lovel had no doubt that -they were streaming equally towards it along the road on the further -side of the town, and not along the main road only, but converging -upon Marlborough by all the lanes and lesser roads, from Devizes and -Savernake, from Ogbourne St. George and Ogbourne St. Andrew, from the -Winterbournes and the Hintons. He surveyed them as they passed him; -they were known to him for the most part, solid men and honest enough, -their faces as broad and open as the country which had bred them; -and the shepherds, who with their slow, limited movements seemed to -resemble the animals committed to their care, contented in not having -a preoccupation beyond the recurrent business of the animal year, -with its breeding, shearing, and dipping; and the old wiseacres, who, -although they no longer bought or sold, made a practice of attending -all the local fairs where their fat cobs would carry them, there to -criticise and shake their heads over the methods of their juniors. -Lovel watched them all go by,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> feeling himself slightly alien, as -though he had been all the while conscious of his darkness beside their -ruddiness.</p> - -<p>Gig-wheels rattled and hoofs spanked crisply along the ringing road, -and Lovel watched them go by, the stream, like life itself, hurrying -past him. That old road had known the traffic of the past and present, -and,—although there was not much to tempt his reflectiveness in -the wide airiness of the light-coloured summer morning,—he said -to himself, addressing his thoughts to the rubicund pre-occupied -agriculturists, that after all the hair-splitting and tangle introduced -by love, malice, envy, ambition, or their kindred, were cleared aside -and done with, the main business of life was nothing more than the -maintenance of life, else why all this buying and selling, this labour -and breeding, this system which produced tilled fields and stout -farmers trotting to market, cattle-pens in Marlborough market-place, -and booths with headstalls and shovels? so that nine-tenths of the -population were so taken up with the business of living that it was -time to die before they had ever had leisure to take a look at life at -all. Lovel, thinking thus, looked at them in his detached way with a -little envy, a good deal of sarcasm, and a complex wistfulness, failing -to find any meaning in the conclusions his logic had led him to. A lot -of pother, just to keep alive; and for what purpose?</p> - -<p>All over the civilised world, on which Marlborough was a speck, they -were doing it; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> they would not understand Lovel if he told them so, -and he knew better than to diminish his reputation of being a practical -man.</p> - -<p>And now in spite of all his thoughts which bore him away on absences -of speculation, his horse, which had been carrying him more soberly -along, brought him in sight of Marlborough, and he saw the concourse of -gigs, from which the horses had been unharnessed and led away, standing -parked with the shafts stuck upright in the air, and beyond them the -lime-whitened hurdles which penned up the tossing sheep; he saw the -gaitered legs moving among the open spaces; he heard the barking of -sheep-dogs as they rushed excitedly round, he heard the cries of the -vendors and the lowing of the puzzled cattle. A cattle-market and horse -fair was to him no novelty; he got off his horse, and, not thinking any -more now of the cumbersome system of civilisation which had gathered -all those men and beasts together from their homes to the same spot at -the same hour, he walked round surveying with as shrewd an eye as any -farmer there the merits and demerits of the goods and livestock offered -for sale. The principal business of the sale was not yet begun, but -a good deal of private bartering and haggling was going on, and the -sellers at the opening of their booths were crying their wares, whether -wooden baskets, hay-rakes, tarred twine, leggings, hedging gloves, -chaff-cutters, milking-stools, scythes, sickles, carters’ whips, -churns, shears, or in fact any of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> the smaller articles necessary to -pastoral or agricultural existence. The whips hung up in heaves made -gay with scarlet braid; the wooden goods were displayed along the front -of the booths, clean and newly-planed, showing the honest grain of -the wood and smelling fresh of sawn edges and rosin; and on some of -the booths, fluttering like flags, were hung coloured petticoats and -shawls to tempt the men to bring home a remembrance to their women. -There were tinkers too, selling shining saucepans, and gipsies with -bead necklaces; a dancing bear ambling along on a leash; hokey-pokey -carts, and a hurdy-gurdy; and outside the town, in a field, was -encamped a travelling circus, with a roundabout and a set of swings, -that awoke in its progress shrieks of terror and ecstasy all over -rural England. Among the various attractions, Lovel moved quietly and -alone, his two dogs at his heels, as self-contained as their master. -Several strangers threw curious glances at him, for his quiet step, -which they thought stealthy, and the darkness and leanness of his air, -which so differentiated him from the fair sturdy weight of the crowd -of countrymen. Interrogation by these strangers evoked a glance and a -reply, contemptuous in intention, yet respectful in its immediate hint -of mystery, “Egyptian, they do say ... queer tales.” But Lovel, if he -noticed these rare enquiries, paid no attention; he was accustomed to -feel himself shunned and dreaded, and his dogs seemed to share his -loneliness, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> they never crossed the road to nose another dog, but -kept to Lovel’s heels, and woke to interest only when there were sheep -or steers to be shepherded, in the same way as the man was scornful -and kept himself aloof, but spoke keenly and with authority when any -question arose relating to his various professions.</p> - -<p>Amongst the cries and distractions of the market Lovel tried to keep -his mind fixed upon the sheep business which had brought him there, -until that should be despatched, but there was another business which -kept his eyes straying round, and that was the hope of perceiving -Clare, a small and merry figure, with her pony’s rein slung over her -arm. He did not shirk, in his own mind, the desire he had to catch -sight of her, or the sudden relief and satisfaction that sight would -bring him. So long as she was there, Heaven might pour and thunder; -but all would still be well. So long as he had not seen her, the sun -might shine; there would still be a darkness at his heart. Lovel long -since had faced this truth with resolution and a complete despair; but -with no attempt to delude himself or to minimise. It lay quietly at -the bottom of his heart, a quiet patch of certainty, which shouts and -jostlings and an alert scrutiny of the frightened herds were powerless -to disturb. It was there, like a thing he must put out of sight for the -moment, but to which he would have to turn presently, when his business -was finished; he would have to turn to it,—not reluctantly, but in -due<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> course, like returning home,—he would have to attend to it, -grapple with it, decide what was to be done.</p> - -<p>He found that his eyes strayed round increasingly, looking for her; her -continued absence produced an emptiness, in which all things seemed -meaningless and noisy. Then he saw her, standing at a little distance -chatting to the landlord of the Royal George Inn, and a great calm -spread, lake-like, over him. She was at hand; nothing else mattered. He -proceeded quietly to transact his business, having all his faculties -now undistracted about him; he did not even want to look at her, now -that he knew that she was there; she would wait for him and though they -both stood talking to other people, without betraying the consciousness -of one another he knew that they were really converging, that their -two lives were really converging upon the same moment when they would -join up and turn to leave the market-place, without a word spoken, -together. Sure enough, next time that he looked up, she had drawn a -little nearer; he was glad; he felt his absolute silent unity with her, -without any question of command or submission on either side, an almost -sexless unity, and one that had grown up without any agreement spoken -in words.</p> - -<p>“Those’ll be father’s sheep, Lovel?” said a voice ingratiating, at his -elbow.</p> - -<p>He looked down, and saw Daisy Morland, the farmer’s daughter, her large -freckled face raised amiably to his between the puffed red ringlets.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> -Lovel disliked Daisy as much as Daisy liked him; he avoided her company -as pointedly as she sought his; the fact that he was for the moment in -her father’s employ no doubt encouraged her to think that she had a -certain claim on him; and now especially when his mind was bent upon -Clare she seemed to him more than usually aggressive.</p> - -<p>“I’ll help you drive them home,” she exclaimed brightly.</p> - -<p>“No need, I have the dogs,” said Lovel, and added, “thanks,” which he -was far from feeling.</p> - -<p>“No trouble, you know,” said Daisy, giving him a look full of meaning.</p> - -<p>Several of their neighbours were watching the scene with amusement.</p> - -<p>“Best let me take them quietly,” said Lovel; “and anyhow,” he added, as -though that settled the matter, “I’m riding.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but I’ve got the cob!” cried Daisy triumphantly.</p> - -<p>“Best not,” said Lovel, for he could think of nothing else to say.</p> - -<p>“But I say yes,” said Daisy. “Come, Lovel,” she persisted in a coaxing -voice, “my own father’s sheep? You wouldn’t stop me riding alongside -you?”</p> - -<p>Lovel felt himself beaten; he had, indeed, no reasonable objection to -raise.</p> - -<p>“I shan’t be taking them by the high road.”</p> - -<p>“So much the better,” said Daisy. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> - -<p>A clear voice said beside them suddenly, “Lovel, I have a favour to -ask; I don’t like riding alone in such a crowd of people, may I ask -your escort back to the Manor House when you go?”</p> - -<p>He turned upon Clare, who had come up unobserved, and saw the mischief -beneath the request so formally and demurely proffered.</p> - -<p>“Of course, Miss Warrener, I am at your service,” he replied instantly, -and they stood, for a moment, the two of them together, looking at -Daisy, whose freckled face had grown suffused with an unbecoming red, -that clashed with the red of her hair and spread patchily round her -throat down to the opening of her gown.</p> - -<p>“Forgive me for interrupting you, Daisy,” said Clare serenely.</p> - -<p>Daisy mumbled a “No matter, miss,” class triumphing over sex.</p> - -<p>“Can I get your pony for you, Miss Warrener?” said Lovel to Clare -politely.</p> - -<p>“I will wait till you are ready,” said Clare politely to Lovel!</p> - -<p>Their eyes met.</p> - -<p>“Let us go,” said Lovel irresistibly.</p> - -<p>With the clamour of the market all round them they manœuvred the little -flock of sheep out of their pen into a side-street, leading their -horses till they should be clear of the town. The cries of the market -place died away behind them,—the market place where Daisy still stared -after them with a stare of dull, revengeful anger, too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> stupefied to -care as yet that the whole of Marlborough should have witnessed her -humiliation. But, having no pride, she minded this less than the loss -of the ride she had promised herself with Lovel. Miss Warrener had got -him, taken him coolly away from under her very nose; they had drifted -away together without any fuss as though they belonged naturally to -one another. Miss Warrener! Who would have thought of meeting Miss -Warrener at a cattle-market? It was not the first time, either, that -Daisy had seen Lovel and Miss Warrener together, not by any means the -first time, since she was not above following Lovel secretly and spying -upon him up there on the Downs when he thought himself safe. But who -could have thought that the girl would have come to Marlborough fair -for the purpose of meeting Lovel? for Daisy had no doubt that that had -been Clare’s intention; and so cool about it, so lady-like, “Lovel, -I have a favour to ask” indeed! “Lardy-da!” said Daisy to herself, -mincingly, as she angrily imitated Clare’s manner in her own mind, -affecting to despise it, while really envying it as she would never -have acknowledged.</p> - -<p>She woke to the realisation that the market was still proceeding, -with its shouts, its jostlings, and its huddling of beasts, round her -immobilised figure, and, bestirring herself, she went in search of the -fat cob, meaning to follow (at a distance, and keeping out of sight), -Lovel and Clare on their ponies, who, she calculated, must by now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> be -driving the little flock before them over the crest of the hill.</p> - -<p>And she saw them go, with the eyes of a jealous woman, and knew that -during the two succeeding days, while Lovel kept the flock at pasture, -Miss Warrener joined him again, and sat with him on the Grey Wethers; -she saw all his length stretched on the grass at Miss Warrener’s feet, -and saw their fingers close together over some cat’s cradle that they -were playing. But she saw no more than that, though she watched so that -there wasn’t much that her eyes could have missed.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Lovel rode slowly away along the back of the Down, the woolly flock -tossing and huddling along in front of him, in a hurried, senseless -way, controlled by the barking of the two sheepdogs, who were swift to -chase up a straggler, or to straighten out any unseemly bulge at the -side of the flock,—that same flock that he had bought at Marlborough -fair for Farmer Morland. Lovel, knowing he could trust his dogs, rode -in an abstraction. The afternoon sun cast fitful, fan-shaped gleams -down through the thin clouds, like sunbeams passed through a sieve, or -seen through a veil of the finest rain; it produced an effect of shadow -and wet gold familiar to him in his comings and goings over the Downs, -but now for the first time it occurred to him to compare the outside -world with his own life; and, while his meetings with Clare might -stand for that wet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> gold, the shadows fell mournfully into a yet more -inevitable analogy.</p> - -<p>He came down into the village by dusk, regretful as ever to exchange -the heights for the hollow. Up there he seemed to shake off for a -little the burden of his life, which as soon as he re-entered the ring -of the village he resumed. He was, however, too well-accustomed to this -sensation to pay any particular attention as he passed through the -gap of the embankment. “Charmed circle,” his mother had often croaked -to him, but he always shrugged disdainfully, knowing well that his -imagination was all too ready to be led away along such lines, and -being determined to keep his good sense wholesomely about him. The -tossing woolly backs of the sheep preceded him now in a long wedge, -four or five abreast, down the narrow road; they bleated uneasily, and -tried to break through the hedge on either side. “Poor silly things, -ye don’t like being penned up any better than the rest of us,” Lovel -said to them, as he bent from his horse to open the gate into the -field, and called to his dogs to head off the flock, which crowded back -helter-skelter through the gate and then dispersed themselves in a -sudden browsing content in the field among the monoliths.</p> - -<p>Lovel called off his dogs and pulled the gate shut again, with the -crook of his riding whip. He surveyed the sheep for a moment over -the gate: they were already grazing, dim shapes in the dusk, on the -comparatively rich pasture after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> the short turf of the Downs. “A -good lot,” Lovel thought professionally, “and all for the butcher -to-morrow,” but he had no sentiment to waste over the fate of the -sheep. He rode on into the village, leaving the circle of the -embankment with its few naked trees, behind him; ahead of him, the -church spire rose up against the sky, and presently as he turned the -corner the village street came fully into view, with all its necessary -provisions for the conduct of existence: houses for folk to be born in, -shops where they might purchase the paraphernalia of daily life, the -tavern where they might be merry, the church where they might worship, -be christened, married, or buried according to their passing needs, -and the chapel where, if they were so inclined, they might differ as -to their faith with their fellow-men. Church and Chapel Lovel ignored -altogether, a work which his mother had begun for him by refusing -flatly to have him made a Christian. “You’ll call him Nicholas Lovel -for all that Parson don’t souse him,” she had said, arms akimbo, to the -indignant deputation of the parish.</p> - -<p>John Sparrow was turning into the Waggon of Hay as Lovel rode past it. -“Come join us, neighbour?” he said half in mischief; the wits of the -village lived in constant hope that some day, some day, a liquor potent -or sufficient enough should be found to loosen the lips of Gipsy Lovel, -and what secrets they would hear then! Lovel was briefly tempted, then -he shook his head, and passed on: his mother and brother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> would be -waiting for their meal for him, too helpless to begin without him since -he had said he would be home by four. At that moment the Church clock -struck six: he was two hours late, two hours he had idled away with -Clare. He strung himself up to endure the reproaches with which he knew -he would be greeted.</p> - -<p>He left his horse in the small paddock at the back of the house, and, -carrying the bridle and saddle over his arm, returned to the street and -went into the house by the front door. The passage within was dark, but -by long habit he found the hooks on which to hang up his gear, and at -the noise he made in doing so, and the tread of his riding boots on the -flagged floor, his brother came eagerly out into the passage, carrying -a candle.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Nicholas, is it you? Why, you promised to be home by four, and it -is gone six; where in the world have you been all this time? I have -been three times down the road to look for you.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you would do nothing of the sort when I am late,” Lovel said -curtly. He hated his brother at that moment, he hated the dark house -and the implied reproach; his two hours with Clare flooded over him. -“Is supper ready, at least?”</p> - -<p>Olver whined, “I had forgotten about supper,—I thought only of -you,—don’t be angry with me, Nicco,—I know I should have set it out.”</p> - -<p>“It does not matter,” said Lovel: if he got angry Olver would cringe, -and whine the more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> “Give me the candle, I will see to it.” He took -the candle from Olver’s hand, and Olver’s strange eyes gleamed on him -in its light with questioning timidity. The grandfather’s clock ticked -loudly out of the dark recesses of the passage. “I hope you have kept -the fire going,” said Nicholas, opening the door into the living room. -Olver followed at his heels with the dogs.</p> - -<p>The living-room was dark and low, lit redly by the logs in the open -fire-place, and because there was neither paint nor paper on the -walls the great stones of the masonry were visible. The eye looked -down instinctively to find a floor of hard-trodden mud,—and was -disappointed, for the floor here, like that of the passage, was formed -of flag stones. There was little furniture: a centre table, which -served for meals, a few chairs of cane and wood, a tall dresser reared -against one wall, containing on its shelves the crockery for everyday -use, and a shelf above the fire-place, on which stood a row of china -fruits in bright, shining colours,—this comprised the sum total of -furniture and decoration in the whole room. Lovel scarcely noticed -what was in the room and what was not; he liked the stone walls, and -would not have them covered up, but them he liked for the sake of their -tradition and of the quarry from which they had come.</p> - -<p>He now set the candle on the table, and got from out of the cupboard -under the dresser a loaf of bread, some cheese and butter, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> -necessary knives and plates. He did this menial work mechanically; he -had long ceased to expostulate with his brother, or to induce him to -mend his neglectful ways. He supposed, when he thought about it at all, -that till the end of his life he would continue to serve and provide -for his mother and his brother. He was their provider, their protector, -their victim, their master, and their slave; that was his function, and -he did not complain against it. A servant he would not get, even could -he have paid the wages ten times over, because of the tattle carried -to the village. He saw, then, in the simplicity of his mind, no other -course open to him than to perform all the duties himself.</p> - -<p>He set aside upon a tray a cup of tea, when he had made it, and a bowl -of gruel for the bedridden old woman upstairs. This he gave to Olver, -telling him to carry it up carefully, and stood himself at the foot of -the stairs holding up the candle for a light. He heard the door open -above, and his mother’s querulous voice. He smiled grimly to himself as -he thought of how long she had been waiting for her tea, and of what -she would have said could she have known the cause, and have seen the -two figures of himself and Clare standing in the sunlight on the Downs. -This radiant vision of Clare crossed his heart in a flash; it hurt him. -<i>Had</i> his mother seen them? he never knew himself the true extent of -the powers he must not allow himself to think about, because he was -afraid of them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Gipsy Lovel, he knew they called him in the village....</p> - -<p>Olver came down again, and still his eyes sought his brother’s face -to find whether he had been forgiven. His brother’s servility and -excessive devotion to himself exasperated Nicholas. He sat over his -supper tossing bits of food to the dogs, and trying to pretend to -himself that Olver with his searching eyes and anxious face was not -sitting opposite to him in mute beseeching, hanging on to his looks and -gestures. Nicholas despised himself for his churlishness, but to-night -his home, his brother, were violently intolerable to him. He could not -breathe, he was being stifled; he rose nervously and kicked the logs -into a blaze; in the middle of doing this he swung round.</p> - -<p>“Why do you follow me so with your gaze?” he asked impatiently.</p> - -<p>“You are angry with me, Nicco, for having forgotten the supper, but -indeed I thought only of you, and you are all I have in the world.”</p> - -<p>Lovel said, not unkindly, “Well, you wasted your anxiety: I am better -able than most to look after myself. I am not angry any more,” but in -spite of his words he still felt that the house oppressed him, and -that a restlessness, usually kept under control, was gnawing at him. -He knew well whom to blame: it was Clare, who appeared to him the -personification of all he had abjured. He had had Clare for two hours -before his eyes, the sight of her stirring him as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> wind stirs a -bell, and now in the place of Clare he was returned to the monotony -of his sad home; in the full determination not to think of Clare he -crossed over to the fire where his dogs already lay sleeping, filled -his pipe and lighted it, and forthwith began to dream of nothing but -Clare as he sat gazing into the heart of the red ashes.</p> - -<p>She was so little known to him; he liked to picture,—yet his -bashfulness made of it a fearful pleasure,—the ordering of her room, -of her clothes laid neatly in drawers; he thought of her ribbons; he -knew that in the evenings she discarded her gauntlets and her cap and -wore soft coloured silks—he had heard Martha Sparrow say so. He had -never seen her in these; was never likely so to see her; he trembled -at the thrill of so seeing her: her arms would be bare, her throat -rounded and white, with red corals up it. Yet he was not sure that he -desired to see her thus, save as an experience, for thus the difference -between them would be most emphasised; when he met her upon the Downs, -and their ponies fell into step side by side, then she was at her -closest to him, seeing the heavens and the hills with the same eye, -knowing the same things as he knew, reading the signs of the weather, -picking up the same landmarks familiar to them both; but such was the -tremulousness of his mind that he wavered between the preference of -knowing her at her closest, or at her most remote: the one caressed -him infinitely, but the other mystified and tempted him, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> made his -pleasure into a rapturous pain. What hope had he of ever beholding -in the flesh that wraith which his fancy evoked? he, Lovel, sitting -over the fire with his two rough dogs and his mazed brother, and at -the end of a day’s shepherding, while she dined at the Manor House -with her father in the warmth of lamplight and the quiet dignity of -pervading scholarship? She was gracious enough to him when they met on -the hills; there, the closeness of their age and pursuits made them -forgetful of their other disparities; the same rain made them both -wet, the same wind ruffled their hair; but with her nod of farewell, -kindly though it might be, they were instantly severed: he sank, she -rose, and drifted out of his reach. He was indignant that an accident -of fortune should be the mean occasion of parting them, an accident of -fortune, not of birth, for by lineage the Lovels, although so fallen, -had, in the pride of their Egyptian blood, no comparison to fear. Then -he remembered that a deeper irony kept him apart from any woman. He had -before him constantly the sight of his mother and brother to uphold -him in the resolution that with the three of them the race must end. -Such blood must not be carried on. But because the primitive instincts -were deep and intractable in him, the renunciation roused his anger; -his animal birthright was to beget sons, and he rebelled against the -chance that cheated him of it; and in the same train of thought came -the image, whose lovely audacity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> appalled even while it enraptured -him, of his children and Clare’s; he saw their strong limbs and heard -their laughter, an image vivid and actual, and—he swore to himself—of -a wholesome inspiration. He must see and think no more of Clare! But -as he came to this conclusion, Olver, who had been squatting on the -opposite side of the hearth, stirring the ashes and shooting furtive -glances from time to time at his brother, said, “There came for you a -message while you were away, from Mr. Warrener, to know would you go -up to the Manor House to-morrow, to fix shelves for his books. William -Baskett came with the message, and says, Mr. Warrener is impatient, and -though the books have been stacked up on the floor for over a year, -must needs have the shelves ready to-morrow now that he had at last -taken the idea into his head.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot go,” said Lovel moodily.</p> - -<p>He gave no reason. He thought that the effort was being made -unnecessarily hard for him by this chance intervention. True, he -might not set eyes on Clare, but even so the Manor House would be so -redolent of her as to trouble him to the soul. She might be absent; -but, again, she might come into the room and stand over him while he -sawed and planed, chattering to him in her fashion, at once grave and -light-hearted. “I cannot go,” he said, afraid for himself.</p> - -<p>Olver shuffled across the hearth and knelt at his brother’s feet, -looking up into his face. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> - -<p>“There is a weight on your mind, brother. Oh, yes, no use in shaking -your head: I always know. Won’t you tell Olver? You don’t know what -powers I might have to help you,—no, no, nothing that you disapprove -of,” he added hastily, seeing Lovel’s face darken, “but you know, you -often say I’ve a kink of wisdom, and so I have,” he went on, carried -away, as he readily was, by his vanity. “Only you cannot appreciate it, -brother, or you would trust me more.”</p> - -<p>Lovel would have given much to be left in peace just then in order -to pursue his quarrel with his own heart, but he was incapable of -slighting his brother’s demonstrations of affection, so he put his hand -on the head pressed against his knee, and, without speaking, caressed -the curls in a manner he hoped was not too obviously perfunctory. He -felt Olver’s instant yielding under the caress, and the creature’s -pathetic dependence only increased his melancholy. “It costs me so -little, and means so much to him,” he thought, and continued to soothe -Olver’s temples with the tips of his fingers.</p> - -<p>They sat in silence for some time, a silence disturbed only by the sigh -of a tired dog in his sleep, or by the falling apart and flaring of a -log. Presently Olver said, in a meditative tone, without moving, “You -hated me, Nicco, when you first came in and I asked you where you had -been. Yet I have often asked you that, and you have not been angry.”</p> - -<p>“You knew where I had been: driving sheep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> for Mr. Morland,” replied -Lovel mechanically.</p> - -<p>“Yes,—and meeting Miss Warrener.” Olver gave a great chuckle. “Oh, -yes, I know,” he continued, “because the first time I went down the -road to see whether you were coming I met Miss Warrener, riding on her -pony, and she stopped to ask me how I did, and said that she had seen -you. She carried a bunch of gorse slung at her saddle, which she said -you had cut for her. Is that how the land lies, brother?”</p> - -<p>“No, no,—simple boy,—never hint such a thing.” Lovel was angry, and -extraordinarily distressed.</p> - -<p>“<i>I</i> know,” said Olver, nodding sagely. He rambled on, “Daisy Morland -has seen you together, and because she wants you for herself her -eyes are sharpened. I found her in Farmer Morland’s barn, cutting -mangolds for the cattle. She asked me to help her. Very soon I was -cutting mangolds alone, and she was lying in the hay watching me. She -said, ‘That brother of yours is a sly dog,—hoity, toity with us poor -girls,—too good to speak to a Christian,—and all because he fries -other fish in secret.’ I asked her what she meant. She tossed her head -and said it was not for her to give away your secrets to me. So I -stopped cutting, and threw her down on her back in the hay, and tickled -her till she promised she would tell me. She was soft to tickle; she -squealed and wriggled about. Why don’t you like her?” asked Olver.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” Nicholas answered. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Then she said she had been hiding behind a rick somewhere up near -the Grey Wethers, and she had seen you come riding along with Miss -Warrener. She said you got off your horses when you came to the -Wethers, and sat down on one of the stones, and stayed there till the -sun began to sink; then you caught your horses and rode away, very -close together. She said you had talked all the time as though a week -was too little for all you had to say. She said she had seen you both -at Marlborough market, too. Then she began to cry; she cried so loud I -was afraid Farmer Morland would come in to see what was ado, so I held -my hand over her mouth until she stopped. She said you were breaking -her heart, and she cared nothing what became of her. She said she was -reckless. What’s the meaning of it all?”</p> - -<p>“Jealousy,” said Lovel, with suppressed fury.</p> - -<p>Olver said nothing, but his conviction remained sagely the same. He was -sorry he dared not tell Nicholas the rest of the story, but Nicholas -was inexpressibly severe and prudish; he would not have approved of -the scenes in the barn, neither of the knock-about scene of tickling -and squealing amongst the hay, nor of the subsequent scene, when -Olver had laid his hand over Daisy’s mouth, and, half-strangled, she -had spluttered against his hand, and the wetness of her mouth had -mingled with the wetness of her tears to inflame his rustic senses, -and in the indifference to her misery she had not resisted him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> He -smiled to himself as he remembered, but he knew better than to tell -this to Nicholas. Only once had he seen Nicholas really violent, on -one occasion when he had come artlessly to his brother with the tale -of his first exploit; Nicholas’ explosion of anger was a thing Olver -had never forgotten. It remained lurking, a thing which at any moment -might flare up again. He kept such stories now for his mother’s ear -alone; the old woman, enchanted at this surreptitious alliance against -Nicholas’ hateful authority, would cackle in sympathy, and, making -her hand a trumpet to her ear, invite Olver to pour out in a whisper -details increasingly succulent, and so passed hours, Olver with an eye -constantly on the door, lest Nicholas should unexpectedly return, but -turning always again to whisper to his mother, who with her “Hee! hee! -and did you so? good lad!” and similar ejaculations, would puff him -up to thinking himself a man where he was most an animal. Lovel was -thinking only of how he might best delude his brother’s shrewdness, -and how discover whether the girl was scattering this gossip broadcast -over the village. He had always disliked the girl,—her red hair, pale -blue eyes, loose mouth, and freckles,—nor was it likely that he would -turn to civility now in order to coax her into discretion. He was -inexpressibly concerned, perplexed and discouraged, and the longer did -he remain brooding over the fire, the more convinced did Olver grow -that Daisy’s hysterical theory was the true one. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> - -<p>They heard the rapping of their mother’s stick on the floor overhead; -it was the signal that she needed something. The dogs raised their -heads and began to growl. Lovel, wrenched back to the actualities of -his daily life, said, “Go, you, Olver.”</p> - -<p>He sat on after Olver had gone, but he was not allowed to pursue his -reflections, for the sounds of violent quarrelling reached him from -overhead: his mother’s voice raised to a scream, and Olver’s to an -indignant bellow. He knew that he must go up and separate them. The -cause of their quarrels never transpired; the outburst was puerile, -violent, and senseless, and came to an end with the same childish -suddenness as it had begun. Lovel never knew which he dreaded most, -and which most filled him with anxiety and distaste: their alliance or -their hostility.</p> - -<p>He rose, and taking the candle he went upstairs to his mother’s room. -He went with an extreme weariness and repugnance, feeling that the -burden he had to carry was too heavy when private sorrow was added to -it, and wishing for once, strong though he was, that he might lay it -down and be seen no more in that country. The sound of the quarrelling -voices continued as he made his way along the upstairs passage, but -they fell into an abrupt silence in the presence of his authority. He -stood in the doorway and they looked at him guiltily. The old woman, -huddled in her chair, muttered something under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> her breath. He took in -the squalid disorder of the badly-lighted room.</p> - -<p>“Go down to the kitchen, Olver,” he said.</p> - -<p>Olver slunk away. Lovel came forward, and patiently began setting the -room to rights; although he was too practical a man to indulge himself -in the fastidiousness which might have been his by nature, he was often -sickened by the loathsomeness of the many tasks he had to perform for -his mother: he was sickened now. She was utterly without regard for -decency; but for her son, she would have wallowed contentedly in the -squalor of her room; it was amazing to him how, helpless though she -was, and able to travel about only by propelling herself in her wheeled -chair, she yet contrived during his short absences to reduce the room -she inhabited to the appearance of a hovel.</p> - -<p>“Can Olver not fetch away your supper, but you must start quarrelling -with the lad?” he said.</p> - -<p>Immediately she broke into a torrent of grievances, in the high, shrill -voice of her petulance, which Lovel knew so well; and he regretted that -he had not let the matter pass uncommented, since it was irremediable. -He waited until she had finished, then bent over and said with his -usual gentleness, “Come, mother, let me help you to bed.”</p> - -<p>She allowed him to raise her from her chair, first throwing back -the old miscellaneous shawls and coverings, and, half lifting, half -carrying her across the room, he deposited her on her bed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> She kept up -meanwhile a continual grumble: where had he been all day, that he had -so neglected her? Since early morning he had not been near her; she had -been dependent upon Olver for her food and her company; but Olver was -a good lad; he did not go off all day like Nicholas did, wenching, no -doubt,—Nicholas pressed his hands tightly together, to keep himself -silent,—Olver had sat with her that afternoon, and they had talked; -where would she be, without Olver for company?</p> - -<p>During this complaining and muttering Lovel had busied himself with -making her comfortable in bed; he covered her over, arranged her pillow -for her, placed a glass of water within her reach,—she always wanted -matches too, but was not allowed them;—he now looked down upon her -as she lay, her helpless form under the shapeless heap of bedclothes -and her scant grey locks straggling over the pillow. She had the same -eyes as her sons, in what must have been a fine bony face; and the same -cunning look frequently stole into them as stole into Olver’s.</p> - -<p>“I hope you have not again been filling the lad’s head with the rubbish -I have so often forbidden,” said Lovel anxiously in reply to her last -remark.</p> - -<p>“A nice way for you to speak to your mother!” she croaked. “Olver -doesn’t speak so to me; forbidden, indeed! Never you mind what Olver -and I have been saying. If I had only been given Olver to myself I -could have made him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> into something better than a mere simpleton, as -you all dub him; but no, I wasn’t to have Olver to myself: there was -always Nicholas between us, with his ‘forbidden’ ... forbidden.... -Anyhow, Nicholas hasn’t won altogether,” she muttered, not quite daring -to speak too distinctly; “there are hours every day when Nicholas isn’t -at home.”</p> - -<p>“I can always get Olver to tell me the truth,” said Lovel, “and if I -find you have been at your tricks I shall have to keep him away from -your room.”</p> - -<p>The old woman laughed; a grating and unpleasant laugh, between fear and -amusement.</p> - -<p>“And to do that you will have to stay at home, and then where will the -money come from, my pretty boy?”</p> - -<p>“True,” said Lovel, “I am obliged to go out to work to make money for -you and Olver, but Olver can come with me, and so he shall.”</p> - -<p>“And leave me alone here to die, if so be,” said the old woman, -beginning to whimper, and she snuffled into her bed-clothes, and said -that Nicholas was a cruel son to her.</p> - -<p>“The remedy lies with you,” he said quietly; and then, straightening -the clothes for her again, he told her that he would not take Olver -away from her unless she obliged him to. “But I am responsible for -Olver,” he added, “and we are ill enough looked upon in the village -already; you know, mother, that I must keep Olver in order, and his -brain is too weak to be trusted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> with dangerous matter.” He wondered -why he took the trouble to say this, since he knew that it was useless -attempting to appeal to the old woman’s good sense or better feelings, -as she had neither.</p> - -<p>She only laughed again. He paused beside her for a moment, but there -was nothing more to say, and wishing her good-night he took up the -candle and left the room. Out in the passage he heard her voice calling -him back.</p> - -<p>“Matches, Nicholas: let me have the matches to-night.” He shook his -head in refusal. “Cruel to me, Nicholas; and my own son too: cruel and -hard; he bullies us both....” Lovel shut the door and went downstairs, -but the mumble of her complaining pursued him still.</p> - -<p>Olver crouched by the fire between the dogs, his curls almost as matted -as their pelt. He eyed his brother from under his brows, as though -he expected to be scolded. Lovel however only said quietly, “I shall -remain at home to-morrow, and if you choose you can go to the Manor -House for me.” He let fall this remark in the midst of his occupation -of clearing the room before going to bed; he let it fall so casually -that no trace appeared of the effort it cost him. “But if you should -see Miss Warrener,” he added, “you must breathe no word of the folly -you uttered to me. I must have your word on that, you have never yet -broken your word to me.”</p> - -<p>“I will not tell Miss Warrener,” said Olver.</p> - -<p>Lovel was satisfied. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> - -<p>Olver set out early on the following morning, carrying his basket of -tools slung on his back, and a number of clean new planks, smelling -of resin, under his arm. Nicholas stood at the door to watch him go, -envious, regretful, but sturdy in his determination. Olver walked -quickly up the village street; the morning was bright; he felt good and -competent this morning, and full of importance: not only had Nicholas -trusted him to do his work, but he was full of a private intention to -spy out the land at the Manor House; if Nicholas wanted Clare, why, -then Nicholas must have what he wanted; it seemed to Olver quite simple -and direct. He turned in at the gates of the Manor House, pleased by -the pretty garden and the cool house with its long windows and open -shutters. The lowering mood which was usual to him receded further and -further; it was pleasant to feel so good; he looked all round him as -he walked, smiling. The door was opened to him by Martha Sparrow in a -clean cap and apron; he wanted to kiss her soft old face, which looked -as though it smelt of soap, but instead of doing that he pulled off -his cap very civilly and said that he had come to fix the bookshelves -since his brother was unable. Martha Sparrow looked at his tight curls -and thought with surprise that he was an agreeable-looking lad; telling -him to wait a moment, she left him on the doorstep and went to Mr. -Warrener. “Young Lovel, sir,” she said, “have sent the zany in his -stead.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Warrener had forgotten all about the book-shelves; he pushed his -spectacles up on his forehead and stared at Martha.</p> - -<p>“Sent the zany, Martha? What for?”</p> - -<p>Martha respectfully and patiently reminded him.</p> - -<p>“To be sure, to be sure.” He turned and surveyed with a helpless -resentment the books piled up in a corner of his room. “Bring him in, -Martha,” he said, resignedly.</p> - -<p>“You’ll have him in the room, sir, then?” said Martha dubiously.</p> - -<p>“Why not? why not? to be sure, he has to put up the shelves,” replied -Mr. Warrener, scenting disapproval.</p> - -<p>“These gipsies, sir ... and the zany as naughty as a magpie?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll stop with him, Martha,” said Mr. Warrener, who before the rebuke -of his old servant instantly became a great coward.</p> - -<p>He could not, however, endure the noise of sawing and nailing which -began as soon as Olver had spread out his dust-sheet on the floor, but -took his bee-hive hat and stole quietly away from the room. He greatly -preferred that Olver should do the work wrong, or even that he should -pilfer in the room, than that he should himself have to remain at -hand to supervise or to furnish any further directions. He therefore -retreated to a bench at the remotest corner of the garden, hoping -that Martha would not detect him, where, taking his book from his -pocket, he gave himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> up to his interrupted reading, to the pleasant -accompaniment of the bees busy in the limes, and of the distant small -noises of a summer day. He had soon forgotten Martha’s remonstrance, -and vaguely relied as usual on Clare guessing his wishes, as indeed she -always seemed to do, and seeing to it on his behalf that Olver Lovel -made no impossible mistake over the shelves.</p> - -<p>Before Olver had been at work very long he became aware that Mr. -Warrener was no longer in the room. He sat back on his heels and -examined his surroundings. The soft carpet and deep chairs especially -took his fancy, and he was much impressed by the spacious writing table -littered with so many papers, and the number of reference books, held -open at a special page by various incongruous objects, this one by a -piece of flint, that one by a ruler, and yet a third by the shoe-horn -brought down from Mr. Warrener’s dressing-table. Olver rose to his -feet, and tip-toed about, looking at the books and at the specimens -of pottery, bones, arrow-heads, and what not, in the show cases which -composed Mr. Warrener’s little museum. Arrived at the chimney piece he -came to a pause, for here he discovered an object which pleased him -more than anything he had ever seen, namely a small circular mirror, -mounted on a handle, which by reason of its convexity had the property -of reflecting everything in a slight distortion,—small, brilliant, -precise and peculiar. He was so fascinated by this toy that he ventured -to pick it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> up; first he looked at his own face in it, and laughed -childishly to see the widened cheek-bones, the slanting and Puckish -eyes; then he turned it this way and that, to make it reflect different -corners of the room; and finally he got a tiny picture of the garden in -it, seen through the windows, with a miniature Mr. Warrener sitting on -a bench, slightly out of focus, in the background. So absorbed was he -that he did not notice the entrance of Clare; she came in, wearing a -dress of sprigged muslin, and swinging her hat by its ribbons from her -hand, and she entered with just that degree of nonchalance which would -have led a shrewd observer to the certainty that she expected to find -in the room some person other than the person she actually found. So it -was that they both appeared, and Olver gaped at her, very much taken -aback at being discovered on the side of the room opposite to his work, -and with the mirror in his hand.</p> - -<p>“Why, I understand Martha to say that Lovel was here,” Clare said -inconsequently.</p> - -<p>Olver seemed to find no reply; he stood, holding the mirror, and -scrutinizing Clare as though he beheld an unbelievable vision, and -yet wished to be certain of recollecting that vision in every detail. -In the diversion of the mirror he had momentarily forgotten not only -his work, but also the ulterior motive for which he had come. He -now remembered both. So this was the lass that Nicco wanted! Olver, -envisaging such <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>desires with the utmost crudeness, was not in the -least surprised. He would not have cared for the lass himself,—she was -too limber of build for him,—but he could see her very well as the -complement of Nicco, his swarthiness and her fairness side by side.</p> - -<p>“He could not come; I am here for him,” he replied at last, thinking -himself very artful for saying “he could not” instead of “he would not.”</p> - -<p>“Was he busy?” asked Clare.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Olver heedlessly, for he was now thinking of the mirror and -wondering how he could dispose of it before she should observe it in -his hand, “he has stayed at home.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said Clare. She saw the mirror. “Why, what are you doing with -that?” she asked, amused, and she looked brightly and interrogatively -at him.</p> - -<p>Seeing that she was not angry, he gave a shy smile and looked into the -mirror once again, laughing delightedly at the little picture of his -own face, and glancing at Clare.</p> - -<p>“Do you like it? you may have it for your own if you like,” she said, -partly because he was simple, and partly because he was her friend -Lovel’s brother, and she knew that he would show it to Lovel.</p> - -<p>“For my own? But can you give it to me?” said Olver, clasping his -treasure and grinning.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is mine, so I can give it to you. Would you like it?”</p> - -<p>“But this is Mr. Warrener’s room.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, but the mirror is mine for all that—<i>was</i> mine, I should say, -since it is yours now.”</p> - -<p>“Really and truly mine? to take home with me? to break if I like?”</p> - -<p>“Really and truly yours; but you must try not to break it: a broken -mirror brings bad luck on a house.”</p> - -<p>“There is bad luck enough on our house already without that,” said -Olver, suddenly gloomy.</p> - -<p>“Bad luck,—how do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; Nicco says so sometimes, when he has a black fit on him.”</p> - -<p>“Nicco?”</p> - -<p>“My brother.”</p> - -<p>It was a little shock to her to find that Lovel, whom she knew only as -a figure so detached and self-reliant, should own a childish name. It -seemed to make him suddenly human; her eyes softened.</p> - -<p>“Does he often have a black fit on him?” she pursued, but as soon as -she had spoken the words her loyalty repented of them, and she said, -“No, you should not tell me.”</p> - -<p>“There is no harm,” said Olver, thinking that he saw a chance to -interest her; and he went on, steering away from direct allusion to his -brother until he should see a chance to draw round again insensibly to -that subject. “My mother says always that our house is unlucky, and, -according to her interpretation, ’tis because of the stones that built -it,—sacrificial stones, you know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> they be, Miss Warrener, angered at -the desecration. So says my mother, and she should know, seeing that -her mother was hanged for a witch, as is common talk hereabouts, and -for once the common talk is true. But for my part I have never been -able to see that our house was unlucky; we have enough to eat, and -a fire to warm ourselves by, though, indeed,” he added, as though -the idea had but just now occurred to him, “that is thanks to my -brother, and I do not know how my mother and myself would fare but for -him,—hee! hee!”</p> - -<p>Clare was far too honest to wish to play the spy upon Lovel, yet she -was so much impressed by this suggestion of the half-wit youth and his -bedridden mother being left to their own devices, and feeling moreover -that the most scrupulous conscience could not accuse her of spying upon -Lovel when she was to hear something to his credit, that she did not -forbear from encouraging Olver, “I have heard that his devotion to you -both was extreme.”</p> - -<p>Olver needed no encouragement.</p> - -<p>“Without him, I should die. It is true that sometimes he is stern, and -he sits staring into the fire, and I can get no word from him, but I -have learnt that at those times he is unhappy. But he is so gentle, -Miss Warrener, you would not believe; at one moment he will seem -withdrawn and angry, and the next moment he is all pity. He gives his -life up to us; he does not say so, but I know he does. Once when I was -a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> child the village boys threw stones at me, as they might at a dog, -but Nicholas he came and beat them all with his fists and carried me -home in his arms, and never left me till I was mended.”</p> - -<p>“He has a great affection for you,” said Clare, not knowing what to say.</p> - -<p>“Oh no,—that is quite impossible,” Olver replied naïvely, surprised at -the suggestion.</p> - -<p>Clare was touched by his humility, so obviously genuine. It seemed to -him, indeed impossible that the demi-god who in his eyes was Lovel, -should stoop to any feelings other than pity and obligation towards -a poor contemptible burden like himself. Clare began to catch the -infection of this idealisation of Lovel; she saw him through Olver’s -eyes: humane where he need only have been conscientious; generous where -he need only have been just; yet preserving always that aloofness and -detachment which safeguarded him from all true contact with sordid -things. When she had met him on the highway, or on the Downs, she had -not wondered much about the background of his life; she had accepted -him as an isolated and romantic figure, organic with the Downs -themselves; to her, he was the rider on the skyline, the shepherd of -the folds.</p> - -<p>“There’s a girl in the village would give five years of life for a kind -word from Nicholas,” Olver pursued, considering himself meanwhile in -his mirror with an air of great detachment, “but Nicholas has no eye -for girls. Oh, see,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> he broke off, pointing at the mirror, “my face is -like seen in water,—stretched wide. I often saw it so in a spoon, but -I never dreamt of so pretty a toy as this. Has it magical properties, -do you think? It should have, to match its freakishness. Could I look -into it, do you think, in the moonlight, and see the picture, all pale, -of what you were doing, Miss Warrener, in the face of the mirror, round -like another little moon itself?”</p> - -<p>Clare was startled by his outburst, and the laughter that accompanied -it. Until then she had almost forgotten that he was reputed mad.</p> - -<p>“I’ll ask my mother,” he added, forgetting his prudence in his -excitement. “Nicco does not like my learning of her, so we have to -whisper it when he is away from the house, and you could not believe -the things she tells me. And shows me, too. Why, I can make an object -travel towards me, without touching it; and I have seen visions in a -pool of water. It is our secret. Shall I show you? Watch the curtains: -I will make them belly out, though no wind blows them.”</p> - -<p>“No ...” said Clare, stretching out her hand. “If you love your brother -as you appear to,” she said rapidly, “don’t do what he disapproves; -don’t, Olver Lovel. I am sure he is right to disapprove; I am sure he -is wise. Respect him. I am sure he deserves your respect.”</p> - -<p>She spoke with energy. “Why?” said Olver suspiciously. “Do you know -anything of such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> things? Would you not like to see the curtains move -towards me? My mother says, that with a hair from the head of a person, -she could bring that person, willy-nilly, to her. She has tried it -with Nicholas, but she could not bring him. He is too strong. He is so -strong, that, if he gave his mind to it, he could bring any one; yes, -Miss Warrener, he could bring you. He could bring you to him on the -Downs, at midnight or when he would.”</p> - -<p>“For pity’s sake, Olver Lovel!” cried Clare.</p> - -<p>He came close up to her.</p> - -<p>“Don’t fear my brother, Miss Warrener. There are powers in our -family,—but he does not practise them. I think he does not believe. -He is scornful,—and busy. Oh, he is a fool; that girl I was telling -you of, he turns away from her and half a dozen more. A dandy lad, they -say, and are angry. But that is not the reason. I could tell you the -reason, if I would. But I shan’t. No, Miss Warrener, I keep my counsel.”</p> - -<p>He leered at her. “Give me your hand,” he said, catching it, “and I -will show you something.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Clare, trying to draw it away. “Look at your bookshelves,” -she added, to distract his ideas, “you are leaving them unfinished, and -my father will be in presently, to ask why they are not done. If he -takes it into his head to be annoyed, he will complain to your brother.”</p> - -<p>“Nicholas won’t listen to complaints about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> me,” Olver returned -loftily. “He may curse me within our own doors, but no one from outside -may say a word against me. If Mr. Warrener complains, he will only tell -him not to employ me again. We don’t care whether we are given work or -not, Nicholas and I don’t.”</p> - -<p>“You forget,” said Clare, “that my father sent for your brother and not -for you.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but he wouldn’t come, would he?” said Olver, highly amused. She -was relieved to see that he had got out of his sinister mood and was -again prepared to laugh and be childish. “You don’t know, because you -didn’t see him, Miss Warrener, how he sat glowering at the fire last -night, and ended by telling me that I could come here in his place. You -don’t see him at nights, when he comes home tired and has to be patient -with our mother. He’s patient with her, yes; but he’d get on better if -he humoured her more: he’s too unbending.”</p> - -<p>“How shrewd you are, Olver,” Clare was surprised into saying.</p> - -<p>“Hoi, hoi,” said Olver, wagging his head. “I know my Nicholas; he’ll -break sooner than bend. I told him he could come, and take the chance -of not meeting—the person he didn’t want to meet; but he wouldn’t -have that, not he. He’s stayed at home, to dig in the garden. Time and -again, he takes a day or an afternoon off to do that, for he’s mighty -fond of the garden, and that’s queer, seeing that his days are spent -on the bare Downs, whether or not his business sends him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> there, where -nothing grew that I ever saw, but sorrel and poor grasses.”</p> - -<p>Clare wondered how she could best end the conversation, in which Olver -hovered evidently around some topic he might not broach, but she did -not forbear from smiling when he mentioned Lovel in his garden; she had -often seen the garden at the end of the long, tunnel-like passage as -she turned down the village street; and the little picture of Lovel’s -affection for it was like discovering a patch of sun in a thunderous -landscape. Olver meanwhile had turned back to his planks and tools; he -was fingering the latter; the little round mirror he had put carefully -into his pocket. “I am a good carpenter, you know, Miss Warrener,” he -said, as though he were letting her into a secret, and she saw that his -attention had changed its object.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Nevertheless she wondered greatly at Lovel’s refusal to do work at -the Manor House. She wondered whether she had inadvertently offended -him, but could recall nothing; their last meeting had been as friendly -as ever, nor had his manner in any way betrayed anything amiss. He -was, however, so strange and fiery a creature, so unaccountable in -his moods, that some chance word of hers might well have rankled, -grown during the night, and borne fruit upon the following day. She -went carefully in her mind over their recent conversations, which, -happily inconsequent and spasmodic, were a little <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>difficult to -recollect in detail; but she achieved this feat, smiling again with -a little heartache over Lovel’s remarks about children,—ah, what a -good friendship it had been!—but her sifting of their talks revealed -nothing. She went about the house, still wondering after Lovel. What -if she had imagined the whole thing? What if he had been genuinely -prevented? the hints that Olver had let drop might well be the progeny -only of that sickly brain. Revived by this idea, yet apprehensive of -its allusion, she sought out William Baskett and sent him off to Lovel -with a message. “Say to him, William, that I have a small repair to be -done to the cupboard in my room, and beg him to come with his bag of -tools as quickly as may be. Say that it is a neat job I require or I -would not otherwise disturb him. Say that it is in my room, and for my -own particular use.”</p> - -<p>A quarter of an hour later William returned: Lovel must ask Miss -Warrener to excuse him, he was busy and could not come.</p> - -<p>At that Clare flamed into anger. What! she held out an olive branch to -the man, over some imaginary affront, and he rejected it? Very well. -Let him nurse his grievance; he should not be given another chance. She -was all the angrier with him because she was angry with herself for -having sent a verbal message by Baskett; the story, conceivably, would -be repeated at the Waggon of Hay, in which case it would be all over -the village; she ought to have written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Lovel a note. The whole of her -day was spoilt by her resentment; it pricked her constantly through -all her occupations; she dared not go outside the gates for fear of -meeting the offender; she hated him for thus disturbing her peace of -mind and inconveniencing her movements. One thing at least was clear by -now, that he was deliberately avoiding her. He should not have cause to -complain that she sought him out.</p> - -<p>But by the next day her mood was already softened and her conscience -again at work. She was sorry to think that she might, however -unintentionally, have hurt him so deeply. Poor Lovel! his position and -his family made her over-sensitive. She would not willingly add to his -burden. Perhaps he was already regretting a too hasty refusal. But how -to approach him as it were by chance? for she felt she would sooner -lose his friendship altogether than send a second message to his house. -There was one very obvious course open to her: she took her pony and -rode up to the Downs.</p> - -<p>But although she rode up to the White Horse, and down again to the Grey -Wethers, and round by Lovel’s hut, and skirted most of the valleys -where there was likely shelter and pasture for sheep, she saw no sign -of Lovel. She was again angry with him for not being there, nor did -the fact that he followed many trades besides that of a shepherd do -anything to soothe her annoyance. She came back, entering the village -on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> the farther side to avoid passing his house. She felt as though -something whose value she had never realised while she still possessed -it, had gone out of her life; and here again she found cause for anger -with Lovel.</p> - -<p>But she could not remain angry with him for very long together. She -wondered what he was doing; whether he missed her as much as she missed -him; whether his mood had passed by now into a sulky childish obstinacy -that was determined not to make the first advance, but that, if it -were dragged out of its corner, could be willing enough to be coaxed -into making friends. Clare smiled fondly as she thought how well she -knew him. She thought that she had only to meet him face to face for -laughter to spring into his eyes,—laughter both at the relief of their -reconciliation, and at himself for his past foolishness.</p> - -<p>In the meantime she fell to dwelling upon his occupations, and -recalling all the gossip she had ever heard on his account, the stories -of his skill, and of his almost miraculous cures performed upon ailing -animals; of his breaking-in colts in record time; of his more illicit -career as a poacher. There was something in her which enjoyed this -train of thought and the pictures it evoked. She liked to think of -Lovel moving as stealthy as a cat through the woods at midnight, a -snare in his hand and a game-bag across his back. She liked to think -of him thus alone with the woods, the night, and the slinking animals, -his foot cautious upon the leaves; she thought that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> he must be happy -thus. She even liked to think of him bending over his victim, and of -the warm, smoking blood spurted over his hands. Although he hunted -them, he had a kinship with the animals. When he crouched, motionless -as a hare, at the approach of a keeper, he, the hunter, was suddenly on -the animals’ side more truly than the keeper, who was there to protect -them. There was something ridiculous in the idea of a keeper protecting -the animals against Lovel; even the rabbit squealing in the noose must -know that only by chance was Lovel out for its capture,—an enemy of -superior force, merely, rather than anything so utterly removed as a -man.</p> - -<p>All this dwelling upon Lovel, which sent her absent-minded about the -house and garden, did not bring her any nearer to making her peace -with him. She was now no longer angry, but sore and puzzled, and she -was sure that he must be unhappy too, although she knew that even -after their reconciliation,—ultimately inevitable, to her mind,—he -would never own to this. The necessity of this reconciliation seemed -to her so simple and so obvious that she never thought of questioning -her pride. Daily she rode upon the Down, and daily as she returned -disappointed she contemplated in greater detail the possibility of -sending, after all, a second message to Lovel. She could even send -it in her father’s name. But he would not come. She was convinced he -would not come. That was not the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> method to adopt. She must take him by -surprise; she must startle him; appear suddenly before him, so that he -would smile before he had time to remember his grievance, and, having -once smiled, it would be too late to resume a severe face.</p> - -<p>In the midst of this pre-occupation, she almost forgot Calladine, that -theatrical man, and the excitability of his manner recently towards -her. She had not seen him again, for which she was thankful; she -could not have met him without embarrassment. The idea of marriage -was incongruous and slightly absurd. She belonged to herself, and to -herself only; and the suggestion that Calladine or any one else should -wish to capture her was not serious but merely laughable. It had not -occurred to her that he, as well as Lovel, might be unhappy on her -account; such a thought would have distressed her exceedingly. It was -entirely without thought of Calladine, save for an occasional fleeting -hope that he might not have chosen to ride in the direction as herself, -that she roved over the Downs in search of Lovel. A fortnight passed -before she found him. She could, doubtless, have met him long before -by simply walking down the village street, but that would not have -been at all to her purpose, and she had in fact been at pains to avoid -any such encounter. At the end of a fortnight, having ridden up to -the White Horse, from where the widest view was to be obtained, she -discerned a long way off, up by the clump of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> beeches on the horizon, a -flock of sheep accompanied by a shepherd. Unhesitatingly, even gaily, -she started off in his pursuit. She was happy to think that their long -estrangement was drawing to its end. She skipped in her mind over the -preliminaries which must be got over before they could take up their -friendship again on its old easy terms. She, with a mind impatient -of all but essentials, would preferably have dispensed with these -preliminaries, explanations, upbraidings, and possibly abuse. She -wanted to waste no time; there were so many things she wanted to tell -him; she wanted to tell him how her pony had gone lame from picking up -a stone in his shoe; she wanted to tell him again of the melancholy -effect produced upon her by her visit to Starvecrow; she wanted to -ask him to splice her trout-rod and come with her one evening down to -the quiet pool of the brook. Her eagerness grew with the seething of -these small schemes as she urged her pony across the grass. She was -approaching Lovel by a devious way, going down into the valleys, where -she would escape his notice, until she could strike directly up the -hill and top the crest suddenly before his eyes. Her own eyes sparkled -over the precautions she was taking. She thought that she had now gone -far enough along the low reaches of the valleys, and set her pony at -the hill; they mounted the long, steep incline, like going upon an -adventure.</p> - -<p>On the breeze came the tinkling of the sheep-bells, as the flock moved -cropping. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> - -<p>She had calculated her distance well, for when she finally reached the -top of the hill, she found that she had exactly hit off the flock of -sheep cropping beside the clump of beeches. Close by them lay a bundle -of osiers, hastily thrown down, and several wattled hurdles, with -fresh osiers threaded into them for repair; a knife, the sun shining -on its strong, curved blade; and a small bundle tied up in a red -pocket handkerchief. There were all these signs of the recent presence -of the shepherd, but he himself was nowhere to be seen. Clare looked -round in perplexity. The sun was strong, the breeze fresh, the grasses -glittered and curtsied, the shadows of the clouds bowled down the hills -and ran up the opposite side, the view was broad, but it revealed no -Lovel. With all that open country lying spread out, he must have taken -refuge in the small beech-wood,—watching her, perhaps, from behind -the trunk of a tree. She was almost amused by this childish game of -hide and seek, and in any case was determined not to be baffled by him -now that she had come so far; she could not now turn and ride away in -acknowledgment of defeat. Swinging herself off her pony she knotted -the reins loosely and let it turn away to snuff the grass, while she -herself entered the little wood, brave though tremulous, her optimism -ebbing as her obstinacy increased. The tree-trunks were not very close -together, so that she could look through the clump from one side out to -the other; she often went into these clumps of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> beech, and lay down on -the bare ground, looking up the smooth grey trunks, watching the sun -glint its shivered rays through the branches, and listening to the wind -among the leaves; she had even been into them with Lovel, and he had -knocked the warts off the trunks and carved them into frightening faces -with his knife to amuse her.</p> - -<p>She paused with her hand upon the tree. “Lovel!” she cried. “I know -you are here, don’t hide from me; come out, Lovel!” There was no -answer, and after a little hesitation she went deeper into the wood. -She saw him then; he was not hiding, he was standing there perfectly -motionless, in the midst of a small clearing in the trees, standing -very quiet, like a man who after a long pursuit sees himself finally -brought to bay. He was looking straight at her, as though he knew the -direction in which she would come.</p> - -<p>Now that she was confronted with him, a little of her self-confidence -went; he had, for a long fortnight now, inhabited her mind only, and -her vision not at all; and in her mind their meeting had run always -on the lines she devised for it, but here she had Lovel himself of -untested inflexibility, to trip the running of her programme. She gazed -at him beseechingly, but he still stood, in an attitude of expectant -resignation, waiting for her to open the attack. It came into her mind -that even now she might turn away, without a word spoken, having learnt -all that there was to be learnt from a single look. Instead,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> she went -up to him, saying “Lovel?” and upon an impulse she held out her hand.</p> - -<p>He remained unmoved, examining her with a sort of abstracted interest. -She thought that she had never seen him so much like an animal, -pausing even while poised for flight, and a despair overcame her when -she remembered her own conceit that she could tame and bring to heel -again a creature so wild. She was ashamed when she remembered that she -had pitied him, had assumed that he must be unhappy, had smiled to -herself when she thought of keeping up his pretence of temper like a -sulky child. That smile had had in it much that was tender, much that -was maternal; had she then forgotten Lovel, or had her imagination -so metamorphosed his image, that she could have persuaded herself of -his need for tenderness, tolerance, or pity? He had need for none of -those soft things; she had been mistaken in thinking that he in any way -needed her; he needed no one; he stood alone. Nevertheless, she would -not retreat without some struggle; he might, still, prove to be no -worse than angry and hurt; if he insisted on remaining so, it should, -at least, not be owing to a lack of good-will on her part. “Lovel,” she -said, “Lovel, have I offended you in any way? See, I have come here -deliberately to ask you and to say that I am sorry for whatever I may -have done; how can I say more?”</p> - -<p>Still he did not reply, but turned his head slightly and uneasily as -though looking for <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>escape. He still had that air of being poised in -the clearing of the trees, alienating him from her as if she had come -upon him in the midst of some secret rite which he only awaited her -departure to resume. She felt inclined to cry out, “We were so close -to one another, once!” and the pain of the loss stabbed her sharply, -but instead she pleaded again with him, “Lovel, if you would only -speak to me we could put this misunderstanding right.” Where was the -smile she had so confidently hoped to startle into his eyes? He had -never shown himself so aloof or so forbidding; she felt herself small, -insignificant, and importunate; if she had found him in the open, she -thought, he would have been more vulnerable, but here among the trees -he seemed curiously protected.</p> - -<p>He had not moved a step ever since she came up with him; was he rooted -there, a tree himself, or a sapling? she did not know; and a panic -began to spread over her at his fancied communion and alliance with -nature. He was as brown as the earth, his clothes were the colour of -dead leaves, his shirt was red like a robin’s breast. She remembered -again the tales she had heard of him, and her own fancies that had -followed him at the poacher’s trade, and this time she was afraid. She -wove them together with the ignorant tales of the witchcraft among -the Lovels. Could there be any truth in these fantastic notions? a -secret of harmony in nature which entitled the initiated to powers -inexplicable to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> the uninitiated? why did all animals so dread Olver -Lovel? so trust to Nicholas? what of her own intuitions? her sudden, -reasonless terrors? her mingled love and fear of the sarsen stones and -of trees? her constant phrase, uttered half in jest, that some day she -would be fetched away? And how was Lovel concerned? what part was he -to have in the fetching? If only he were not so brown, brown as earth, -lithe as the saplings, his shirt red as a robin’s breast; if only his -eyes were not constant pilgrims to the horizon.</p> - -<p>She turned to leave him; at all costs she must get out of this wood, -where she felt the old threat closing in round her, and in which Lovel -was so mysteriously implicated. She turned slowly, not to betray her -panic, still with the half-hope that he would speak and thereby break -her spell. But when he spoke, it only deepened.</p> - -<p>“There is no misunderstanding,” he said.</p> - -<p>She wheeled round again upon him.</p> - -<p>“Then why have you so avoided me?” she said passionately. “A fortnight -ago we met by the Grey Wethers, we had no quarrel, we parted friends. -The next day you were sent for to the Manor House, you would not come, -you sent your brother. I sent for you later myself,—a special message. -You would not come. I thought I had offended you in some way. Do you -know that I have looked for you all over the hills to ask you for your -reason? A fortnight I have spent in looking for you.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” he said. “I have seen you.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> - -<p>Her voice died away; she had thrown herself against his defences and -bruised herself. Her indignation had made a tiny uproar in the wood -without detracting from the calm of the trees or the dignity of Lovel. -She made a small gesture of abandonment; her one desire now was to get -away. “There is nothing more to be said.”</p> - -<p>“Set your mind at ease,” he observed unexpectedly. “You never offended -me. Believe me, you could not do so even if you tried; believe me, you -are too sweet and gentle to do such a thing. Put all the blame on to -me. I am capricious and wayward, you know; any one in the village will -tell you as much and a dozen worse things besides. You must believe -them all. You have my word on it that they are all true. But as for -blaming yourself, never dream of doing so. Think only that I am not fit -for you to associate with, and let me go my way without looking for me -any more.”</p> - -<p>“Is this your only reason?” said Clare.</p> - -<p>He hesitated. He was still standing motionless and every moment she -felt that he was being farther and farther withdrawn from her.</p> - -<p>“No, it is not my only reason,” he said at last, “but it is the only -one I choose to give to you. It is enough surely. I come of a family -with a very ill-name, and I myself would see the inside of a prison -over and over again if the guardians of the law were as cute at their -work as I, perhaps, am at mine. I think it is sufficient reason.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Have you robbed, or even murdered, Lovel?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Would you be convinced if I told you that I had?” he replied with idle -curiosity. “I have robbed crowded coverts, if you call that robbing, -but as for the rest, although I have taken the lives of pheasants and -partridges, I have not taken the life of man or made away with the -property of any of my employers while it was in my charge.”</p> - -<p>“Your reason is a very insufficient one,” she said, “you are telling me -nothing that I did not know already. Will you come outside the trees? I -cannot talk to you in here, I feel trapped.”</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, retreating a step. “I came in here to avoid you, but -since you have followed me we stay in the place I chose. And my other -reason is fully adequate,—oh, fully, fully!” he said with great -feeling, “so now leave me, Clare, and think of me as harshly as -you can. If you meet me anywhere, pass me by; I ask that of you as -earnestly as ever a favour was asked.”</p> - -<p>“You ask me to pass you by even on the Downs?” she said slowly.</p> - -<p>“I do,” he replied. He rushed on, not looking at her, “I must not -make friends. I want to be alone. You stole my friendship, and I have -resented it. Call me ill-mannered, even brutal; call me ungrateful, -boorish. I was angry when I saw you riding to-day. It is better that -you should know the truth, and it cannot hurt you, coming from me. What -am I to you? a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> peasant, a gipsy, a Jack-of-all-trades. I have nothing -to do with your life or you with mine, so leave me alone,—leave me -alone,” he said.</p> - -<p>All her pride was lashed alive now; she was utterly astonished, and, in -her simplicity, convinced. “I have forced my friendship upon you,” she -stammered. “Yes, yes,” said Lovel, driving it home. She stared at him, -lovely in her distress. But even in her humiliation she was generous. -“Forgive me,” she stammered again. She turned and fled out from amongst -the trees, aware,—but not knowing how truly,—that she had left there -something which she would never regain. She came out by the osiers, -the hurdles, and Lovel’s knife lying upon the ground. The sight of -it, in its familiarity, stung tears to her eyes. If he had not wanted -her, why had he carved faces from the warts of the beech-trees for her -amusement. Why had he tired so suddenly? rebelled so wildly against -the slight tie of her friendship? She swung herself on to her pony and -galloped away, not seeing where she was going, but only mad to put the -greatest possible distance between herself and that wood whence she had -escaped indeed, but only with her life.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Calladine meanwhile, who knew nothing of Clare’s friendship with Lovel, -and who would have stared had he heard it mentioned, had lived in a -torment ever since her visit. She had come and gone again, and he felt -as though during her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> brief sojourn she had stirred round the sluggish -atmosphere of his house with a wand. His eye became more critical as he -surveyed his surroundings from her point of view. He tried to imagine -what she would say were she to take his house thoroughly in hand, and -began to introduce such alterations as he thought she would approve; -he rearranged his books, he re-hung his pictures, he ordered patterns -from London and had his leather chairs covered with a flowered chintz. -His servant Mrs. Quince was at first at a loss to know what had come -over her master, but after she and Martha Sparrow had put their heads -together they arrived at the obvious conclusion. “’Tis a woman’s house -now, Martha,—dimity in the windows, and what do you think? dried rose -leaves and spices among the linen!—though as yet there’s no woman to -live in it.” Calladine shut his mind obstinately to the curiosity he -knew he must be awaking in Mrs. Quince; he daily informed her of his -wishes while inviting no comment, and she, on her part, took advantage -of his new mood, and of the good-humour in which, she argued, he must -be anxious to keep her, to ask for an extra pair of hands for all the -new work she pretended he was creating. “There’s that girl of Farmer -Morland’s, sir, casting round for a place.” Calladine agreed at once, -without argument or enquiry. Let Farmer Morland’s girl be engaged by -all means; and Daisy, with her red head, her freckles, her pale blue -eyes, and her frilled Sunday muslins,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> was installed in the attic. -Calladine, in so far as he noticed her at all, disliked her at sight; -she dropped a curtsey to him the first time she met him, and tried -to ingratiate him with a smile. But he was too deeply bent upon his -own concerns to pay her more than the tribute of a passing distaste. -Clare had been to his house, his room had contained Clare, her voice -had vibrated through the air he breathed, her hand had rested on his -door handle, her foot had trodden his stair. She might come again—but -such was his fantasy that he all but dreaded lest the return of her -presence should disturb the perfection of his memory. He was almost -content, for the moment, that he might remain at Starvecrow, doing her -service. A garden, she had said; and he toiled at the obstinate soil -till his hands lost their refinement and hardened in the palms, and he -smiled to see his broken nails. Mrs. Quince observed him sarcastically -from the windows of the house, hands on hips. He had thrown aside his -coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. “But he’ll need to do away with -those silk shirts if he’s to go in for pick and mattock,” she grumbled, -between tenderness and scorn. Calladine was indeed an incongruous -figure, spare and delicate of build, with his greying hair that gave -him a slightly eighteenth century appearance, and his long back bent -over the stones and flints of that untilled hillside. He thought, -sometimes ruefully, when he stood up to stretch his back and to survey -the little progress he had made, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> Clare had set him a harder task -than she knew. He began to invest it with characteristically romantic -properties. It was like scaling the Hill of Glass, or separating the -wheat from the millet, or travelling to the ends of the earth to bring -back a jet bottled from the Singing Fountain. If he could transform -this strong wilderness to a blowing curtseying garden, might he, having -accomplished his task, present himself to claim his prize? And what -would she say, she the distant, she the all-unconscious, when she came -to inspect the results of his labours? Would she praise? would she -deride? he swung his pick again with an unconvinced jeer at himself for -the fabric of symbolism he was creating.</p> - -<p>“The new mistress’ll have nothing to say to my old-fashioned ways,” -Mrs. Quince observed to Martha, suggesting that it was she herself whom -she thus slightly derided. Martha, simple soul, was taken in. “Likely -enough, Mrs. Quince, she has a rare eye to the ordering of a house.” -Mrs. Quince smiled on one side of her face. “She took over from me when -she was fifteen,” continued Martha in perfect good faith, “and I wasn’t -able to call my dusters my own. Look what she has made Mr. Calladine do -already; the house isn’t the gloomy place it was.”</p> - -<p>“What he has done was Mr. Calladine’s own choice,” said Mrs. Quince -tartly.</p> - -<p>“But you may be sure she put him up to it,” Martha replied.</p> - -<p>So for hours they talked round and round the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> central subject, avoiding -always the crux of the discussion, which was that Martha, with the -match-making instinct, longed for the day when she should let Clare -pass from her hands as a bride, and that Mrs. Quince, who had governed -and mothered Calladine (in so far as so uncomfortable and so unreal -a man would allow himself to be mothered) equally dreaded the day -when another woman should take over from her the reins of Starvecrow. -Calladine himself remarked her altered manner. “Will you be taking -your lemon and hot water the same as usual at night, sir?” she asked -him, and when in surprise he said, “Why shouldn’t I, Mrs. Quince?” -she replied in a voice full of vague and sinister suggestion, “Well, -I thought as things was so changed, and likely to be more changed in -future, that that might be going overboard with the rest.”</p> - -<p>Because Mrs. Quince could not keep off her idea, which buzzed in her -head as tirelessly as a mosquito, in between Martha’s visits she began -to throw out dark hints to Daisy Morland. Daisy absorbed them with the -intelligence she brought to bear only on questions connected with the -sexual relationship of any two persons. She was careful not to betray -too much of her interest to Mrs. Quince; only a modicum sufficient to -keep the housekeeper going; and thus judiciously she was able to give -the impression that she took in only about half of what was said, so -that Mrs. Quince loosened her tongue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> to her more than she ventured -to loosen it to Martha Sparrow, and presently, encouraged by Daisy’s -ejaculations of sympathy and admiration, she fell into the habit of -speaking her mind freely as to the vexatious prospect of having a young -mistress in the house, “With her notions and her fandangles, upsetting -folk that knew their work inside out long before she was born.” Daisy -echoed the complaint; but inwardly she devoutly favoured the scheme of -a marriage between Mr. Calladine and Miss Warrener. A parallel plan -was maturing slowly in her brain, that she would turn Mr. Calladine’s -name to her own advantage. She recalled all too vividly the faces of -Miss Warrener and young Lovel as she had seen them upon the Downs, -when, as she had expressed it in a bout of jealous despair to Olver, -“a week wouldn’t have been enough for all they had to say to one -another.” It was true that she had not seen them touch so much as each -other’s hands, which seemed remarkable to her ideas, accustomed to the -loose, inarticulate, indiscriminate rustic fondling, but this, with a -sneer, her instinct working less subtly than it might have worked, she -attributed to Miss Clare being “gentry,” and to Lovel fancying himself -“gentry” too, though every one knew in what poverty he lived, for -all his ancestors and his book-reading. But, she reflected, with the -satisfaction of reducing even “gentry” to a least common denominator -with simple folk like herself, in the end it came to the same thing -for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> everybody; and there was only one way of begetting children: -no amount of gentility was able to refine <i>that</i> away! She put it -crudely to herself, and grinned. But a thought struck her: what if -young Lovel in that high-handed way he had with him, should actually -succeed in getting Miss Warrener before Mr. Calladine had spoken? -Mr. Calladine was a gentleman,—she couldn’t call him a man, no, but -a gentleman he certainly was, and she was even a little overawed by -his gentility,—who would take a long time in coming to the point; -he would dawdle the thing out, just for the sake of tickling his own -feelings; she could tell that merely by looking at him. Oh, he might -have made up his mind long ago, but that wouldn’t prevent him from -dallying with a girl, seeing her often, teasing himself and her with -doubts, wondering whether he would want her quite so much once he had -got her, and preferring to live on the whole, in the uncertainty of -courtship.... She could see through Mr. Calladine; that was one effect -being “gentry” had on people. She had nothing but scorn for men like -that. Look at him now, digging up a patch for a garden, and all to -please Miss Clare,—Mrs. Quince had said so,—and not as though he had -been a poor man digging over his potato-patch against the day when he -would have to keep a wife. Lovel wasn’t like that; and therein lay both -her fear and her respect. She tried to console herself by thinking how -preposterous was the idea that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> Lovel should ever hope to get Miss -Warrener, he, a village boy when all was said and done, with an old -bed-ridden witch for a mother and a daft hobgoblin for a brother; but -her own feelings for Lovel stepped in to destroy this consolation: -wasn’t he a proper strong young man, as difficult to catch as a colt -turned loose on the Downs, with his wild dark air, enough to touch the -fancy of a girl? She couldn’t tell herself why she had so set her heart -on Lovel, if it wasn’t for that air of his,—so set her heart on him -that she was ready to take on the zany and the old witch and all, if -only she could get him. He had never looked twice at her, for all she -had tried hard enough to attract his attention; yet she preferred him -to any young man in the village, even to Peter Gorwyn, the smith’s son, -with his muscular six foot two, with whom she had made so merry on the -day of the Scouring, or Job Lackland, who played the fiddle and whose -appearance of fair girlishness was so misleading. They were all very -well, either of those two, for a one day’s fooling; she reckoned them -at their proper worth, just as they reckoned her; Lovel alone was the -serious business. She supposed that she could get Peter Gorwyn to marry -her; he was a decent boy, and his sense of decency would certainly get -him as far as the church,—and suddenly, in her mind, she saw quite -complete the scheme by which she would decoy Lovel. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> - -<p>She brooded over this for some time, perfecting its details, with -little gusts of excitement. There was as yet no very great urgency; -she could afford to wait a week or two. Olver, moreover, whom she met -one day that Mrs. Quince had sent her on an errand to King’s Avon, -informed her that his brother seemed very moody of late and short -in the temper, from which she deduced that he was either not seeing -Clare or that something had happened to cloud their friendship. The -information reassured her, and she cheerfully completed her purchases, -passing the time of day with her acquaintances and even accepting a -glass of stout at the Waggon of Hay from young Gorwyn, of which she -knew that Mrs. Quince would not approve; she looked at young Gorwyn -over the rim of her glass as she drank, and wondered whether the day -would ever come when she could tell him what she owed him: perhaps on -the occasion of some future Scouring, when he and she were left behind -among the old folks of the village, to dodder and dither in the sun of -the street, perhaps she would tell him then, and a fine astonishment -and a good though quavering laugh, he would get out of it. It was funny -to look at him now, handsome enough as he lounged beside the bar, and -to think of him bent double over a stick; funny, too, to think of what -had been between them and of what it was perhaps to lead to. One never -knew how things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> were going to turn out.... She set down her glass -on the counter, thanked him, and gathered up her parcels to go. He -offered to accompany her, but she declined the offer; she had plenty to -think about in her walk home over the Downs. “You’re mighty pernickety -to-day,” he twitted her, rather relieved to be let off the consequences -of the offer gallantry had prompted, and went with her as far as the -door, and the old men sitting with their pipes in the chimney corner -commented, “A hefty pair.”</p> - -<p>She took the road which led out of the village on the western side and -which presently ceased to be a metalled way and dissolved into one of -those broad green tracks that all over the Downlands of England mark -the course of the ancient paths. She had a good three miles to walk, -but her numerous small parcels of groceries and haberdashery were not -heavy, and her mind was occupied with the account she had heard of -Lovel. She could think it over at peace while it was still fresh in -her memory; at Starvecrow, Mrs. Quince would hustle her, and she would -not have time to sort her impressions until she went up to her attic -for the night, when she would be too tired for anything but sleep. It -had been clever of her to refuse young Gorwyn’s suggestion, although -it went sorely against the grain with her ever to decline any man’s -company. Still, she had done well; this was the very place to think -out ways and means, with the peace of evening falling and only the -distant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> bleatings of sheep to disturb a body’s thoughts. So Lovel was -moody, was he? something had gone wrong, and according to her shrewd -and simple creed nothing could go wrong enough to provoke moodiness in -a man who had no crops or beasts of his own to worry about except his -dealings with a woman. Had Miss Warrener given him the cold shoulder at -last? she wouldn’t wonder, and was maliciously glad that Lovel should -have met at last with a match in his own hoity-toity ways. That would -show him, what it felt like. But she perceived that, although she had -hitherto only congratulated herself over his discomfiture, it was in -reality full of danger, for where was the danger to equal the danger -of a reconciliation? She must, she saw it now, shoot her dart before -Lovel and that hussy could make it up. But how to meet him? how to get -so soon after this expedition, an afternoon’s leave from Mrs. Quince? -Besides, there was the circus soon visiting King’s Avon; she didn’t -want to imperil her chance of getting leave to attend that with her -father and mother. She paused, cogitating, her finger pressed against -the side of her nose. She looked around for inspiration. Nothing but -the emptiness of the rolling country oddly broken by a few stray -barrows and tumuli; a little farm half-hidden in a clump of trees; a -water-mill slowly revolving with a recurrent flash from the setting -sun; a hay-stack standing in a wattled enclosure by the side of the -track. “As well look for an idea as for a needle in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> bundle of hay,” -she muttered to herself. The very thing! the very idea she wanted! -Glancing cautiously round to see that no one was in sight, she bestrode -the hurdles and thrust into the dusty depths of the haystack the most -urgent and necessary of Mrs. Quince’s many commissions. She would get -a sound rating for her forgetfulness, but she would surely be sent -back next day to King’s Avon to repair the negligence, and then, if -she could not contrive to find Lovel, might she be called a fool for -ever after! Chuckling over her own ingenuousness, she hurried on her -way. She had no eye for the beauty of the late summer evening, that so -dusted with gold the hills that they might all have been one rolling -field of standing corn, but hurried on, her mind full of her own small -and artful schemes, and dwelling with relish on the thought of Clare -and Lovel estranged within a stone’s throw of one another in the -village she had left behind her.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Her gauge of Mrs. Quince’s irritability had been very accurate. The -other parcels duly handed over, Mrs. Quince had demanded her thread, -of which, she declared, she had not a morsel left in the house. She -inveighed against Calladine, who was so impatient that he daily -enquired when the new curtains would be finished, but she inveighed -still more against Daisy, who, she exclaimed, must be bereft of all -ordinary sense to forget any item of so careful a list as she, Mrs. -Quince, had herself prepared.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> Well, there was no help for it: back -Daisy must go, and that no later than to-morrow, for besides the -curtains there was all the mending to be done, and if she got a corn or -a blister tramping the extra six miles she would only have herself to -blame.</p> - -<p>Daisy made no complaint. She was beginning to feel herself a match for -them all, for if she could outwit Mrs. Quince, who was a woman, how -much more easily would she be able to outwit Lovel, who was only a man?</p> - -<p>Accordingly she started out on the following day, ostensibly penitent -but inwardly triumphant, and slung down the hill, leaving on its -height Starvecrow with its blown thorn trees and Calladine swinging -his pick in the garden. The only thought which pre-occupied her, was -where to find Lovel, for as she knew, his occupations took him in many -various directions, and he was just as likely to be driving a herd into -Marlborough to market as watching sheep on the Downs. Olver, however, -she could be tolerably certain of finding in the village, and he, at -least, might know his brother’s whereabouts. On the way she retrieved -the packet of thread from its hiding place in the stack, since she was -too thrifty a soul to waste her own money in buying a new lot from the -shop, and as she climbed rather laboriously back over the hurdles, she -saw Lovel himself riding idly towards her up the green track.</p> - -<p>He was alone; he had not seen her, for his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> head was sunk and he rode -with loose reins as a man profoundly dejected, not caring whither he -went. Daisy stood watching his approach, superstitiously encouraged as -to her ultimate enterprise by her initial good luck. Not only would -no time be wasted, but she would be spared quite a mile’s walk, for -they were a good half-mile out of the village. How slack he rode! had -she not been a woman in love with him, she would have pitied him. His -horse slunk along as dejected as he, with drooping head and careless -stumbling foot. They came up the track towards her at a walk, the -reins swinging loosely from side to side, but even though he sat so -lackadaisical in his saddle she noted the easy give of his body to the -horse’s gait, and the light touch of the hands that would tauten to an -instant check should the animal start or shy. Shy indeed it did, as -Daisy stepped suddenly out from the side of the track to intercept it, -and Lovel was startled into instinctive vigilance, raising his eyes -under the brim of his wide hat to see what stood in the way. But not so -much life as even an expression of annoyance crept in his mournful eyes -as he saw Daisy; he lifted his hat civilly, and would have ridden on, -but that she detained him.</p> - -<p>“Not so fast, Gipsy Lovel, when I’ve walked all this way from -Starvecrow on purpose to see you.”</p> - -<p>She tried to make her tone arch rather than threatening; it was her -habit to coax men rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> than to coerce them. She might have known -that no woman, not even Clare, could coax Lovel when he was in the -opposite humour, but the manner was too habitual for her to discard. -“Won’t you get off your horse,” she said, “and sit down on the grass -beside me while I say what I have to say to you?”</p> - -<p>She sighted the hay-stack, out of which a section had already been cut, -and thought in her cheap and common mind that if only she could get him -to rest there with her, leaning back against the warm dusty hay, she -would find greater ease in bringing him round to her point of view, for -she was a staunch believer in the influence of physical comfort upon -the tempers of men. “See, here’s a nice place,” she invited him, but -with a cold patience he surveyed her from the height of his horse and -begged that she would say her say with the utmost possible brevity and -allow him to pass on.</p> - -<p>The corners of her mouth began to go down ugly and sulky, as the -first obstacle thwarted her on the path which had hitherto been so -surprisingly smooth, but she hastily lifted them again, for it would -not do to let ill-humour creep into their relations.</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, I’ll begin,” she said as brightly as she could, “and if you -feel like coming down from your grandeur half-way through, just stop me -and I’ll give you a breathing-space.”</p> - -<p>Lovel waited gravely, the shadow of his hat heavy across his eyes. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> - -<p>Now that Daisy was face to face with him, she was at a loss how to -begin; she could not just blurt out her story and ask him to marry her; -and anyway, he made her feel so insignificant, sitting there on a great -horse like an idol, or like one of those soldiers she’d seen pictures -of, in a steel helmet and a leather jacket and an upright lance in his -hand. She told him this, and he listened unbending, silhouetted for her -against the sky, mollified neither by her archness nor by her genuine -confusion. “Oh, well, if you will have it up there,” she said at last -in despair, “I’ll have to shout it up to you, but surely a poor girl -never told a story in such a gawk of a position.”</p> - -<p>She began then, but, disconcerted, she began as she had not meant to -begin, by saying “Do you recollect the Scouring this year?” and then -hastily correcting herself, “No, no, I don’t mean that at all, what I -mean is, your young brother Olver....”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t mean that either,” she said, seeing that his expression -had become, if anything, a little sterner at the mention of Olver’s -name. “It’s like this,” she said desperately, “I’m over to Starvecrow -now, at Mr. Calladine’s, but it’s a question how long I’ll be able to -remain in the place. And I thought that you, Nick Lovel, being a decent -man in spite of all your pride, would be the last one not to help a -poor girl when she had no one but you to turn to, and afraid to face -her own parents, and not so much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> as a married sister she could go to, -or a penny of money saved, seeing Mr. Calladine’s is my first place -and Dad never paid me for the work I did on the farm, but a bit now -and then to buy myself a pair of new shoes or a ribbon, and anything -I had went on muslin for a dress to the Scouring, which I made myself -instead of taking it to the dressmaker in Marlborough same as Annabel -Blagdon. And it isn’t for Mr. Calladine’s getting married that I do -be afraid of leaving the place, but for my own trouble, and that’s a -thing that Mrs. Quince is bound to find out sooner or later, and the -only wonder is she hasn’t started asking questions already, but now -every time she opens her mouth I’m feared it’s coming that I do feel -my cheeks going all patchy, red and white, same as sometimes in the -spring ’mong boys and girls. But I knew if I came to you, you would see -it in the Christian light, and I could give in my notice and say I was -leaving to get married, and ’twould be all envy and bless-you-Daisy, -and Come-and-see-us-when-you’re-a-married-woman, instead of -Out-you-go-you-wanton-sheltering-behind-a-proper-gentleman’s-name.”</p> - -<p>“What in God’s name are you trying to tell me?” said Lovel.</p> - -<p>“I’m trying to tell you I’m going to have a baby,” replied Daisy, -beginning to cry in good earnest.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s no affair of mine; what is it you want of me?” said -Lovel. “If it’s money you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> want, you’re welcome to anything I can -spare,—if you will only let me go my ways now,” he added inaudibly.</p> - -<p>“What good would money be to me,” sobbed Daisy, “when I haven’t a home -to go to or a man to give me his name? My father’d turn me out, I know -he would,—he wouldn’t give me a corner of his barn or a truss of his -hay for my baby to be born on, he wouldn’t, and my mother wouldn’t give -me my own long-clothes to clothe its nakedness.”</p> - -<p>“You must get the fellow to marry you,—is he a native of these parts?” -asked Lovel, perfunctorily, aware only of the overwhelming oppression -of his own spirit and his urgent longing for solitude.</p> - -<p>A cunning look came into her eyes when he mentioned marriage, and for -the first time she recovered a little of her direction, which she had -lost in her floundering to and fro.</p> - -<p>“Ah, so you think he ought to marry me? Well, so do I,” she said. -“You’d think ill of a man who could let a girl go down and her child be -nameless save for the name of a woman, which isn’t a name at all?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” said Lovel, fretting to be at an end.</p> - -<p>“Supposing I told you,” she proceeded, slowly now and with caution, -“that he couldn’t marry? wasn’t fit to marry?”</p> - -<p>“Not fit to marry? if he’s fit to be the father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> of your child he’s -surely fit enough to marry,” said Lovel.</p> - -<p>“Well, but there might be other reasons,—ill-health, mightn’t there? -or he might be married already, let’s say....”</p> - -<p>“In any case, it doesn’t concern me. I’m sorry,” said Lovel, “but -you’re talking to me of things you’d better be talking of to another -man.”</p> - -<p>“Are you so sure of that?” she asked, coming up to him and putting her -hand on the neck of his horse. She was aware that her eyes must be -all puffy and blubbered after her recent crying, but the crisis being -at hand now, for good or for bad, she was not going to delay it until -another occasion when she should have had a better chance of setting -herself to rights. “Are you so sure of that?” she asked, in a tone she -tried to make impressive.</p> - -<p>“Sure?” echoed Lovel, looking at her in disgust at the implication that -he himself could ever have touched her. He even gathered up his reins -as a sign that he definitely wanted her to release him now.</p> - -<p>“Not so fast,” she said again. “There’s such a thing as responsibility -for other’s actions, whether you like it or no. And it’s a -responsibility I’m not in a position to let you off. I have to think of -my baby as well as of myself, you see, and so long as he gets the name -of Lovel I’m willing to overlook him not getting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> it from the proper -quarter. Though why I talk of my baby as he, I’m sure I don’t know,” -she added with a giggle, “for it’s even chances it’ll be a girl.”</p> - -<p>“What in the devil’s name are you saying?” ejaculated Lovel -contemptuously. “Name of Lovel? is your trouble sending you out of your -senses?”</p> - -<p>“No, it’s brought me to them,” she said tartly. “I may have been a fool -in the past, and taken my pleasures too light where I found them, but -that’s over now, and for the future I’m going to look after myself and -my baby. And if you don’t take the proper steps, and the only decent -steps, and the steps I want, there’s not a soul in Wilts and Somerset -but shall know the scandal of that daft beast you let roam about at his -own free-will.”</p> - -<p>“What ...” began Lovel, aghast.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she cried shrilly. “’Tis all very well for you to be sitting -up there so grand on your horse, with your eyes looking out over -your nose, while your brother Olver who ought to be in Marlborough -lock-up—and so ought you too, you poacher, for that matter—skulks -about in dark barns taking advantage like the beast he is of poor girls -on a scatter of straw. And I saw you, yes, I saw you, not only coming -home from Marlborough fair, but often, quite the gentleman with Miss -Warrener, and where had you two been, I should like to know? and it -made me so mad seeing you that I didn’t care what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> any one done to me, -whether it was Olver Lovel or another. I was crying after you all the -time, if you want to know, so as I scarcely noticed a thing. And now, -since even <i>you’d</i> scarcely see me married to that hoddy-doddy, you’ll -just have to marry me yourself, and pass off your nephew as your son -for the rest of our life, and have only yourself to thank. And you -needn’t think you’ll be losing your Miss Warrener any the more, for -she’s been promised to Mr. Calladine this many a week back.”</p> - -<p>“Promised to Mr. Calladine?” said Lovel, starting. “How do you know -that?”</p> - -<p>“Every one in the village knows it but you,” she jeered, “and if you -wasn’t too proud to consort with your equals a bit more you’d know it -too. Ask Martha Sparrow or William Baskett or any of them. Ask Mrs. -Quince over to Starvecrow. Ask her if the house isn’t being done up -all grand against the lady coming. Ride over and see if Mr. Calladine -isn’t picking up a patch of garden with his own hands, forsooth. Ask -parson if he hasn’t had notice yet to call the banns. We’ll have ours -called the same Sunday. ‘Richard Calladine and Clare Warrener, Nicholas -Lovel and Margaret Morland, all of this parish.’ That’ll be a fine -sit-up-and-take-notice for the congregation.”</p> - -<p>“I must speak to Olver first,” said Lovel dully.</p> - -<p>“Then you’ll do it?” urged Daisy. “If you find that what I’ve told -you’s true, you’ll do it?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I’ll marry you,” said Lovel, tonelessly. “But I’ll speak to -Olver first,” he added, “and you’ll see the doctor.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there’s no mistake, you’ll find,” said Daisy, bursting into a -hysterical laugh. “And I’m not so bad as you think me, Lovel. I’m -thrifty in a house, and I’ll make you a good wife, and I’ve loved you -truly this long time, as well you know.”</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake, spare me that at least, for God’s sake spare me that,” -said Lovel in a voice of such anguish that even Daisy in the midst of -her relief and jubilation was struck silent and ashamed.</p> - -<p class="space-above">The gossip of Mrs. Quince and Martha Sparrow had not taken long to -reach the Waggon of Hay through the medium of John Sparrow. Blowing his -old frame out with importance, he had hastened off to this favourite -resort with the intelligence as soon as his daughter had whispered -it to him, fearful lest any might have forestalled him, and he be -greeted with derision as a bringer of stale news. But he need not have -feared: he was the first direct link between the Waggon of Hay and -Starvecrow, and it was to a gratifying inquisitive audience that, after -due mystification, he finally made his announcement. Mr. Calladine -to marry Miss Clare! Well, here was good health to them both, and a -strapping posterity, and a bumper went round. The topic took its place -in popularity with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> continuance of the dry weather (which was -spoiling the roots), and the imminent arrival of a travelling circus, -already advertised on hand-bills and posters all over the village. John -Sparrow sat in the chimney corner with his pipe and his mug, and by -recurrent reminders kept the fact green in the memory of his companions -that, but for his connection with the Manor House, they would not yet -have been in possession of the news. (And indeed, had they best known -it, they were in possession of it even before the two persons chiefly -concerned.) Every fresh arrival had to be told—“Well, now, Job, or -Luke, or William, what sort of surprise do you think we have got for -you?”—and laughter of the most elementary sort stirred the cobwebs -about the rafters at every, “Well, to be sure, now, who would have -thought it?” and the expressions of good-will to Miss Clare were many, -though it was wished that she might have chosen a man who was a bit -more of a man than Mr. Calladine.</p> - -<p>One listener there was, who had received the information with anxiety, -though without raising his voice in comment. Olver Lovel, for some days -now, had haunted the Waggon of Hay, tolerated though not encouraged -by the rustics. So long as he did no harm, made no noise, did not get -drunk, and got in nobody’s way, they would not object to his slinking -round, surreptitiously finishing up the dregs out of other people’s -glasses. They were a little surprised to see him there, for they knew -that in the past<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> his brother (who, let them do him justice, saw to -it that the zany gave as little annoyance as possible), had put the -Waggon strictly out of bounds for Olver. Olver knew it too; he knew -also, what they did not know, that the embargo had never been removed, -and that the Waggon was as much out of bounds now as it had ever -been; but Nicco had been in so strange a mood of late—so strange, -inattentive, and lenient a mood—that Olver was ready to run the risk -of taking advantage. He did not know what had come over Nicco. Money -and food seemed plentiful, although Nicco rarely went out poaching -now; he would break into the savings-box and not seem to mind; he had -even given Olver, on a bare request, enough money to buy a new smock; -and their mother was allowed the matches at night now, for all the -world as though Nicco no longer cared whether the house was burnt -down about their ears or not. Olver had rejoiced greatly in this new -order of things. Day by day he had grown more daring; little acts -of insubordination passing unnoticed, he had at last achieved the -supreme defiance of creeping down to the Waggon one evening, and had -stayed there drinking up the dregs and listening to the conversation, -half of which was to him unintelligible and half a source of awe and -admiration, until ten o’clock at night. Still Nicco said nothing; did -not ask where he had been; did not even comment on his absence from -supper. Olver was full of contempt for this new, lax Nicholas—full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> -of contempt, but determined to make hay while the sun shone. No doubt -the day would come when Nicco would fly into a rage, recover the -matches, give Olver a thrashing, take away his new smock, and the old -redoubtable order would be re-established. Somewhere, perversely, -secretly, Olver hoped for that day; at present he felt himself a little -like a horse allowed his head down a slippery hill. But this small, -perverse and secret hope he did not admit even to himself. What! -deplore the new system which permitted him to go to the Waggon almost -every evening, to beg a twist of tobacco, to sit on the floor near the -fire in the chimney corner, to listen, and to look—to look through -the tobacco smoke at all the different-coloured spirits in the range -of shining bottles, which reflected the tap-room rather in the same -distorted way as his own little round mirror; at the steel handles on -the bar-counter; at the coloured picture of the Queen and the late -Prince Consort; at the photograph of the landlord standing beside a -giant eight foot high—how could he deplore a system which permitted -these delights?</p> - -<p>And now in this same tap-room he had picked up the one piece of -information he wanted. He knew now what was the matter with Nicco: Miss -Warrener was promised to Mr. Calladine.</p> - -<p>His gratitude to Miss Warrener doubled: not only did he owe her the -mirror, which was incomparably the dearest of his few possessions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> -but he also owed her, indirectly, his new smock and his visits to the -Waggon of Hay. He owed her all Nicco’s sad indulgence. His mother owed -her the matches placed beside her bed every night. What benefits had -Miss Warrener not conferred upon Olver and his mother!</p> - -<p>So for a long time his feeble mind played round his debt to Miss -Warrener, before it dawned upon him that Nicholas, to be so changed, -must be very unhappy. His involved but absolute devotion to his -brother flared instantly; he might deceive Nicholas, he might have -fretted once, not so very long ago, beneath his severity; but in his -eyes Nicholas was nevertheless God. At the mere thought that Nicholas -might be unhappy,—might even now be sitting over the hearth at -home, not angry with Olver because he no longer had the spirit left -in him to be angry with anything or any one,—at these thoughts, -which reached Olver’s poor brain in a more or less confused form, he -scrambled to his feet, much to the surprise of the company, which had -been sitting quietly smoking and talking around him. He stood up by -the bar, a wild and startling figure; ashes from the fire had blown -into his hair, which moreover stood straight up on end as he ran his -fingers despairingly through it. He burst into abuse, unmistakably -directed against some woman. “Here, here: order!” cried authority, -stepping hastily forward, but before it became necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> to eject the -disturber, he had vanished of his own accord out into the street.</p> - -<p>Olver ran as fast as he could go down the street towards his own home. -A light burnt behind the ill-fitting shutters both upstairs and down; -that meant that his mother was not yet gone to bed, and that Nicco was -at home. He irrupted violently into the kitchen; Nicco was sitting -there, just as he had imagined him; doing nothing, staring into the -fire. There was no sign of his having had any supper. Olver rushed up -to his brother and threw his arms about him. “Nicco, I know it all now, -the bitch, the baggage, but you shan’t lose her if you want her. I’ll -get her for you,—trust Olver,—I’ll get her out on to the Downs with -something she gave me,—or I’ll lend it to you to get her yourself if -you like. I once told her you could if you were so minded. You shall -have her. They said down at the Waggon that she was promised to Mr. -Calladine. But she shan’t go to him, she shall go to you.”</p> - -<p>“Olver,” said Lovel quietly, “why did you never tell me about yourself -and Daisy Morland in the barn?”</p> - -<p>Olver began to stammer; he said, “I did tell you,—I told you she had -seen you with Miss Warrener,—I told you I held her down and tickled -her till she squealed,—I did tell you, Nicco.”</p> - -<p>“You told me half,” said Lovel. A hope<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> pricked at his heart that -Daisy’s story might be false. “She has told me herself,” he added.</p> - -<p>Olver was quite sure now that his brother would kill him for this and -for going to the Waggon of Hay,—for the two things together. He looked -at Nicholas with his shifty blue eyes so oddly rimmed with black, and -shuffled one foot over the other, but Nicholas’ eyes held him and asked -for the truth.</p> - -<p>“Well ...” he muttered.</p> - -<p>“You had her?” said Lovel without mercy.</p> - -<p>“And why not?” burst out Olver. “All the boys do,—yes, and brag about -it. Look at Peg Lackland, going....”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said Lovel, with the same quietness; “I’m not blaming -you.” Not blaming him? had the world stopped going round? “Only if you -ever tell any one this I shall kill you,—do you quite understand?”</p> - -<p>Olver stared, but with Nicco’s threat stability and familiarity seemed -to be returning in some degree to his world. He nodded his head.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to marry Daisy Morland myself,” added Lovel, still fixing -him with his eyes, “and I can’t have it said that she has ever gone -with my brother. You understand that, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Going to marry Daisy Morland? but Miss Warrener ...” began Olver.</p> - -<p>“Miss Warrener is going to marry Mr. Calladine,” said Lovel steadily; -“that has nothing to do with me, except that she was always civil to -me when I met her on the Downs. I know my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> standing, and Miss Warrener -knows hers. She marries a gentleman, and I marry a farmer’s girl; -that’s as it should be.”</p> - -<p>“So Daisy will come to live here?” said Olver, completely amazed now.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Lovel brutally, “she will come to live here. She will be -useful looking after our mother and keeping the place a bit better than -you and I can keep it. And if ever it gets out that she once went with -you, I break your head.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Nicco,” said Olver humbly.</p> - -<p>“You can tell all the village, if you like, down at the Waggon, that I -am going to marry her,” said Lovel.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Nicco,” said Olver again, not fully grasping the implied -sanction. “I’m sorry I went with her,” he added out of his confusion.</p> - -<p>“That doesn’t matter,” replied Lovel in his old weary voice. “Poor -Olver, what does it matter? We’re all so greatly to be pitied, what’s -that the more or the less?”</p> - -<p class="space-above">Calladine announced to Mrs. Quince that he was dining at the Manor -House. Daisy rejoiced at this piece of news, for ever since her return -to Starvecrow she had been nervous lest Lovel and Miss Warrener should -meet and Lovel discover that she, Daisy, had in one particular exceeded -the truth in her assertions. She hoped,—and would have prayed, but -that her superstitious faith feared the possible blasphemy,—that -Calladine would no longer delay his avowal,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> but would return after -dinner that night a betrothed man. Indeed, for all she knew, he might -be secretly betrothed even now, not merely contemplating betrothal, -and she thus have spoken the truth after all, albeit inadvertently to -Lovel. Luck had been so much upon her side, that perhaps it might have -favoured her also in this instance.</p> - -<p>Never did lover set out accompanied by more earnest wishes for his -success than Calladine that evening accompanied by the wishes of his -housemaid.</p> - -<p>Calladine found Mr. Warrener alone.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what has become of Clare,” said the old gentleman after -greeting his guest; “it’s unlike her to be late for dinner, especially -when she knew you were coming. Perhaps I allow her too much liberty,” -he added, peering into Calladine’s face to read whether he found any -condemnation therein.</p> - -<p>“Miss Clare,” said Calladine, speaking gently, for he knew Mr. -Warrener’s occasional uneasiness, “is not a young lady whom it would be -judicious to confine.”</p> - -<p>“Um,—wild, you think her?” said Mr. Warrener, rubbing his chin.</p> - -<p>“Not wild,—only free....” Calladine breathed.</p> - -<p>“She is a very great responsibility,” said Mr. Warrener, perplexed.</p> - -<p>Calladine smiled. Who were they, two cultured and scholarly men pacing -a lamplit study,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> to be disposing of the freedom of that airy spirit?</p> - -<p>But he was gentle to the old man, for in many ways he loved him.</p> - -<p>“Your safeguard, sir, lies in her trustworthiness.”</p> - -<p>“A happy word,” said Mr. Warrener, immensely relieved, and they -continued to pace the room, talking of other things, until Martha -summoned them to dinner.</p> - -<p>The candles between them, they dined. They spoke the same language, and -the suavity that reigned was not only the suavity of the room. Almost, -Clare’s absence was a relief; always, her elusiveness was a slight -trouble, like a breeze in the room. Even now, she was present in their -minds; their eyes flickered towards the door; where was she? dancing -after what Will-o’-the-Wisp?</p> - -<p>She came, more vivacious than Calladine had ever seen her; so lively -now, that he thought her feverish, now drooping silent and listless, -rousing herself to Mr. Warrener’s “Clare! Clare, you don’t hear what I -am saying,” with a startled smile,—Mr. Warrener, in excellent spirits -and full of discourse. Calladine watched her covertly, between the -candles on the dinner-table. He would speak to her to-night; speak, -lest he should lose her for the sake of a fancy. He could not wait, -until the garden which she had ordained should be finished.</p> - -<p>Yet, what haunted her? What wild grief lay beneath her gaiety? </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> - -<p>But there was Mr. Warrener to reckon with, eager and garrulous -to-night, and oblivious to the fact that Calladine wanted to stray out -into the garden through the French windows with Clare. Calladine was -enraged with impatience against the old gentleman, in whose trained -and scholarly mind he usually delighted. Having wondered whether Mr. -Warrener realised that he came to the Manor House as a suitor for his -daughter’s hand, to-night he crossly decided that the idea had never -once entered Mr. Warrener’s head. Otherwise it was impossible that he -should be so obtuse ... scrupulously courteous as he always was, and -considerate the moment he recognised the need for any consideration. -Calladine nearly laughed for his irritation, as Mr. Warrener, who was -at work upon a new theme, brought out diagram after diagram, specimen -after specimen, in his zeal to prove his point, dropping dates and -facts into place like the cubes of a patterned mosaic. But to-night -the facts and figures seemed to Calladine only brittle and dry, when -life was waiting for him in the shadowed corner of the room. Clare -sat there, in her rose-red dress, and now that she believed the eye -of neither of the two men to be upon her, Calladine could furtively -observe that she had relaxed the strain of her attention, and sat -limp with her gaze fixed upon the dark garden through the window. The -tight bodice moulded the extreme youth of her form; her hands lay -idly clasped in her lap. His egoism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> vanished before the pathos of -her attitude. She became a child in his eyes: a child broken by some -unexplained sorrow,—yet what sorrow, what sorrow could have come upon -her in her free yet sheltered life? And because, however genuine his -sentiment, he must always attitudinise to himself, he saw himself a -sage and tender protector, the guardian of this too-emotional child -against the fancied ills,—for how should they be otherwise than -fancied?—that beset her. He realised then that he had lost count, -as much as Clare herself, of what Mr. Warrener was saying, and saw -to his relief, as he tried to make a flurried return to archæology, -that Mr. Warrener was no longer addressing him, but had drifted into -a soliloquy, according to his wont, with the little flints and shards -ranged upon his desk.</p> - -<p>“May Clare and I go out, sir?” said Calladine softly.</p> - -<p>They wandered into the garden, Calladine tall and grave, Clare with the -rustle of her silks and the little crunch of her heels, racing beside -him up and down the garden path. She had been afraid, for a moment, -that he was about to ask her to play or sing: music, with him leaning -towards her over the piano.... Reprieved from music, it was indifferent -to her what she did. They paced the path; an owl whooped softly from -the cedar; was answered, from afar off, out on the Downs.</p> - -<p>Through the lighted windows they saw Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> Warrener, his lips still -mumbling, bent meticulously over his shards.</p> - -<p>Clare, with the rustle of her silks and the tap of her heels, and the -private knowledge of her mind, looked away from Calladine.</p> - -<p>He examined the words that she flippantly threw out, looking for -bitterness, but no bitterness escaped her, looking for cynicism, -but her lips were innocent of it. And nothing came to him but -matter-of-fact questions, “Where had you been, Miss Clare?” and the -like, which she answered civilly, though he knew that where her body -had been was of no import, the only thing of import was the adventure -of her spirit, and that he could never seize or follow. She was a -stranger to him, irrevocably, and he savoured all the full pain of that -phrase. “Where had you been, Miss Clare?”—oh, empty enquiry! what -could she tell him, that would bring him nearer to her? but at the same -time in a sudden frustrated rage he thought that were she ever to be -his he would not let her out of his sight for a moment. Revengeful, he -was; petulant; snatching,—and she so detached, cool, tantalising.</p> - -<p>He called himself back; Clare made him lose his sense; he could put -out his hand now and touch her bare arm, touch her flesh; such contact -would be reassuring, would chase from his mind all ideas of her -elusiveness; he could handle her roughly, if he would; drag her up into -his arms, mutter angrily against her lips,—but even so, would he hold -her?—and the old despair came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> back upon him. She made him angry; -there was no happiness for him, even in winning her, yet win her he -must, and was determined upon it, for he was an obstinate man, with -room in his head only for one idea once it had taken hold of him.</p> - -<p>But he must be gentle with her, or else she would blow away from him -like thistledown.</p> - -<p>And while he was wondering how he might least scare her, he was shaking -with his rage and his desire and his anxiety.</p> - -<p>It was quiet in the garden; he liked the security of gardens, he liked -the gentleness of these little grey West-country manor-houses such as -the Manor House of King’s Avon; they shut out the wild; they ignored -the great pale Downs, and the rovings of such dark people as Gipsy -Lovel. And he began to talk, murmuring much of what he had obscurely -felt, “A pastoral country,” he said, “fair and straightforward, a -stranger might think; and yet we who live in it know better, we know -its dim hauntings, we know how present are the dead, we know the little -countless tragedies,—the rabbit squealing beneath the stoat, the -blackbird pecked by the sparrowhawk. We know the perpetual enmity that -goes on under the apparent harmony.” And,—what possessed him?—he -spoke also of Lovel. “That dark, supple fellow,—he knows as much as -anybody of the secrets of the woods; he’s got a quick eye and a sure -hand, and a glance like the glance of an animal ready to spring away; -it’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> a wild blood they have in them, the gipsies, whether they live -in a house or move their hearth about with them,—a strong stain of -blood, that never gets washed out. Look at that fellow, now,—he never -takes a regular job,—he strays from farmer to farmer, when he isn’t -sneaking on his own concerns. And it’s all the gipsy blood in him, Miss -Clare,—untamed he lives, and untamed he’ll die. But he understands the -country, I dare wager, as well as any hare or kestrel that hides or -flies, taking its chance of life and death.”</p> - -<p>It struck him as absurd that in this hour when all his faculty was -bent upon so different a matter, he should be discoursing idly of the -country and the vagrant fellow he was accustomed to sight sometimes -upon a distant skyline; but he knew that some connection existed in his -mind, and traced it down to his constant uneasiness about Clare. It was -all very well for him to speak airily, confident now in the security -of the Manor House garden,—outside the garden lay the Downs,—and -where had Clare been? where did Clare spend all her days? Demure she -paced beside him, and the black cedar spread its flat branches above -the lawn, and within the lighted windows Mr. Warrener poked among the -shards on his desk; secure! secure! but danger lay behind the pretence, -danger in confederacy with Clare. Demure she paced beside him in the -summer night, drawing her lace scarf close about her shoulders, so that -one pale <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>gleaming hand lay against her breast, holding the lace, but -she was silent, shut away with her uncommunicated thoughts.</p> - -<p>He trusted himself abruptly to the direct question.</p> - -<p>“Clare, what is the matter?”</p> - -<p>She was too big, too simple, to defend herself with the ready-to-hand -artifice of denial or evasion.</p> - -<p>“Nothing is the matter which you can help, Mr. Calladine, thank you, -and nothing that I shall not recover from.” She spoke the truth as far -as she knew it. “I own that I have been vexed,—even hurt, perhaps,” -she put her head up as she made the admission. “But I could scarcely -hope to go through life, could I, without meeting some vexation by the -way? and now that I have met it, I must take it, mustn’t I, without -losing my sense of proportion?”</p> - -<p>He smiled, in the darkness which secured his smile from her -observation, at the phraseology of her piteous wisdom.</p> - -<p>“But why not confide it to me?” he said, bending down towards her. -“I am older than you, you know, and a trouble shared, they say, is a -trouble halved.”</p> - -<p>“My God, no,” she breathed.</p> - -<p>He was shocked at such an expression on her lips. Had something or some -one then really driven the child up to the bounds of her endurance? -Was she too readily driven to such extremity of feeling? or was the -provocation she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> had received sufficient to justify it? alas, he had -no experience of her capacity for emotion. But he thought, from what -he knew of her, that she must be indeed profoundly troubled before she -would betray her distress.</p> - -<p>“If any man has hurt you,” he burst out, “only tell me his name.”</p> - -<p>She opened her mouth and stared at him as though she were about to -utter a name as he bade her, so strong was in her the habit of childish -obedience, but with the name ringing, although not for expression, in -her head, she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. -He was appalled at the passion of her crying. She had sunk down upon -a bench, and he knelt beside her, trying to pull her hands away from -her face, but she shook her head and turned away from him, isolating -herself in the grief she was not yet accustomed to and could not yet -understand. She could not understand it, and, tormented, desired only -an escape from its weight and astonishment. “I am crying because -you made me cry,” she said, at last to Calladine; “I have not cried -before,—I promise you I have not cried before,” and at the thought of -Lovel, absent and unconscious that she was weeping, unconscious of the -fruit his harshness had borne, she wept afresh.</p> - -<p>“Clare, Clare,” said Calladine, pulling at her wet hands, “don’t you -remember, up by the Grey Wethers, a promise you made me? that if ever -trouble came upon you, you would come to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> for help? Don’t you -remember,—the day of the Scouring? Where’s your promise gone now? I -would have held my hand in a flame that you would never break your -word. Perhaps you thought it was fancy on my part; I was never more -deadly serious. Isn’t this the moment to give me my chance of serving -you?”</p> - -<p>She was so much surprised by the reminder that she took her hands away -from before her face and gazed at him. Her tears over, the idea that -she should go to Calladine for help against Lovel caused her to laugh -mirthlessly. That Mr. Calladine should protect her against Lovel! well! -well! She laughed again. “Clare,” he exclaimed, “don’t laugh so, you -frighten me.”</p> - -<p>“There is one thing which you can do,” she said slowly. He grasped at -it; besought her to tell him what it was. Still she hesitated; yes, -anything to get away from the pain of Lovel. And it would please Mr. -Calladine; and if it pleased him what did it matter? perhaps she had -often hurt him in the past as Lovel had hurt her now. “Marry me,” she -said; and added candidly, “I know you want to.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">The arrival of the circus created an excitement in the village, poor -affair though it was. It trailed in, one afternoon, trailed in through -the gap in the earth-works; a couple of caravans, a merry-go-round, two -or three cages on wheels, and some led horses; it trailed in with its -air of perpetual perambulation and its poor pretence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> of gaiety, and -encamped itself, as it must have encamped countless times before, and -would do countless times again, choosing this time the field of the -sarsen stones, which by virtue of tradition was looked upon as common -land, where any farmer might turn his beasts overnight before a market, -or any fair or circus, as now, claim hospitality. The village boys came -to stare at the preparations, at the gaudy yellow carts marooned among -the grave ancient stones; they stared, vacantly chewing grass stalks, -at the men who were getting up the tent, running with the ropes that -were to fasten down the great, flapping thing, and heaving up the poles -that transformed the amorphous folds into a shape and a transitory -shelter. Of the animals there was not much to be seen; the cages -were roped off behind the caravans, and nothing but a desultory roar -betrayed the presence of these aliens among the English Downs.</p> - -<p>Shortly after nightfall a man with red and yellow streamers pinned -on to his coat and tied round the crown of his hat, passed down the -village street beating a drum as a signal that the performance was -about to begin. There proceeded already a stream of the population -towards the fields, by twos or in families, and between the gate of the -field and the tent the grass was already trampled into a track. Night -was come; and within the opening of the tent the interior lighting -glowed warm and fulvid; towards this square of light in the centre of -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> field, thus inviting, the procession of villagers made its way, -inwardly eager, outwardly sheepish, and drew together at the entrance, -where a rude box-office had been erected, and another man with red -and yellow streamers dispensed tickets in return for the coppers and -six-pences paid across his little counter.</p> - -<p>Inside the tent, the newcomers herded, uncertain. Most of the benches -immediately around the central oval of grass were already filled -up, and the rows of faces and hands were uniformly lit by the two -gas-flares, one on either side of the supporting pole. The grass -oval, under this light, appeared most brilliantly green. The roof and -sides of the tent swept away into shadow,—shadow dimly peopled by -the audience on the rising tiers of benches, of whom only the first -two or three rows were illuminated, and the rest indistinguishable, -save as vague rings of buff-coloured hands and faces, over which the -light sometimes flickered fitfully. Over in one corner stood one of -the yellow carts, its shafts propped up somewhat foolishly into the -air, and its body, on which was painted in large black letters the -single word, <span class="smaller">ORCHESTRA</span>, filled by members of the company with -bassoons and other wind instruments, the lower parts of their persons -concealed by the sides of the cart, and the upper emerging like so many -jacks in the box. Beside this cart was the opening for the entrance and -exit of the performers.</p> - -<p>Into this scene of flaming light, strong colours,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> and deep shadows, -came Lovel and his brother, the former so scowling and dark,—for he -detested this appearance in public,—that he might rather have been a -member of the traveling mountebanks than of the yokel audience. As he -stepped out into the light, followed by Olver, this defiance was almost -absurdly evident in his manner. He knew that the light was full on his -face and on the figure that shambled behind him, and that the eyes of -the audience were turned with a mild curiosity towards the pair; he -felt himself to be an incident of the show they had all come to see. -He looked round for a place. A few kindly neighbours made room on one -of the front benches, so that, although Lovel would have preferred a -more retiring seat, he was obliged to take his place there with Olver, -at his side. Olver was gazing all round with the fascination of a -child. He had never seen so many people gathered all together before, -and his neighbours, familiar to him as individuals, acquired a new -impressiveness when seen thus together in their numbers; he had never -seen a circus ring, or an illumination so strange or so effective as -that cast by the gas-flares; and as for the performance itself, he had -nothing but vague and fantastic ideas of what he was about to behold. -Very furtively he brought out from his coat pocket the round mirror -which Clare had given him, and bent over it; reflected in it, he saw -the lights, and the ring of faces, the thin scarlet rope, the shadows, -the green grass, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> yellow cart, according as he turned it. Lovel sat -stiff and erect beside him, staring straight ahead, his arms folded -across his chest. Olver bent lower over his mirror. He chuckled softly -over it. The orchestra now stood up in the cart and began to play, -brassily, noisily, but to the great delight of the audience.</p> - -<p>Olver was annoyed because he could not see reflected in his mirror the -agreeable noise which the band was making, and the tiny reproduction -of the scene was thus rendered incomplete. Still he peered into the -mirror, where the picture was small and distant, as seen through the -wrong end of field-glasses, and also with that slight distortion which -never failed to enchant him: the supporting pole appeared slightly -bent, the scarlet ropes curved round like serpents, and each face, as -he examined it separately, was a tiny caricature of the face reflected.</p> - -<p>With the blare of the band Lovel relaxed a little from his rigidity; -he glanced round him, nodded briefly to a few acquaintances, and -considered with an uninterested eye the scanty properties of the show -standing prepared near the performers’ entrance. He heard the eager -whispering going on in the audience, and, being himself scornful and -unhappy, was possessed by a passing contempt. He saw Martha Sparrow -there with her brother John, and a group of the cronies from the Waggon -of Hay; he caught sight of Farmer Morland with his wife and daughter, -and instantly looked away, for he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> seen Daisy’s eyes fixed upon -him, and had no wish to respond to the smile she was holding in -readiness. No doubt they considered that he ought to have escorted her. -At that moment he saw Clare come in with Mr. Calladine.</p> - -<p>He had not expected this, and remained transfixed, staring at them in -complete dismay. Clare came in shyly, turning to speak to Calladine -over her shoulder; she was wearing a dark blue cloak over her muslin -dress, and no hat, only a dark blue ribbon in her hair. Coming, in -her turn, into the light, she hesitated with a perceptible confusion -that seized Lovel by the heart. Calladine came forward, competent and -proprietary, found her a seat, and took his place beside her; they bent -together over the leaflet of the programme. Still Lovel stared; she -looked up, and their eyes met across the width of the ring. Her lips -parted; for a full minute they stared at one another. He saw the blush -rising, like a flame of reproach, in her cheeks. For that minute, as -their heads swam, they had no thought of the pairs of eyes observing -them: of Olver’s, of Daisy Morland’s, or of Calladine’s, respectively -with a mischievous, a jealous, and a dismayed absorption. Then Clare -came to her senses; she looked deliberately away, looked around, -searching for faces she might greet, found Martha Sparrow, found -some of the tradesmen, and smiled to them all with disproportionate -alacrity. She spoke again to Calladine, whose pride in her had changed -to a visible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> moodiness; he answered her indeed, but briefly, and -sat angrily tapping the top of his walking-stick against his teeth. -Lovel, having no knowledge of the world, but only his instincts, -wondered whether he should leave the tent, or should remain to enjoy -the atrocious pleasure of watching her once again. He knew that now he -would have to fight out his renunciation afresh from the beginning; -the dull resignation which had clouded over him of late had all melted -away in a second before her restored presence. Merely to see her sent -the heat and ecstasy of life back into his veins. Twenty-eight years of -existence had not accustomed him to the rush of his own emotions. Such -a reasonless joy as this which seized him even while he knew that she -was promised to Calladine, still had the power to surprise him.</p> - -<p>The beginning of the circus did not distract him; rather it favoured -him, for under the cover of the general interest he was able to gloat -his eyes upon her to his heart’s content. Olver, who had long ago made -up his mind about his brother, had now little desire to watch for the -manifestations of a passion he took for granted in spite of all Nicco’s -denials, and devoted the whole of his rapt attention to the events -of the ring. These were enough to transport his simple soul, easily -pleased at best. Piebald horses, and fat thighs encased in pink tights, -curvetted before him; while with flashing smiles young men and women -performed apparently impossible feats<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> of strength and balance. Olver -presently conceived the idea of following the circus in his mirror, and -alternated between the actual, which was already entrancing enough, and -the reflected, which provided him with a world so indescribably and -doubly queer. He hoped that the little, queer, brilliant pictures would -be preserved forever in the depths of the glass. A fat woman in pink -and spangles jumped through paper hoops off the back of a cantering -horse, crying “Hop!” as she jumped and again as she landed, and the -manager standing in the centre cracked his long whip at the horse’s -fetlocks, but only hit the clown, whose whitened face, ghastly under -the gas-jets, went bowling round in somersaults over the grass of the -ring. There was also a snake-man, dressed from head to foot in emerald -green, who contorted himself in the midst of a silence rendered more -impressive by the sudden cessation of the braying band, into the knots -common to all such performers; and the laughter which had accompanied -the clown was stilled into a respectful awe. The snake-man, Olver -found, was especially effective seen in the mirror.</p> - -<p>The atmosphere in the tent by now was somewhat clouded by tobacco -smoke, softening the hard, high glare of the gas, and through the smoke -the faces appeared hazy, sitting round in their rows, likewise the -hands, that periodically broke out into a beating of applause. But to -Lovel, who had not taken his eyes off Clare, her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> face was distinct as -ever; and his own face, to Daisy Morland, was distinct, and, above his -red shirt, dark and proud.</p> - -<p>In the ring now were three small bears, one dressed as a -clergyman,—whose appearance had provoked roars of laughter,—one -as a lady, with a poke bonnet and bustle, and the third as a clown, -the buffoon and wag of the party. These three sad animals were at -their tasks of travelling round the ring on large balls, pushing a -perambulator, balancing on a tight rope, or whatever it might be; -Lovel, in so far as he bestowed a passing interest in the show, -was indignant at the pitiful degradation. The audience had no such -niceness; they roared their hearty laughter, and some of those sitting -immediately behind the scarlet ropes even thrust a foot towards the -bears as they passed round in their drab monotony, provoking a dull -turn of the head and a lack-lustre glance, too spiritless even for -a snarl. Arm in arm the clergyman and the lady paraded the ring on -their hind legs, stopping now and then to bow gravely; they stopped -thus opposite to Clare and Calladine, recognised by the quick eye of -the manager as the only gentry present. Clare and Lovel looked at one -another once more when this occurred, a look in which their personal -passion, for once, had no part, but only discomfort and sympathy with -the indignity put upon the beasts. Yet that look, impersonal though it -was, only tightened Lovel’s heart the more, for it had in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> it all the -intimacy of their understanding, in the same way as when they had been -used to look across the Downs, and, seeing the bowling shadows of the -clouds, had spoken no word, but sometimes smiled, knowing each so well -the thoughts that were passing in the mind of the other.</p> - -<p>He began to wonder what he should do when the show was over, and the -moment came for every one to leave the tent. He was near the exit; -should he hurry out and hasten home, shutting the door of his house -behind him, before Clare and Calladine had so much as turned into the -street? “Likely they’ll wander home by the fields, being lovers,” he -said to himself. Or should he go boldly up to Daisy and invite her -to walk home with him, in order to prove to Clare the extent of his -indifference? He rejected this course, despising its cheapness. Or -should he remain seated where he was, letting Clare and Calladine -pass out of the tent before him? The one thing to be avoided was the -jostle in the exit. He might get pushed up against her, or against -Calladine,—if he felt Calladine jostle against him he would turn and -hit him. But he had Olver to reckon with; Olver who would tug at his -coat and bid him come, if he tried to remain behind; Olver who would -in any case torment him afterwards with questions as whether he had -seen Clare; and, half turning to look at Olver, he caught sight of the -mirror held tilted, over which the boy stooped with such <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>absorption, -and he wondered idly where Olver had got this toy, that seemed so to -fascinate him and to occupy so much of his time; but after that passing -curiosity he returned to his own miserable concerns that gnawed like -rodents at his brain, and his eyes perpetually sought the face of -Clare, as though in her fairness lay simultaneously both the problem -and the solution.</p> - -<p>So turned inward upon himself was he, that a sudden shout was the -first thing to rouse him. He raised his head; a sheet of flame shot -upwards from the gas; all was confusion suddenly; the audience rose -and stampeded into the ring, trying to get to the exits; benches were -overturned; women screamed, men swore; overhead the flame tore a great -hole in the darkness, and portions of the burning canvas floated, -turning over and over, down to the ground.</p> - -<p>Lovel fought his way through the striving mass of people like one -possessed, caring nothing who he pushed aside or who he struck and -elbowed. For one second he came upon the terrified face of Daisy; she -tried to cling to him, but he threw her off. He was fighting against -the tide of the crowd. By now the canvas was roaring overhead, the -shouts increased, the panic surged wildly towards the narrow openings, -all round was nothing but terror and a mad confusion. Lovel clove his -way through the sea of limbs and faces; he tore a path by sheer fury. -Reaching Calladine, he thrust him aside, and seized Clare by the hand. -“Come,” he said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> dragging her. He was obliged to put his arm round -her shoulders and half carry her along as with the other arm he opened -up a way for them both. The exit was hopelessly blocked; he took his -knife from his pocket and ripped a long vertical slit in the side of -the tent, through which he forced her first and then himself after her, -and the crowd seeing this escape, streamed through after them. The -night air was suddenly cool around them. He picked her up and carried -her away to the top of the encircling embankment. The Downs were black -behind them, and from the height of the ridge they gazed down upon the -red leaping flames in the field below.</p> - -<p>The field was wildly lit up, and around the blazing tent stood the -crowd in a circle, watching the destruction they could not prevent. -The flames reared to the height of trees, holding up the blackness; -the light fell upon the shapes of the sarsen stones, that, unmoved, -regarded this disaster as they might have regarded any other. Clare -seized Lovel’s arm.</p> - -<p>“Are they all safe?”</p> - -<p>“They will be, by now,” Lovel replied mechanically.</p> - -<p>“The animals,” cried Clare.</p> - -<p>At that, Lovel returned to earth, and a slow smile of amusement crept -over his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Why, they will have escaped,” he said slowly; “escaped and be roaming -about till morning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> The village besieged by bears. Well, Miss -Warrener, it will not be the first time that bears will have been loose -among these stones or prowling on the Downs. Will we all turn out with -sticks and staves to-morrow to drive ’em in? Come and ride them in, -Miss Warrener, to-morrow morning before any one else is astir. Will you -do that?”</p> - -<p>“With you?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Why not?” he replied. “But I forgot,” he added, “Mr. Calladine has -the disposal of your doings now, has he not? Many’s the pleasant hour -you spend over books or in your garden; gentle and pleasant. There was -a time when you rode rough as a boy; but that’s over now. Your finger -nails are smooth,” he said, taking her hand and examining it critically -by the vague light of the flames; “the hand of a lady,” and he lifted -it up and sniffed it. “Scented too!” he said. “Scented for Calladine to -kiss and fondle,” and gently he gave it back into her keeping, shaking -his head. “Ah, Miss Warrener, it was a terrible mistake you made when -you rode your pony in your little shepherd’s cap; ’twasn’t that you -were cut out for. No, but for a lady’s life. ‘I shall want the carriage -this afternoon, Mrs. Quince, to drive to Shrivenham.’” He minced the -words. “‘And I shall want the rug put in the carriage lest it turn cold -at sunset.’ No more catching your pony in the paddock when the fancy -takes you for a gallop across the hills.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> I’ll come as your groom, -if you’ll have me, and promise to keep away my brother, whose touch -startles horses.”</p> - -<p>“You must let me go home,” said Clare, who, white-faced, was holding -her cloak about her.</p> - -<p>“Remember, there are bears,” said Lovel. “A bear dressed as a lady, a -bear dressed as a clergyman, and one, poor soul, as a clown. They are -walking arm-in-arm, perhaps, as they did in the ring, but if they met -you walking alone across the fields they might remember that they were -born wild. They might forget that they had been tamed to civility. Cap -off: ‘Good evening, miss,’ as I might meet you in the lane. Never trust -the brute too far. But shouldn’t Mr. Calladine be here to protect you?”</p> - -<p>“How can he see me up here?” said Clare. “The night is very dark, and -the light down there must blind him.”</p> - -<p>“You have on a light dress under that cloak,” mocked Lovel, “if you -want him to see you.” But she did not throw aside her cloak, and he -noted it.</p> - -<p>At that moment came a cracking sound, as the central pole of the -tent crashed down, bringing with it what was left of the flaming -canvas. A loud cheer went up from the crowd, who, now that their own -skins were safe, were irresponsibly quite ready to accept one form -of entertainment in substitution for another. The fire died down for -a moment, then flared up again, as some of the benches and trestles -caught alight. The <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>proprietor of the circus raged round, clasping his -head with his hands, but there was nothing to be done, and the few -buckets of water brought from a neighbouring well made no difference at -all.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Calladine is not more prompt at finding you here that he was in -getting you away from the tent,” said Lovel.</p> - -<p>“Why do you gibe at Mr. Calladine?” Clare burst out. “He has had a -great deal to suffer at my hands, and it ill becomes you to sneer,” she -finished inconsequently.</p> - -<p>The inconsequence did not trouble Lovel; his mind leapt the gap with -the ellipsis.</p> - -<p>“At all events he has nothing to complain of at present,” he remarked. -“Nothing, except that he is not the man to take good care of what he -has obtained. Born irresolute—there’s a disadvantage of birth as bad -as any other. Yet, I’d exchange my own for it; I’d accept to have only -myself to overcome. Yes, by God, I’ve no sympathy for him. Why doesn’t -he carry away his conquest? Too uncertain of his own worth? Look at -his face—haggard with doubt of himself. I scarcely envy Calladine. -He’s a straw to be swept away by a strong current, safe only so long -as he may lie in shelter. If I wanted to undo Calladine, I should -say to him, ‘Are you sure that you are the man to hold so untamed a -thing?’ As yourself, I mean, Miss Warrener. Or am I mistaken? Are you -a lady at heart—a lady and not a woman? Mrs. Richard Calladine. The -muslin dress, or the shepherd’s cap?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> If the muslin dress, then go to -Calladine. If the shepherd’s cap, then....”</p> - -<p>He paused.</p> - -<p>“I should not listen to you, reducing Mr. Calladine to this -insignificance,” murmured Clare in great distress.</p> - -<p>Calladine had become a shadow; a poor grey wisp drained of blood. Only -Lovel and herself seemed alive, so terribly alive that the wraith which -was Calladine faded between them. So far, no one had noticed them -standing up on the ridge of the embankment; the night was, as Clare had -said, very dark, and furthermore a few sparse trees helped to conceal -them. They stood, not very far from one another, very much isolated, -detached from the glow and excitement of the fire down in the field -below, as though they were two travellers come to a brief surveying -pause on the road which they pursued together.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Calladine is not the poor creature you think him,” said Clare on -an impulse. “Years ago he loved a woman, still unforgotten. That is not -the fidelity of a weak man. I tell you this, in order that you should -think better of him, and knowing that you will keep it to yourself.”</p> - -<p>“A woman he never got?” said Lovel. “And brooded over her ever since? -Do not doubt—Miss Warrener, he coaxed himself into loving her more, -during all those years of brooding, than ever he did when he had her -before his eyes. Be very sure, she made a proper fool of him, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> -embitter him so for a lifetime—until he found you. Don’t be too sorry -for him. He has enjoyed living upon that memory.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you are hard and cynical,” said Clare, vexed, because she saw -suddenly the whole of that episode, which, in her eyes, had always -thrown so picturesque a colour over Calladine’s melancholy—saw it now -in a cruel, naked light, Calladine duped first, and then retiring in -sulky discomfiture, to build upon a silly, sordid, mismanaged story an -erection of wordy romance: “I wish I had not told you; you take every -opportunity, to-night, of belittling Mr. Calladine.”</p> - -<p>“I? Oh, no,” said Lovel, carelessly, “and in any case, why do we talk -about him so much? he is not here, but to-morrow you will again be with -him, and the day after that, and the day after that. Even now he is -probably arrived breathless at the Manor House, where he will tell your -father that that gipsy fellow snatched you away, and that he has lost -you altogether. He has never given me anything but black looks, ever -since he came to live here. How much have you told him about yourself -and me?”</p> - -<p>“There was nothing to tell,” said Clare.</p> - -<p>“True,” said Lovel. “There was nothing to tell.”</p> - -<p>They were silent. She felt that he was in a highly dangerous mood. -Calladine was not dangerous; violent, but not dangerous; not as Lovel’s -contained quietness was dangerous. Lovel, at any moment, might suddenly -leap upon her;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> he was so lithe and quick. Moreover, she felt now, in -his company, that she was alone with him on a hill or a wide heath, for -the people down in the field below had no significance whatever, no -more than had Calladine, to whom she was promised.</p> - -<p>“I ought to go home now,” she said presently.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Lovel, turning on her, “you ought to go home. Go home -and tell them that the gipsy fellow took you out, rudely enough, but -still into safety. Go and tell them that once or twice on the Downs -you gave him a few kind words and that he presumed upon them to get -you out of that tent to-night. Tell them that once he rejected your -kindness,—which you offered out of your pity for him,—and drove you -away with harsh words.”</p> - -<p>“We have not spoken since,” she said.</p> - -<p>“No,” he replied without comment.</p> - -<p>Suddenly they began talking quite naturally and gently with one another.</p> - -<p>“Who would have thought,” said Lovel, “that you would be coming to the -circus. Not that I should have come, nor you, I fancy, either, had -we known what we were to see. Yet we might have thought. Wild beasts -turned to buffoons. I would have liked to let a tiger out of its cage, -loose among the crowd. Did you see their eyes? yes, even the little -pig-eyes of the bears. I wouldn’t like to look into the eyes of the -tigers in their cages, when they stare through the bars. Trundled about -over England in those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> cages.... Why did you come? I came to please -poor Olver.”</p> - -<p>“And I because Mr. Calladine was dining at the Manor House, and I ... -oh, there is nothing to do after dinner,” she finished lamely.</p> - -<p>“What do you do as a rule?” he inquired, with a passing curiosity.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” she replied. “Sometimes he talks to my father, -sometimes we walk in the garden, sometimes I sing.”</p> - -<p>“You sing,” he repeated. “You sing.”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes he and my father go over the things in my father’s cases, -and they forget me, and I sit in a corner with some stitching.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Lovel, “and the windows are open down to the floor, and the -moths and cockchafters fly in from the garden towards the lamps, and -you let your stitching fall into your lap while you watch them.”</p> - -<p>Clare was utterly startled.</p> - -<p>“How do you know?” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know,” he replied. His vision of the room, and of the three, was -so sifted and precise. “Sometimes you sing?” he prompted her.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Calladine leans over the piano, when I sing,” she said, looking at -him big-eyed.</p> - -<p>“That frightens you?” he said, more as a statement than as a question.</p> - -<p>“A little,” she said, telling him what she had thought she could never -tell to a soul. “He seems so soft, and yet so hungry.” Her voice sank. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> - -<p>Lovel understood; he nodded.</p> - -<p>“If he would sit away in the corner,” continued Clare, “I should not be -afraid of him. It is his leaning over me like that. It makes me look at -him all the while I sing. But he likes my singing; he asks me to do it, -and he will not let me refuse.”</p> - -<p>“And sometimes you walk in the garden,” he said, still in the same -voice, as though he were looking at a tiny picture seen down the end of -a long vista; “does he frighten you then?”</p> - -<p>“Less out of doors; less when we are not shut in. I avoid the trees; -being under them is more like having a ceiling over our heads. I keep -to the lawn.—He is more in his place, within doors,” she said, making -a discovery which answered many of her problems.</p> - -<p>“Lamplight suits him,” said Lovel, his perceptions very clear and -malicious.</p> - -<p>She saw Calladine leaning over the piano; she saw his greying hair and -his fine hands lying loosely clasped on the ebony lid. She heard the -notes under her own fingers playing a slow gavotte; it was the music he -liked. She felt her eyes coming round again and again in fascination -drawn towards his face. A breeze fanned her cheek; and she saw herself -standing with Lovel on the earthwork, the stars above their heads, and -the red glow of the dying flames deepening the shadow of his brow.</p> - -<p>“We have always been in the open together,” she murmured involuntarily.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I have never seen you in a room,” Lovel corroborated.</p> - -<p>“The day that I found you on the Downs,” she said painfully, “the day -when I last saw you,—you tried to hide from me among the beeches. Why -was that? Did you hope that they would protect you? Did the sense of -enclosure give you strength? Would the Downs have compelled you to be -more honest? I believe it was that. One can lie better,—can’t one?—in -a room; and as you had no room you took the shelter of the trees. You -couldn’t tell me lies out on the Downs?”</p> - -<p>“Is that why Calladine prefers a room?” he enquired.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Calladine tells me no lies,” she said, with a small flicker of -pride.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” said Lovel easily; “he only tells lies to himself. Through -and through. Or are they lies? Romances, perhaps. Only romances. And -you are part of them. But they couldn’t thrive in sunshine.”</p> - -<p>“We are not in sunshine now,” she said; “only in star-shine, and losing -our heads a little. I am going to marry Mr. Calladine, you know, Lovel. -So perhaps I should not talk about him to you as I have been talking, -or ... or indulge myself in these fancies. You asked me what I had told -him about yourself and me; I answered that there was nothing to tell; -nor is there.”</p> - -<p>“But if I had not gone into the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>beech-clump ...” began Lovel. He was -suddenly Puckish, mischievous; or so she thought.</p> - -<p>“But you did go into it!” she cried out.</p> - -<p>“And stayed in it till you were out of sight. But Calladine,” he -resumed, disregarding her effort to restore the balance of their -conversation, “Calladine will get you into a room for the rest of your -life. It will be a dim room, with the light shrouded from it. He will -talk in it, and you will listen, and his talk will seem to you less and -less unconvincing. Presently you will accept it as natural talk; you -will answer in the same key. You will play sad old tunes, and Calladine -will lean over the piano. But he will grow less graceful and more -ungainly, and his joints will crack when he stoops over your hand to -kiss it. And always you will be in the house,—in the room.”</p> - -<p>“Lovel!” she cried.</p> - -<p>“The dimness of the room will bleach your spirit,” he said finally and -remorselessly.</p> - -<p>What strange mood possessed him? Were the legends true? had he the gift -of prophecy? His very language had a sonorous, almost a Biblical, ring. -It was true that the occasion fostered it, and that he might be taken -for a prophet, standing there on the elevation, ringed with darkness, -and with that pool of dying fire at his feet.</p> - -<p>“Is it kind, Lovel, is it kind to put these thoughts into my head?” she -cried, distressed.</p> - -<p>“Kind,” he said scornfully. “When did ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> you want kindness from -me? I haven’t given you kindness, or romance like Calladine’s. I keep -kindness for Olver.”</p> - -<p>“And for animals,” she interjected, remembering. The remembrance -softened her marvellously towards him.</p> - -<p>“And for animals. But for you....” He scanned her from head to foot, -as though the term for what he had given her were inexpressible. “Not -kindness for you,” he finished up.</p> - -<p>A great uproar arose in the field below; the crowd scattered, and down -the pathway thus cleft they saw, by the light of the flames, a small -black shape bundling helter-skelter along, till a ring of shouting men -closed round it and hid it from view.</p> - -<p>“Rounding up the wild beasts,” said Lovel, amused. “They won’t -sacrifice them on the stones,—not they. They’ll all be chivvied back -into their cages after a few louts have got a nip on the ankle. I -wonder how many will remain at large? All the old women of the village -will be going about to-morrow with umbrellas and pokers. See, now, they -are beating out the fire.”</p> - -<p>The last sparks flew large and red in the darkness.</p> - -<p>“Fire and wild beasts and the stones,” murmured Lovel dreamily. “How -many centuries is it, do you think, since those three things have met -together here? The place will get a bad name among owners of circuses. -They will say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> that it clamours for its natural prey; that the circle -is under a curse; that it scents blood; and a hundred such fabulous -things.” He laughed as he spoke, but Clare, looking at him, thought -that the fantastic creature half believed it himself. “What will you -say, when they want to know where you have been?” he asked. “You won’t -dare own up to the gipsy fellow. You’ll say you watched the fire, and -let it be understood that you were alone,—isn’t that so?”</p> - -<p>“Of course I shall say I have been with you; why not?” said Clare.</p> - -<p>“Ah, but I’d rather you didn’t,” he said earnestly. “Keep it a -secret,—that we stood and talked unseen while the rest beat the fire -out down below. I had not thought that I should see you again, and now -I know that I shall not see you again,—in the distance, perhaps,—and -hear the bells for your wedding,—and see you driving by,—Mrs. Richard -Calladine,—but I shall never stand again with you alone as in this -hour. Let us keep it a secret. I don’t care what you think of me. Look, -the fire has gone out now, and it is quite dark, but the time I spent -with you was lit by the fire. I will walk round with you to the Manor -House, and let you go.”</p> - -<p>In silence they started off to walk round the top of the earthwork -towards the Manor House. The village lay below them in its strange cup, -and around outside the circle lay the Downs hunched in the starlight. -Where the road intersected the circle they ran down the slope and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> -crossed it, their footsteps briefly crunching on the gravel, but on -the opposite side they scrambled up again and silenced steps on the -turf and continued side by side along the high ridge above the ditch. -A breeze from the Downs blew cool against their cheeks; they knew it -well, it was a friend pleading with them, calling them back to the -open. They both knew the Downs so well that in their consciousness -they were all the time aware of the country’s geography, stretching -before them like a foreshortened map; the long roads, the little -English towns with their broad main-street that was only a section -of the Roman highway, the ancient green tracks over the hills, and -the angular spatchcock landmark of the White Horse, straddling on the -hillside. Neither of them had thought sufficiently beyond these things -to be tormented by the further world. But, on the other hand, they -had attained a degree of familiarity and concentration undiminished -by any scattering of their faculties. They had not sprinkled their -interest over other lands and other folk. They had dwelt only on their -country and on themselves, so that the breeze came to them direct as a -messenger from the Grey Wethers lying out derelict on the hills, and -the sickness of the desire of each to respond to the call found an echo -in the soul of the other.</p> - -<p>So vivid was the call, so absurd the refusal, that as they reached the -point above the trees of the Manor House garden, Lovel stood still and -laughed out loud. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> - -<p>“So you go back to rooms,” he said, and laughed again, but more -bitterly. “You!” he said, charged with contempt.</p> - -<p>They were closer in understanding than ever they had been in their -lives. He began to speak low and rapidly, “Clare,” he said, “there is -no more softness in you or in me than there is in this soil. There is -no flabby flesh, only bone. No trappings, only the hard skeleton. We’ve -pared away.... If I had not taken shelter in the beechwood,—and it -was the nearest approach to shelter I could get,—I might have taken -you by the hand and galloped away with you; you would have come. That -would have been mad. I have got my mother and Olver, and not only that, -but I’ve got their blood in me. I want to have sons, and I may not, -because of that blood. That was why I said I envied Calladine having -only himself to overcome, when here am I as hard as flint, who might -beget sons with that soft squelch in them that has rotted Olver. A -bad stock, I said to myself; be strong; let it die out. And then the -irony ... well, you know nothing about that, and even that seems not to -matter now. Never be surprised, now, if you hear that I have been borne -a son or a daughter, only don’t judge me too harshly. But how could I -have brought you to my mother and Olver? and our children, yours and -mine,—how could I, Clare? What chance had I but to cease from seeing -you? Oh, if it had not been for them and my blood, then there would -have been the Downs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> for you and me, Clare. Don’t share the Downs with -Calladine; he lives among them, but he isn’t strong enough to endure -them. There are some countries that it takes a strong man to endure. -They don’t generate strength, and they crush weakness. Calladine should -have lived in towns. But now that he has got you he may be rescued.”</p> - -<p>“You know that Mr. Calladine has not got me, and never will have me, -except in name,” said Clare.</p> - -<p>“That’s true,” replied Lovel, not disputing her statement. “Let him -live with you by his side, you listening, listening patiently, for as -long as he chooses to discourse, and looking at him with the eyes of -a stranger. I don’t say that I envy him. (“How you despise him!” she -breathed.) And yet,” he said, “don’t I envy him a little? Can I help -myself? He will see you every day, he will be able to call your name -through the house at any moment and hear your answer. Don’t I envy -him that? Wouldn’t I change places with him for that?—But he’ll tire -of you, perhaps,” he added, dropping from his sudden anguish into the -old whimsicality, “tire of you even though he has never got you. No, I -don’t envy him. I’ll be less lonely,” he said with a fine insolence, -“than he.”</p> - -<p>“I must go, Lovel,” cried Clare.</p> - -<p>He stepped back from her instantly.</p> - -<p>“Go to Calladine,—in name. Go from me,—in name,” he said, out of his -torn heart. “Only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> go,—go,—go!” he added, turning away from her and -laying his arm across his eyes.</p> - -<p class="space-above">She left him then, feeling, although he had not once touched her, as -though she had slipped all on fire from his clasp, so close had been -their communion in spite of their immense separation. She did not know -where he would go, or how long he would remain, gazing after her, -standing on the height of the circle. For her own part she ran down -amongst the trees, across the lawn, and entered the study by one of the -French windows, to find her father absorbed in his work, not having -noticed her absence, and blissfully unaware of any excitement or of his -daughter having been in the slightest degree in danger. He said, “Bless -me! bless me!” several times while she flung herself with exaggerated -animation into a description of the fire, and pushed his spectacles up -on to his forehead, and stared at her with an absent-minded interest -as though she had just come straight out of the heart of the flames. -“Dear, dear, and where’s Calladine?” he said at last. “There was -something very curious I’ve come across and particularly wanted to show -him. It quite corroborates my ideas. I made sure he’d bring you home.” -“But you don’t understand, father: the circus-tent caught fire, and -we got separated.” “Of course, to be sure,” said Mr. Warrener mildly. -“Well, I daresay he’ll come over to-morrow, and I can show it him then. -It’ll interest you too, Clare....” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> - -<p>Clare lay awake for a long time. The windows of her room were open, and -outside the breeze sighed, a plaintive spirit trying to get into the -house. The world outside was crying to her, endeavouring to reach her, -sending its gentle messengers to plead with her. The heavy-foliaged -trees rustled, as it seemed, with an unwonted nearness to her window, -and the room was full of the insects of the night, which as soon as -she had turned out her lamp woke into life and fluttered against her -cheek and thudded softly against the ceiling like small downy ghosts. -A moth imprisoned beneath her hand struggled for freedom; she shook -it off with a gesture between tenderness and revulsion. Several times -she lit a match, and the little creatures became still, flecking the -bed with their long mottled bodies and closed wings, but no sooner -had darkness fallen again than they returned in greater numbers to -their soft wheeling and the bruising of their voiceless plea. She lay -now shivering in spite of the summer warmth, awed to her very soul -by the deepened significance of night. Darkness by shutting away the -visible and reassuring world opened the field to all finer perceptions, -to all the mysterious relationships, to the purified intuition of -essential unity. That sense,—the sense of unity, the discarding of -all irrelevancies,—was an unexpressed link between herself and Lovel; -she was not sure, everything else being sifted down to its last bare -expression, that it was not <i>the</i> link. Out in the night <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>somewhere an -owl hooted, and she heard the distant baying of a dog; the spacious -presence of the Downs opened out before her widened senses, their -loneliness, and the secret of their ancient tombs; their untilled -defiance rolling eternally under the stars. Where was Lovel now? Was he -still standing like a sentinel on the dyke, between the Downs and the -sleeping village, with only the vault of the black sequined sky above -his head? as she fancied him there he seemed to grow in stature until -in his heroic proportions he became an embodiment of that open country -which called to her, and his voice rose harmoniously in a long cry -above the soughing of the breeze in the trees. Or had he plunged down -from the circle after she had left him, to roam across the uplands, a -wisdom in his feet, a swiftness that lifted him above fatigue? That he -was out somewhere in the night she was sure; no house would confine -him, not even a house whose walls were built of the sarsen stones. He -was out somewhere, and every moth that bruised itself so plaintively -and so impotently against her was his envoy; every sound that reached -her, whether the whisper of the breeze or the churning of a night-jar, -bore the burden of its message from him to her. If she called back to -him “Lovel! Lovel!” surely in one form or another her voice would find -him among the hills.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PART TWO </h2> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2"><i>Part Two</i></p> - -<p>She had been married for four months to Calladine.</p> - -<p>Evening after evening they sat opposite to one another over the fire -at Starvecrow. Often they played chess,—a pastime to which he seemed -tirelessly addicted.</p> - -<p>He would rarely go out; he shivered and said that it was cold,—it -was true that snow lay upon the Downs and that the wind blew -incessantly,—and why should a man face the bitter cold of March when -no necessity compelled him and when a pleasant fire could console him -within doors? Nor did he like her going out without him. So they stayed -in, until she felt that she could have sent walls and ceiling flying by -one extravagant gesture of her arms.</p> - -<p>But he,—oh, how content he was! He had lost his melancholy; he had -brought out for her benefit from cases and cupboards numerous objects -wherewith to beautify their rooms, but her inability to distinguish -among the various artists was a source of infinitesimal friction -between them; “No, no, my dear; <i>Clodion</i>, not <i>Houdon</i>,” he would say, -and she would accept the correction meekly with a little laugh implying -that the matter was not of very great importance after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> all, and with -that little laugh would undo all the merit of her meekness.</p> - -<p>At first he had enjoyed making these corrections. It flattered him to -think that he had brought into an atmosphere of artistic refinement -this child of the hills whose knowledge although so thorough as far -as it went, was concerned with such rude things as rocks and skulls -and antlers, supplemented by a working experience of shepherds’ and -woodman’s lore. Certainly he had always been ready to take an interest -in Mr. Warrener’s work, and to entertain a respectful admiration for -the old gentleman’s scholarship, but that was a different matter: it -was a tabulated profession, archæology was a branch of study suitable -to gentlemen, especially old gentlemen; Mr. Warrener contributed papers -to the journals of several societies; he was a distinguished and -accepted authority. That was quite another matter. It had been amusing, -even, to find Clare dabbling her fingers in the same research; amusing -to hear the terms so glib upon her lips; surprisingly instructive, -sometimes, to catch the odd bits of information she let fall while -out riding with him on the Downs. But what had been amusing in the -child was insufficient, even unbecoming, in the married woman. To -dilettantism, <i>per se</i>, he had no objection; he was a believer in -dilettantism; but in the name of all good taste let it be dilettantism -in graceful and becoming subjects! So he tried to interest Clare -in <i>terres cuites</i>, in crystals and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> in the bindings of books. She -looked at them at first with pleasure, they were exquisite; she had -never seen such things before, or suspected their existence; she -exclaimed over them, marvelled at their workmanship, fingered them, -discovered new loveliness in them as she turned them this way and -that. Calladine was enchanted by her appreciation; he thought he might -venture further; he tempted her with subtler baits. But she returned -to the fragile eighteenth century statuettes. He let her have her -way, tolerant, determined not to force her interest. He watched her. -There was about the little terra cotta groups a false paganism, a -windy grace, that intrigued and allured her. Here was something that -she could nearly understand; nearly, if not quite; not quite, for -there was still something, or the lack of something, which troubled -her; she could not put a name to it, consider how she might, with a -pucker between her brows. These dimpled children, with the thighs -and hoofs of goats,—these girls with draperies blown by the wind at -the moment when the sculptor caught and fixed them motionless for -ever,—these young men with slanting eyes and laughing mouths,—of what -did they remind her? and in what were they so evasively deficient? -She circled round the table on which they stood. Calladine’s eyes -followed her in amusement. She was puzzled, this nymph who was so much -more like a nymph than any nymph that Clodion ever made, puzzled by -the drawing-room <i>faroucherie</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> of these false fugitives. “A little -self-conscious, you find them?” he had murmured at last.</p> - -<p>But the artistic education of Clare proved a game that had palled. She -had gone clean through his objects of virtue, and had come out the -other side. She seemed to have been briefly deluded by them, then to -have sized them up, to have detected their essential fraud, and to have -discarded them from her interest. Mortified though he was, he perceived -somewhere in himself a respect for her pure, uneducated instinct. -Still, as this was a thing he could not, out of self-respect, admit, he -continued at intervals his efforts to guide her feet into the paths he -himself found so pleasant. He liked to sit within doors re-ordering his -books and his treasures, while the snow drifted up against the windows -and the wind cried unappeasably across the Downs. “Why are you staring -out at that ugly landscape, Clare? Don’t you like the fire better, and -a chair, and a book to read?” But she read very seldom; only once, -when she had been reading, he saw to his consternation that tears were -falling silently down her cheeks, and, going up behind her, he had seen -over her shoulder that Shelley lay open on her knee:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear,</div> -<div class="i1">If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee,</div> -<div>A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share</div> -<div class="i1">The impulse of thy strength, only less free</div> -<div class="i1">Than thou, O uncontrollable!...</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Clare, why so silent? I declare, you’ve grown more meditative than -I,—where’s your irresponsibility? is the dignity of marriage so heavy -upon you? Were you as silent with your friend Lovel? didn’t you prattle -to <i>him</i>? eh, tell me?”</p> - -<p>“What funny questions you ask, Richard. Lovel? I don’t remember. No, I -don’t think I ever talked much to Lovel.”</p> - -<p>“Well, but in all those hours you spent, riding with him, fishing, and -I don’t know what else....”</p> - -<p>“Well, we were busy, Richard; too busy to talk.”</p> - -<p>“And he was a common fellow, wasn’t he? it’s not to be expected you -would have talked much to him? eh?”</p> - -<p>“He certainly wasn’t fine like you, Richard.”</p> - -<p>“Now how do you mean that? Too fine, am I? And he,—a poacher, wasn’t -he? a bit of good-for-nothing? You don’t answer. A queer fellow, not -without good looks; oh, I wouldn’t deny him that. A romantical sort of -fellow, Clare?”</p> - -<p>“Practical as he could be, on the contrary.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe; none the less, there was something romantical about him....”</p> - -<p>So he tormented himself by this small constant nagging about Lovel, -liking to dress the man’s personality up in the lyrical words of his -own choosing; but for the rest he appeared satisfied, living with Clare -a captive under his roof. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> - -<p>But sometimes she eluded his company. Then he roamed about the house, -up and down stairs, out at the front door, down to the little wicket -gate in the new wall, holding his muffler close under his chin, for -the wind tore at his coverings, tweaking his scarf, flapping his coat, -freezing his fingers, blowing his grey hair about in wild strands. He -stood at the little gate, vainly trying to smooth his hair, gazing -round the expanse of the hills, and calling from time to time as loudly -as he could call, “Clare!” The wind took his voice and dispersed it -like smoke; instantly tattered, it streamed away on the wind. No hope -that Clare should hear that futile call, and it seemed to him that the -empty Downs must from her childhood onwards have accumulated the echoes -of voices crying “Clare! Clare!” A bell-like and doleful name, so -cried; a name made to ring out; a wailing appeal; a name to cry after -a gay truant, knowing that no answer would be returned. A gay truant, -marked out for tragedy, dancing away, while those who remained behind -cried after her and broke their hearts.</p> - -<p>All his complacency dropped from him, he stood at the gate, looking -and calling; then turning back to the house he sought her again in -every room, even up to the attic where Phoebe Batch, startled at his -intrusion and dishevelled appearance, gaped at her master and stammered -out her, “No, sir,”—she had seen nothing of Mrs. Calladine. Mrs. -Calladine! She was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> Clare, just Clare; Calladine with a bitter twist -could not at that moment associate her with the respectable title. He -turned away, downstairs again, and back to the front door, to stand on -the doorstep, gazing across the little garden, over the low wall, up to -the pale inhospitable hills.</p> - -<p>She returned, of course; every time she duly returned; and he upbraided -her, and almost wept, but she said nothing, only looked at him with -wide eyes, indifferent and remote. He upbraided her more loudly, even -shook her on one occasion and “Don’t stand there,” he cried, “as though -you had left your wits out in the blizzard,” and he flacked his fingers -in his hysteria, and his voice grew shrill. But after a little while -he would quieten down, and his melancholy would return, and he would -sit with his head in his hands, saying that for his unhappiness he had -married an elf and not a woman.</p> - -<p>Clare looked at him, sitting sunk in his chair, and presently she -would thaw, as though those wits which he said she had left out in the -blizzard were creeping back little by little into her body, and then -she would put her hand kindly on his head and tell him not to fret. -But that was all the explanation or comfort he ever got, to his great -exasperation, being a man who liked to know how his wife had occupied -every moment of her time,—to know, indeed, every thought which passed -through her head.</p> - -<p>Fortunately for himself, he soon forgot; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> next morning he would -descend, serene as ever, and set himself after his breakfast to his -usual mild pursuits. Only in a sudden suspicious glance shot at Clare -would his anxiety reawaken, and he would look at her feet, to see -whether she wore her black strapped shoes and white stockings, peeping -out under the fulness of her skirt. And sometimes, for a day or two -after one of her escapades,—her evasions, as he called them in his own -mind,—he would follow her upstairs if she went up to her bedroom.</p> - -<p>Inquiringly she looked at him.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Richard?”—for she was always gentle, save when she gazed past -him with that far-away look, that seemed to range the Downs though her -husband’s body and the walls of the house stood in her way,—“Yes, -Richard?”</p> - -<p>He mumbled, half-ashamed.</p> - -<p>“I came to see what you were doing....” He could not bring himself to -say, “I came to see whether you were changing your shoes,” for that -seemed ridiculous, beneath his dignity.</p> - -<p class="space-above">He had his happy moments. Sitting in his little room with her after -they had dined, in the firelight, he beheld the very picture he had so -often imagined. He had got her there, for his own; and his eyes rested -long upon her grace, travelling, with delicate sensuality, over her -young body and the little hands lying idle along the arms of her chair. -“You never sew, my Clare,” he observed to her once, regretting this,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> -for he luxuriated in all the pretty attributes of woman. She smiled at -him. “What are you thinking of?”—his favourite question, and he bent -forward to pick up her limp hand and fondle it. “Tell me what you were -thinking,” he repeated jealously.</p> - -<p>For once she lifted frank eyes and gave a frank answer.</p> - -<p>“I was wondering how much real need you had of me, Richard.”</p> - -<p>“Remember the man I was before you came to me,” he said reproachfully, -yet with a certain pride in recalling the gloom which had been his to -discard.</p> - -<p>Then she said no more,—a trick of hers, which irritated him when he -would fain have had her explain and amplify. He liked argument, he -liked analysis; and into neither could he draw her.</p> - -<p>“How unwillingly,” he said, “do you dwell upon personal relationships!”</p> - -<p class="space-above">He had lost his gloom and melancholy,—or was it that he had begun -to think that hobby ridden to death, sometimes inconvenient to -himself and possibly diminishing in impressiveness to other people, -and had welcomed his marriage as a plausible reason for abjuring it? -His habitual manner he had not altered; he still maintained towards -her the same elaborate courtesy and his air of rather patronising -protectiveness, as though thanks to the one <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>convention, he revered -her, and thanks to the other, condescended.</p> - -<p>Yet, he had changed; changed from the very day of their marriage. He -had paraded her on his arm before their wedding-guests, the smile -had wandered perpetually over his lips, he had abandoned his slight -stoop, he had straightened himself up into a handsome and possessive -bridegroom. She had been too apathetic at heart to be nettled by his so -parading her in public: “My wife,” the formula constantly on his lips, -had not stirred her resentment; those were the outward shows,—they -could not touch her secret being. And, looking at him perhaps -nevertheless with a faint surprise, she had ascribed this new manner -to his natural triumph at getting her, and had expected a relapse as -soon as the novelty should have staled into habit. But there had been -no relapse. He had brought her home to Starvecrow, and then she had -realised how all the new chintzes, the curtains in the windows, the -works of art brought out from the drawers where all these years they -had lain concealed, had been but the preparation for this long-schemed -change in his mode of thought. They slipped now into their place, they -came into their own, small but significant. He had at last now an -excuse for shedding with relief the strenuous manner of years. There -remained no work for her to do.</p> - -<p>Oh, little objects of art and skill. What hours he must have spent -trifling with their suavity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> taking them from their hiding-places of -an evening after he had heard Mrs. Quince go safely up to bed, and -knew that no one was looking, no one likely to break in upon him and -surprise him at his comfortable pottering; the hours of mansuetude he -must have spent turning and caressing them between his fine sensitive -hands! He had not brought out those little objects to show her the day -she had gone to tea with him at Starvecrow; oh no! the only thing he -had brought out had been the drawing of that woman’s head, which he had -so dramatically destroyed in her presence. She saw that destruction -now as the first step taken towards his emancipation. But the little -objects he had not shown her,—those delicate fraudulent statuettes -in terra cotta, those chiselled and prismatic crystals. How bare, how -cheerless she had thought his room! those heavy leather armchairs, now -so jaunty with chintz! She had pitied him, genuinely and kindly, even -through her impatience at his mismanagement of his life. She had chided -herself for any passing suspicions that his gloom might be deliberate. -And she had seen in her marriage with him an opportunity to perform, -supremely at her own expense, a task perhaps worth performing.</p> - -<p>But what right had she to murmur, when she saw her intentions -crumble? She had, indeed, achieved her object, albeit in a manner so -disconcertingly unforeseen. She reproached herself, in her mind which -gave no quarter, any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> more than Lovel gave quarter; she reproached -herself for not rendering thanks that her task had been thus made easy. -What! she dare to murmur because she had been spared the strain of -months, even of years? because she had not been permitted to string -herself up to an effort daily renewed, an exertion in which her own -weariness must never for an instant be allowed to appear? because -Calladine had taken the law out of her hands, and had ordained for -himself the resurrection to which she had intended to force him? She -looked back with the smile of rueful irony to her brave and pitiful -plans for his redemption. She had intended,—so gallantly—to set her -back for ever towards her old life. She would have devoted herself,—so -sturdily,—to the man who had need of her. She would not have flagged. -The vision of her married life had disclosed itself during the weeks -of her engagement in detail to her anticipation. There was no detail -she had shirked,—not even the least picturesque. She had not tried to -idealise Calladine; no, rather she had tried to see him in the light -that Lovel’s careless scorn had thrown; not as a romantic figure, -blasted by the catastrophe of an early passion, but as an incompetent, -bungling, pitiable figure. Her pity, her charity, and her contempt -would between them have carried her through. But now that she found -herself forestalled, as it were,—found that Calladine had already -accomplished for himself precisely what she had intended to accomplish -for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> him,—she was disconcerted, almost angry. It was in vain that -she upbraided herself for her own ingratitude. The life that she had -planned for herself was not falling out according to her design. She -was cheated; a person who has tried to take in the dark a step that was -never there. Let her keep her sense of proportion,—her refuge now, her -only refuge,—and she would not even yet be wholly lost. Then she could -laugh at the futility of her plans; she could see, as from without, -their derision, and their full pitifulness. Her life at Starvecrow had -not fallen out according to her design. What of it?</p> - -<p>A woman spending thirty, forty, wasted years in a forgotten corner of -the Downs. What of it?</p> - -<p>Her memory would not cling about the place after she should be dead, -any more than the memory of victims clung about the sacrificial -stones. “Here blood was shed,” but that was a collective phrase; all -individuality had long since,—almost immediately,—been telescoped -into the clemency of perspective. So it would be with her, and she saw -herself already as part of that anonymous crowd, whether of the victims -of a savage creed, or of the women with the wasted lives,—no sublime -and legendary sorrow, except in so far that all sorrow shared in the -same great dignity,—women who had lost children or lovers, women who -had trailed ill-health about their daily business, women who had borne -the long, mute burden of uncertainty, all the grey, silent,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> muffled -women that whispered round her, and that had taken to their graves -unchronicled the blunt or the poignant sorrow of their hearts.</p> - -<p>Nameless, they lived for her now. For her now, the Downs, hitherto -so void and so spacious under the freedom of the winds and the cycle -of the seasons, for her now the Downs were peopled. Their dews were -brushed dark with footsteps. Their heights were scanned by searching -eyes. Their flanks were bruised by the stumble of weary limbs. Their -beech-clumps were threaded with the breath of secrets. She had not -known, at first, whether to resent or to welcome the looming-up of -this hushed population. It seemed to her that they rose up out of the -ground, stealthy, ashen, tall. They were everywhere about her. They had -known the Downs as she knew them, and the changing seasons had found as -they did for her either a significant echo or an incongruous irony in -their souls. Their presence did away with the loneliness, the untouched -and indifferent loneliness of the uplands, which in her egoism she had -seen as a background to her life and Lovel’s populated only, in so -far as they were populated at all, by the rough figures of the men of -barbarous ages, men who fought for the simple preservation of their own -existence, undivided by any shredding of their moods, whose religion -was one of fear and not of charity, the men who had set up the stones -and raised the barrows in order to propitiate the dark Unknown of -creation and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> of death with such rude pomp as they could devise. They -had been stark, striding elementary figures, one with the tree-trunks -and the sarsen stones. They had ennobled the Downs by the record of -their constructions. It had seemed to Clare that the intervening -centuries between their age and the present day had been blank,—that -she inherited the Downs direct from their hands,—those Downs which -revealed themselves to her eyes unchanged from the hour when the stone -men had passed away from them. The barrows, the dew-ponds, the Grey -Wethers, the green tracks, the hawks and the larks, the space,—all -unaltered; the stone men, returning, would find no change. What had she -said, long ago, to Calladine, “an old, hard country; and such ghosts as -there are, are bleached bones by now, dry and clean. I think,” she had -said, “that the ghosts that walk among the stones must be as stern as -the stones themselves; and that’s my fancy.”</p> - -<p>And now there came to her this newly-realised population, bruised by -life down to the softness of humanity. As to her those dry, bleached -ghosts of the rude ages were masculine, so those more human ghosts that -rose up out of the centuries were feminine. Increasingly, they had -splintered their emotions; they had departed from the stark, simple -facts; they had become more complex and more wistful. The stars and the -stones had meant less and less to them; the Man of Sorrows, and not -the terrible orbs of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> heaven, had been their god. They were kneaded, -malleable. They had endured much, but in the full consciousness of -endurance; their spirit, even if not their voice, had groaned under -the load of life and its ironies; they had not accepted as a matter -of course, unquestioning, a lot that was hard. For all that, they had -not been the less courageous; perhaps even their courage had been of a -sublimer brand. And they were women, women, always women. The men had -remained nearer to the old, strong, practical stock,—the purveyors of -necessities. It was upon the women that civilisation had had the most -effect. Calladine himself, the most highly civilised man that Clare -knew, had always seemed to her instinct more like a woman,—sitting in -his house and picking his griefs into smaller and smaller pieces. But -Calladine’s griefs were not very real griefs,—she knew that now. She -knew that he was, really, quite negligible.</p> - -<p>She had been almost afraid, for a brief period, to go out upon the -Downs,—afraid of forms rising up round her, of hands pulling at -her garments, and of eyes seeking hers until she was forced to look -into their depths. It was not that she any longer felt resentment -against the population her own imagination had evoked; no, the Downs -were enriched by their company, and the calm heights acquired a new -significance by contrast with their soft rustling tumult. It was that -she feared the knowledge which would come to her if she spent many -hours alone with those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> ghostly inhabitants whispering round her like -dead leaves; she feared what she would learn; she would not probe her -new half-guessed discovery. Things were a degree less terrible so long -as they remained without a name.</p> - -<p>But she could not fear for long. She had pushed them back, averting -her head, into the shadows, and there they had taken up their abode. -They would not leave her again. Not even in the midst of joy,—if joy -should ever visit,—would they leave her, any more than the shadows -were ever completely absent even in the midst of sunshine on the Downs. -She was grateful to them for the way they had come, stealing in upon -her, silent and gradual, not in a sudden irruption that would have -broken her. But now that she no longer feared them, no longer feared -the learning that solitude might bring, it was for solitude that she -craved, and solitude, she found, was the thing that she might not have. -Calladine, who was so content in her company, expected that she should -be equally content in his. When she went out, he went with her; when he -was not inclined to go out, he begged that she would remain at home. -“It is a rough day, Clare; let us stay happily by the fire.” Or he -would consent to pace the garden, sheltered now by a little wall, and -together they would look at the bare winter beds, and he would talk -cheerfully of the flowers that would blow there in the spring.</p> - -<p>She renounced the Downs. Since she might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> not wander there alone, she -restricted herself to the house and the square of garden, or to the -green track that led to King’s Avon when she went to see her father. -Even on this expedition Calladine accompanied her. He did not notice -that she walked with her eyes bent upon the ground, never allowing -them to lift and stray over the rolling country; or if he noticed he -gave no sign. All the time he talked of minor things, and to his talk -she made adequate response. Arrived at King’s Avon she would quicken -her steps and pass rapidly down the village street, glancing about -her only sufficiently to acknowledge the greetings of her humble -acquaintances, and only when safe within the Manor House gates would -she relax a little, and show herself gentle and affectionate towards -her father, who, absent as ever, would presently forget that she was -married and would invite Calladine to remain to dinner, “Clare and I, -my dear friend, may so rarely welcome a visitor.” Through her laughter -she looked at him wistfully; he was dear and familiar, his old beehive -hat as wide and as shabby as ever, his spectacles still on his nose -and his mild blue eyes looking out through them. She wondered how he -got on without her, but Martha told her he did not seem to notice her -absence much; only once, she had found him in Miss Clare’s old bedroom, -wandering round, and touching everything in a gently puzzled way. Clare -was glad that he should continue his busy, happy existence. Martha -she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> could trust, “To be sure, Miss Clare, I look after him as though -he was your own baby. It’s all I can do, not to powder him after his -bath.” But she sometimes fancied that his eyes followed her a little -sorrowfully down the avenue when she went away, as he stood watching -their departure and waving his big silk handkerchief.</p> - -<p>And they would set off on their homeward journey up the village -street, along the road through the cut in the embankment, and along -the road until it dissolved into the green track that led across the -Downs. Still with her eyes upon the ground she walked rapidly, as -though anxious to find herself once more safe within the shelter of -Starvecrow. Calladine’s long legs easily kept pace with her; and she -had the impression that, even were she to run, she could never escape -from him. He strode beside her, talking of her father, talking of those -minor things which, she had found, occupied so much of his attention, -and always with the assumption that her interest equalled his own. Once -or twice he wanted to leave the track and make their way home across -country, but when he suggested this she always pretexed her anxiety to -be once more ensconced in their own room. This invariably pleased him, -and he acquiesced. She could not, no, she could not, stray across the -Downs with him.</p> - -<p>She renounced the Downs. She could not share them with Calladine; not -even with his mere physical presence could she share them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> She cramped -herself within the house and the little garden. The moment came when -Calladine commented upon it. “Don’t you want to go for a walk, Clare?” -She did not;—she clung to their meagre patch of cultivation. “You are -grown quite stay-at-home,” he prodded, fondly.</p> - -<p>The great Downs,—that stealthy population out on the Downs. Waiting -for her,—the call of nature, always, and now the call of humanity. Out -there, she could respond, she could feel, she could learn. Once she had -not wanted to learn. She had shirked knowledge. Now, she had acquired -knowledge, and could bear a yet deeper learning. She was avid, indeed, -for the deepest draught of knowledge. Those bare great Downs, they were -not bare; they were peopled. She might learn the first lesson from -their storm, and the ultimate lesson from their serenity. But it was -not in Calladine’s company that she would learn it. Such lessons were -learnt in the severest solitude, with the senses of the soul stripped -to flagellation.</p> - -<p>Therefore she clung to Starvecrow. “An uncouth name,” said Calladine -discontentedly, after relishing it for years; “shall we change it?” -But she begged him not to, without clearly knowing why. “Very well, we -keep it,” said Calladine, smiling down at her, “as a contrast to the -snug life we live beneath that uncomfortable label.” She smiled back; -she could smile, always; it had become mechanical, costing her little. -She clung to Starvecrow, without affection, but also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> without anything -so precise as distaste; it, like Calladine, was negligible really, and -she had never gone back on her first opinion of it,—that it was not -austere enough to excuse its barrenness, and merely mean in its lack -of comfort. It was no different from the Manor House, which, although -at first sight incongruous perhaps in the midst of the village and its -barbarous temple, was in truth no more incongruous than her old father, -who pottered in his big hat about the garden, or peered through his big -spectacles at the shards set out upon his desk.</p> - -<p>But still she clung to Starvecrow; it was just bleak enough to match -the bleak, small disaster of her life; just comfortless enough to -accord with the blank at the root of her life with Calladine.</p> - -<p>There had been the days of her engagement, when convention demanded -that she should go over and at least appear to take an interest in -her future home. She had gone, driven by Calladine himself through -the village in the high dog-cart; holding on to her hat she had gone, -rattling along the lanes behind the raw-boned animal, the gig rocking -slightly from side to side, and the low branches of the trees almost -sweeping against her as they passed. Calladine had looked fondly -down upon her holding on to her hat, and in response to his murmur -as he bent down towards her, she had looked up, and thought, in a -detached way, that he was agreeable to look at, very gentlemanly and -rather <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>interesting, with his sallow, high-bred face, his many-caped -driving coat, and his fine skilful hands encased in his gauntlets. She -wondered, in the same detached fashion, what it would feel like when -he stood tall by her side, and she could say “my husband.” Already -she had had little foretastes of it, when he accompanied her to the -village shops, and the shopkeepers said, in their familiar, respectful -way, with an admiring gaze at the couple, “Here’s our best wishes, -I’m sure, Miss Clare, to you and your gentleman.” And they had come -to Starvecrow, where Mrs. Quince was waiting to receive them, and -for all the smiles and curtseys and the insistence that Clare should -inspect every cupboard, Clare had been conscious of the hostility -of the elderly woman. But she had gone,—gone all over the house -under the escort of Mrs. Quince, accompanied by Calladine as far as -the first floor, where with his elaborate deferential manner he had -retired, conveying by all that he left unsaid, that women were best -left to themselves over household matters. There was in the manner of -his retirement the indefinable condescension which to Clare was so -subtly irritating. A wholesome male contempt she could more easily -have pardoned.... But she had not stopped to think of that, in her -dismay at finding herself alone with Mrs. Quince; she needed all her -wits to balance the tension between herself and the housekeeper. Mrs. -Quince seemed determined to outrage down to the least detail of her -own feelings; all the doors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> of her most sacred cupboards were thrown -open with a jingling of keys, and their immaculate depths revealed to -Clare, who, her criticism being all the time slavishly invited, could -respond with nothing but approval. “Though I am sure, miss, there’s -many a thing in this house not carried out according to your ideas.” -Mrs. Quince, indeed, seemed so anxious to be found fault with, that -Clare, feeling that she must exhibit her own competence or forfeit from -the outset the housekeeper’s respect, at last did offer some small -disparaging comment. “Ah, there, what did I tell you?” said Mrs. Quince -instantly, as though satisfied to have got finally what she had been -expecting all along; “’tis not likely that old eyes and young ones -should always see alike.” After this her urbanity and her constant -return to the point that Clare had condemned became so excessive that -Clare devoutly wished she might have forfeited all Mrs. Quince’s -esteem for ever only not to be pursued by this constant reference and -exaggerated subservience. And Mrs. Quince would spare her nothing, but -led her up to the second storey, where, pausing on a landing carpeted -with coarse matting and lit by a small skylight, she explained that -“the girl” slept. Clare shrank; “Oh, no, Mrs. Quince, don’t disturb her -if she is in her room.” “Indeed, and why not, miss?” said Mrs. Quince -stoutly, advancing towards the door; “’tis only her room on sufferance, -as you might say; and likely there would be something you would wish -altered.” She threw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> open the door as she spoke, and Daisy Morland, -rising in confusion, let fall on to the ground the scraps of white -linen at which she had been stitching.</p> - -<p>Clare recoiled on the threshold; she had known that Daisy Morland was -in the house, but had not expected to come face to face with her. Nor -had Daisy expected to see Clare,—whose arrival with Calladine she -had watched on tiptoe from her little dormer window,—thus ushered -into her room. The mischievous eye of Mrs. Quince superintended the -clash between the two girls. She had manœuvred ably; she congratulated -herself. Daisy,—Daisy was curtseying,—had recovered herself so far -as to remember her curtsey,—what gall, what mockery, was in that -curtsey!—Miss Warrener,—Miss Warrener was nodding to her,—saying -something about “nice little room,” and looking sideways all the time -at the pieces of linen fallen on the floor. Mrs. Quince folded her arms -and superintended. She wore a smile,—outwardly benevolent, inwardly -immensely ironical. The two girls,—much of an age. Daisy, blowsy and -flustered, hardly able to repress her jeer; Clare, cool and wounded, -but too proud to betray her wound. A lady: Mrs. Quince paid her that -grudging acknowledgment. Well, Daisy had got the gipsy fellow, and Miss -Warrener had got Mr. Calladine. As it should be.</p> - -<p>They came out of the room together, Clare and Mrs. Quince. Mrs. Quince -drew back a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>little, respectfully, to let her go first, and closed -the door gently behind her. “I wouldn’t have taken you in there -miss,” she began, “if I’d known what that shameless baggage was to be -at,—stitching away at her own baby’s clothes a fortnight before her -marriage. Perhaps I should not say such things to you,—but there, -you’ll be married yourself before the month’s out. And I wouldn’t -have kept Daisy Morland here, knowing about her what I do know now, -but that I wanted to have the house well set to rights against your -coming, and, thought I, why not make use of a pair of hands that’ll -never do a turn of work again for honest folks, but only for herself -and a shame-begotten brat and a ’scape-the-gallows husband. It’s a hard -bit of luck for Farmer Morland and his wife,” continued Mrs. Quince -as she followed Clare down the stairs, “after they brought their girl -up decent; but what can you expect with such poachers and loafers and -gipsy-like stuff hanging about the village? ’Twas the easiest thing in -the world for Daisy to go sweethearting on the hills, and what with -shepherds’ huts and hurdles handy there was all the chance of a bit -of trouble. Well, and now she’s got it, and lucky for her, <i>I</i> say, -that Lovel’s ready to turn her into an honest woman, for there’s many -stouter bred than him that hasn’t stuck to their girls, and I always -say....” Here Calladine had come out of the sitting-room, hearing -the sound of voices; he came pleasantly towards them, rubbing his -hands together and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> bending towards Clare, “Tired, my dear? tired? a -little bit, I think,—too bad, too bad, Mrs. Quince, we’ve tired her -out between us; well, come in here and rest in this big chair....” he -pressed her into the sitting-room, and Mrs. Quince with much solicitude -settled cushions for her and placed her feet upon a footstool in spite -of all Clare’s protests.</p> - -<p>She had dreaded to find Daisy still at Starvecrow when she returned -there after her marriage. It would have been simple for her to find -out, but she lacked the courage to ask. And would Calladine know? -would he know if one girl rather than another slept in the attic at -the top of his house? She could have asked Martha Sparrow, but pride -withheld her from making enquiries as to Lovel’s wedding. True, Mrs. -Quince had mentioned a fortnight, but she did not trust Mrs. Quince; -the elderly woman would relish laying a trap for her. But at the end -of the fortnight she had known that Mrs. Quince had spoken accurately, -for Martha Sparrow, coming into her room to call her that morning and -whisking back the curtains along the curtain-rods, had said cheerfully, -“A fine day for the gipsy’s wedding; and I wonder how many of the folk -will turn out to see the customs a common Christian wouldn’t practise?”</p> - -<p>But those folk, skulking round the church, had been disappointed. They -had seen no swarthy women in scarlet handkerchiefs, no dark men with -little gold rings in their ears. They had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> heard no gibberish, and -seen no gestures of incantation or abracadabra. They had seen only -Nicholas Lovel in his ordinary clothes, inaccessibly severe, with his -young woman, all simpers and dimples, on his arm; and Olver Lovel in -the nave, watching the scene at the altar, obliquely in that queer -little round mirror he always seemed to carry. Not even the Lovels’ old -mother had they seen; and for a glimpse of her they had greatly hoped, -for surely, even of a witch and a gipsy, it might be expected that she -would turn out to witness the marriage of her own son. But no, she had -not caused herself to be wheeled as far as the church, the bedridden -old woman; and, indignant because they were disappointed of their -spectacle, the village folk muttered, “Unnatural,—but what would you -expect?”</p> - -<p>Disappointed though they were, they had remained to watch the ceremony. -Some of the bolder spirits had gone to the church, edging their way, -sheepish but defiant, along the pews; but the majority had crowded -near the door, peeping, nudging, jostling backwards whenever Lovel -up at the altar threatened to turn round. There had been none of the -coarse, friendly atmosphere that surrounded most village weddings. -There had been, instead, an atmosphere of curiosity and fear; and at -Daisy looks were thrown, full of commiseration and a fearful respect, -by the villagers as at one of their own comfortable number, about to -cut herself adrift from them and to become enrolled among an alien -community.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> They fully expected that Daisy, hitherto so plump and jolly -and normal, would be initiated into dark rites beyond their imagination -when once she had been swallowed up into the shadows of the dim, -tunnel-like passage of the Lovels’ house and the Lovels’ door closed -behind her. They never expected to see her emerge again in precisely -the semblance of herself familiar to them. Or would Lovel deny his -secrets even to his wife? Would he keep her there, in his dark house, -as a servant and a convenience, to wait on his old mother, to cook his -meals and obey his behests, and above all things to hold her tongue -as to all the unexplained things she might happen to witness in the -course of years? Would she be no more than a terrorized servant in that -house they thought so vaguely sinister? There was Olver Lovel, too; -was he a sort of accomplice to his brother, a sort of sly malignant -accomplice, who in his brother’s absence would bully his brother’s wife -by deputed authority, so that she would be at the mercy not only of the -elder Lovel, who was an unknown quantity if ever there was one, but -against whom nothing but his practices in defiance of the game laws was -definitely known,—not only would she be at his hard mercy, but also at -that of his younger brother, of whom the blackest and most cunning arts -might be believed. There were a hundred ways, they decided, talking it -over between a horrid fascination and a still more horrid relish, in -which Olver might exercise his nasty talents upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> Daisy. John Sparrow -even went so far as to predict that the day would come when she would -be found wandering, as crazy as Olver himself, upon the Downs, but -others more sagely replied that if indeed she were to lose her wits she -would never be allowed to escape from the house. And that opened up -another series of pictures, in which Daisy, crazed and foolishly happy, -went about her work singing little ditties, and the door of the dark -house was closed daily by Lovel upon the three inmates, the mother, the -brother, and the wife, and the key lay close within his pocket.</p> - -<p>But in the meantime the spectacle before their eyes was quite different -from those evoked by their imaginations. It might be true that Lovel -looked lean and stern, and that Olver followed the ceremony in that -slanting way within his little round mirror, but the words the -clergyman uttered were the same that they were accustomed to hear at -all respectable unions, and as for Daisy, she was the picture of all -a bride ought to be, muslin flounces and coyness, and if her figure -was a little oddly thickened, why, that also was a thing that had been -seen before at village weddings. She looked pleased with her young man; -she kept glancing proudly at his height; she sniggered with content as -he repeated the beautiful threadbare words after the priest, repeated -them gravely and firmly, but as though he were utterly indifferent -to the obligations they imposed upon him. There was nothing very -startlingly unusual about the wedding. True, neither Daisy’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> father -nor her mother were present, but the whole village knew that Lovel was -marrying the girl because he had got her into trouble, and it was not -likely that the Morlands, steady and decent folk, would be present to -give the sanction of their approval. Perhaps later on, when the child -was born, they might come round; for the moment, no doubt,—and very -naturally,—they were sore over both the cause of the marriage and the -son-in-law imposed upon them. Daisy did not seem to care. Ever since -the publication of her banns she had gone about flaunting as though her -marriage were a reason for pride rather than for shame and apology. -Not that the village saw much shame in circumstances so common. It -had, rather, a certain respect for Daisy, who, having set her heart on -the gipsy,—a strange taste, but that was her business,—had at last -got him to the altar. There was a tacit convention that a girl was -justified in using all her weapons if she could not otherwise carry -her point: and there was also, in the present instance, a peculiar -satisfaction in feeling that the gipsy had been worsted. So grand, so -stuck-up, Nicholas Lovel, but a girl had got the better of him in the -end.</p> - -<p>When the bridal pair came out of the vestry and proceeded down the -aisle, there was a scattering in the little crowd at the church door; -a lane opened, and Lovel and his wife passed out between the craning, -curious faces. Lovel looked neither to left nor to right; his arm was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> -crooked to allow Daisy’s hand to rest within it, but that was the only -concession he made to his newly-married state. She, on the contrary, -sought eagerly for the faces of her friends; she dragged upon Lovel’s -arm, but he moved unyielding forward. Daisy, who was trying to lag, -had to take a little run, like a child that cannot keep pace with the -advance of a grown-up person. With her head half-turned, her eyes -still lingered over the little crowd that was once more closing in -behind them. There were not many girls in the party; she knew why, and -a sense of triumph came over her; they might affect to despise Lovel, -but for all that they did not care to see him married to one of their -own number,—ah, how clever she had been!—not many girls; two men, -doddering on their sticks; and a group of young men, the lounging, -insolent handsome young men, with their hands stuck into the belts of -their smocks, chewing straws for all the world as though they had been -in the Waggon of Hay and not on the threshold of a church. It was then -that an incident occurred, the recollection of which was frequently -to dash Daisy’s triumph into a sinking of uneasiness; towering behind -the group she caught sight of Peter Gorwyn’s grinning, good-humoured -face on the top of his enormous proportions, and as she looked at -him in a sort of terror of recognition that <i>he</i> of all men should -have come to attend her wedding, he very slowly winked, so slowly -that time seemed to be suspended between the beginning of the wink<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> -and the completion of it; and in that suspension of time, while her -eyes had leisure to dwell in fascination upon the subtle and quite -unambiguous process of a wink, her mind had leisure also to take in its -whole significance: Peter Gorwyn <i>knew</i>. In that wink the day of the -Scouring was evoked; the fun they had shared; the irresponsibility, the -momentary drunkenness. There was no reproach in the wink; there was no -reproof; there was not even a threat; there was simply the amusement -of a confederate, of one who knew himself quite well to be a party to -a hoax. There was humour in it too; in that broad, ruddy face and blue -eyes there was humour; there was even congratulation, a kind of silent -applause; and a hint of gratitude to Daisy for having let him off so -easily,—for having got Lovel to stand there in his place. This was all -very re-assuring; there was such a phrase as honour among thieves, and -big Peter, with her, was a thief if he was willing to let Lovel take -his place and pay the price which should have been exacted of his own -responsibility. But at the same time that wink came as a sharp shock -to her, the shock that a second person shared her hoaxing secret. She -thought that presently, when she had had time to settle down a little -in her new life, she would catch young Gorwyn for an interview, and, -without giving herself away, make quite sure, that, although he had -guessed what she had concealed, he was ready to grin and hold his -tongue. She thought this in a flustered way, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> she came out of the -church on Lovel’s arm into the warmth of the sunny morning, and they -proceeded down the path between the grave-stones, a stiff little group, -robbed momentarily even of the slight relief of the bride’s simpering, -with Olver bringing up the rear. Daisy shivered for the first time; -this wedding was not being conducted according to her idea of weddings; -there were no emotional relatives, no weeping mother, no bells -pealing from the calm grey spire overhead, no bridesmaids, no best -man,—only Olver shambling behind them as they proceeded between the -grave-stones, Olver so slightly and indefinably mis-shapen, a solitary -evil attendant, shambling as though he might at any moment break into -a fawning gambol around them, a senseless dance full of irony and -mischief. And Lovel, himself, dearly as she had set her heart upon -him, was throwing a chill by his demeanour over the occasion; he had -not once looked at her, he had offered her his arm in a coldly civil -way,—less he could not do,—he had stood up stern and unbending; she -was afraid of him, and discouragement began to cloud over her triumph.</p> - -<p>They were walking now down the street towards his house, and the -shopkeepers came to their doors to stare at them as they passed. -Still Lovel marched on, undeviating, and Daisy began to feel herself -a captive being led towards her prison. She clasped her fingers -tighter round Lovel’s arm; it was hard and sinewy, typical of his lean -strength. Here was a harshness she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> would find tough to propitiate; -and jealousy shot through her; had he shown himself harsh towards Miss -Warrener? or had she discovered an unguessed marvellous Lovel? What -secret understanding had they shared? Daisy scarcely understood the -pain. “The minx!” she muttered; it was the only analysis she could -find of her sudden twist of anguish, blind and inarticulate. Up to -the present she had been too much occupied with securing Lovel; in -future she would have leisure to dwell upon those memories of his which -would lie for ever concealed from her. “We’re married now, aren’t we, -Nicholas? I’ve got you?” she said, looking up into his face.</p> - -<p>He took her into his house, where during the whole time of their -engagement he had never allowed her to come. They were in the dark cold -passage, at the end of which, in the sun, opened the little square -of garden where Lovel like any other cottager grew his cabbages, -his patch of flowers, his gooseberries, and his beans. Daisy became -excited again; she forgot Gorwyn, she forgot her discouragement and -her jealousy; she was a woman brought for the first time to her home. -She peered about her with interest, while Lovel shut the door, and the -passage became quite dark but for the door at the further end opening -bright arch-wise on to the garden. “Oh, Nicholas,” she said, “I can’t -see and it’s cold; leave open the door.” “For all the village to spy in -upon us?” he returned, and she perceived that in this as in everything -else he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> have his way. “It’s more friendly,” she ventured, but he -did not move towards it, and she desisted: after all, she had got him, -she had fooled him, the score so far was heavily in her favour; if she -let him have his way now, she would get him more completely in the end. -“It’s rather cold,” she said nevertheless, repressing a shiver, and, -hearing a small chuckle in the shadows behind her, she turned and saw -Olver crouched up against the wall.</p> - -<p>“Take me into the kitchen!” she cried, pressing herself against Lovel.</p> - -<p>Kitchen! the word was reassuring; her mother had kept a spruce, -spacious kitchen, where bottled fruit stood ranged on shelves, and -trays of floury scones stood on the scrubbed deal table, and the big -Parliament clock tick-tocked in comfortable regularity against the -wall. Very different was the room to which Lovel sarcastically admitted -her; she stopped with the dismay of the conventional person suddenly -confronted with rebel views. She was shocked as at something unseemly -and profane. “Oh,” she cried, “but this isn’t a kitchen?”</p> - -<p>She turned as though to make her escape; before her was the room with -its walls of rough stone, its rafters, shadows and cobwebs, behind -her was Lovel in the doorway and the dark passage beyond him, with -Olver crouching in it. She stared round her, and was met everywhere by -silence. “I don’t like it!” she cried in shrill terror. Lovel continued -to look at her without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> speaking. “Mother! dad!” she cried, “I want to -go home!” She rushed to Lovel and beat her hands against his chest. -His physical contact recalled her, and she began to sob. “Nicholas, -Nicholas,” she sobbed, “I love you, I don’t understand.” She sobbed -against him.</p> - -<p>He stood still, hard and carven, while the waves of her panic broke -over him. Presently a loud tapping sounded overhead, and she raised her -face, mouth moist and wide open, to listen. “What’s that?” she uttered. -“My mother,” he replied grimly. “Then she <i>is</i> alive?” breathed -Daisy, her common curiosity coming back to her, and she felt suddenly -important, since she was about to see,—redoubtable privilege,—the -legendary figure of the village witch. Speaking over his shoulder, -Lovel said, “Olver, go you and tell her I am bringing Daisy up in a -moment,” and she heard Olver shuffle off, and knew the mysterious -suggestion of hearing footsteps mount an unknown stair, and the voice -of an unvisualised person speaking in the recesses of an unknown house.</p> - -<p>“Must I go up?” she said to Lovel, between fear and desire.</p> - -<p>She wondered when she would have the chance of pouring into the ears of -one of her confidential friends the account of her first entry into the -old woman’s room. Not that she could be so very old in years,—not more -than sixty or sixty-five, Daisy hazarded,—but her bedridden condition -and the squalor of rugs and coverings under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> which she croaked and -feebly moved lent to her an appearance of almost fabulous age. Dirty -and tattered, a heap on the bed in the corner of the dark room, her -grey locks straggled about her face, her shaking fingers crooked -themselves at Daisy, and her mouth mumbled out unintelligible phrases, -in which the words, “A hard son to me, Nicco ... a hard husband ... -you’ll see,” alone detached themselves with any significance to the -bride. She was herself too much overawed to speak, but stood close -to Lovel, who, forbidding though he was, was yet the only familiar -landmark in the whole of that house. For his part, he said nothing, -not a word to help Daisy out of her fear or her embarrassment; he -stood there, and had he not appeared so utterly indifferent she would -have said he seemed resigned; he stood there waiting while his mother -mumbled out her accusations,—how many years was it since she had had -the opportunity of doing so save to Olver?—willing to wait although -scorning to justify himself; and it was clear that he cared no more -for his wife’s opinion than he did for his mother’s or anybody else’s, -but had within himself a reserve of some unknown, unexplained quality, -whether pride, or contempt, or self-communion, or all three, but which -in any case left him invulnerable and as though he could close his ears -at will when he did not choose to hear.</p> - -<p>But although even through her fright Daisy was thinking of the -succulent story she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> make out of this first glimpse of the old -woman, the closing incident was one she would not retail. No, she -would not tell any one that when the mumble had finally died away, the -mumble and the bursts of laughter, she would not tell any one that as -she and Lovel had started to move towards the door the old woman had -raised herself up on her extraordinary mountain of sacks and pillows, -heaving herself up under all the rugs, and pointing an accusing finger -at her daughter-in-law, had cried in an access of malevolent amusement, -“Big already, my lass, and on your wedding-day!” She would not tell -any one that. She could not, even had she been willing, have described -the effect that the old woman’s words, uttered in such a tone of -discovery and delight, produced upon her. Hitherto she had not thought -very much about her condition; it was an inconvenient consequence that -often overtook girls of her class when they had omitted to behave with -too self-righteous a prudery; and in her own particular case she had -been able to turn her “trouble” to excellent account. But with that -witchlike cackle a whole future of foreboding rushed up at her, a whole -revelation of mischievous malignity. The cackle and the wink—Gorwyn -knew her secret; did Lovel’s mother know it too? she was credited with -sly powers; did Lovel’s brother know it? and would they sit for years -upon their knowledge until one day it should hatch out, sudden and -disastrous? Or had Lovel told them both that the child was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> Olver’s -child? Olver would accept that, surely; he had the memory of the scene -in the barn to convince him. What had Lovel told them? she would never -dare to ask him, and his inscrutability gave her no hope of discovering -by chance.</p> - -<p>And then she had been astonished to find how gentle he could be towards -her. It was true that he was stern in his injunctions,—no tales of his -house to be carried about the village, he said, and poor Daisy saw her -one consolation evaporate,—but in his personal dealings with her he -was uniformly gentle. Distant always, never relaxing, never easy; but -kind with a kindness that wrung the very heart of her love for him. It -was as though he pitied her, and was kind to her as he would have been -to an animal; although she thought bitterly, there would have been more -of love and less of duty in his kindness towards the meanest animal. -She could not cajole herself with the idea that anything but duty lay -beneath his kindness to her. He was equally gentle, she observed, with -his brother Olver, and with his mother, never betraying by any sign -his repulsion or his impatience; and Daisy thought sometimes with -terror that she herself might be as repulsive to him as the old woman -must surely be, but never would she know it, for he would never allow -it to appear. And at moments, loving him, she could forget herself -sufficiently to be sorry for him in his loneliness and his unrelaxing -self-command.</p> - -<p>She began to know the full significance of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>suffering. Before very -long she was suffering, in her blind, ignorant way, down to the bone. -For discomfort she had bargained; for a hard life of work, since she -knew that the business of keeping the house and its three inmates -would after her marriage devolve upon her, she had bargained also; -for Lovel’s severity she had bargained, and with an obscure sense -of justice and fair play she had been prepared to accept without -complaint these things that she was voluntarily bringing upon herself -as the price of securing Lovel for her own, for her husband; but for -the torment of his kindness and his proximity she had not bargained. -The work she had envisaged with a practical eye; that was within the -reach of her capacity, but the emotional problem had altogether eluded -her anticipation. She had thought, if she thought at all, that once -she had got Lovel safely over that ticklish business of marriage, she -would have consummated her supreme ambition. She had not understood -that then and then only would her problem truly begin. It had been -easy, pitifully easy, to trick Lovel into marriage, easy to play upon -the double string of his dejection and his sense of honour; he had -allowed himself to be conducted through preliminaries and ceremony -alike with the same cold, trance-like indifference; that had been easy -for her; but how to dig through to the man beneath that blameless mask? -“Nicholas, will you take me to Bath some day, anywhen you’ve time? -I’ve never seen a bigger town<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> than Marlborough,” and he would answer, -kindly, always kindly, but like a man who might well be dead before the -day for going to Bath arrived, “I’ll take you to Bath, my dear,” and -she would sidle up to him and say, “That’ll be a treat for you too, -Nicco?” and he would acquiesce, and at the same time, on some murmured -excuse, would put her gently away.</p> - -<p>She waited hungrily all day for his return in the evening. His presence -exasperated and tortured her, but his absence left her in a perpetual -fret, swallowing up what she had anticipated as the principal trial of -her days, the sinister companionship of Olver and the old woman. Now -that she knew her way about the house,—knew the full squalor of the -old woman’s room,—had grown accustomed to the croak and the pointing -finger,—no longer started at Olver’s sudden laughter in the dark -passage,—she was not so much oppressed by them; but Lovel, Lovel, was -always what she wanted and what she could not have. At first she had -restrained herself, not knowing the temper with which she had to deal, -but, seeing him so kind, she slackened her restraint, and her affection -slopped increasingly over him. He could not be in the house but what -she must waddle after him, pawing at his hand or trying to entice him -into some friendly phrase. “You like having your house kept by me, -don’t you, Nicco? You like getting hot meals, don’t you, darling?” and -often she whined, “I love you, Nicco!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> - -<p>It was not in her to suffer in silence. When she craved too strongly -for him to touch her, she would take his hand and hold it against her -full, warm breast. She would sit at his feet in front of the fire, as -Olver had been used to do, and lean her head against his knee with -sentimental sighs, for she quickly learnt that although he might ignore -her he would never repulse her. In the kitchen, when she did this, -Olver sat at the centre table squinting into his little mirror at the -reflected group of his sister-in-law, his brother, and the red glow of -the fire. He was content to sit doing this by the hour, but Daisy could -not endure it; she clambered to her feet,—for she was rapidly growing -more clumsy in her movements,—and went about the room finding small -unnecessary tasks to ease her discomfort. Sometimes she turned noisily -on Lovel:</p> - -<p>“What are you thinking of, sitting there?”</p> - -<p>He was mild in his reply, or else did not reply at all.</p> - -<p>“Oh, <i>I</i> know, <i>I</i> know!” she would cry, in an access of jealousy, but -dared say no more.</p> - -<p>Only once, when he caught her with his strong hand as she stumbled on -the stair, and uttered a word of caution, she turned on him and cried, -“You’re mighty careful of another man’s brat.” But it seemed that he -had set his will against being goaded into any retort.</p> - -<p>The other man’s brat troubled her now, for she could not escape from -what seemed to her an absurd desire that it should be Lovel’s. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> -Scouring had taken place in May; it was now December, so that she was -approaching her seventh month,—but Lovel must not know that: he must -think her only in the sixth month, for the incident with Olver in the -barn had happened in June; she must always be careful to remember -that, or the whole fabrication would be ruinously exposed. She must -run the risk of incomplete preparations,—a misled midwife, a probably -unavailable doctor should things go wrong. The resented child moved now -vigorous within her; she had a full-blown appearance without which she -still thought in her naïveté that she might have been attractive to -Lovel. In the autumn his bitch had whelped, and she had watched with -real anguish his tenderness towards the blind crawling puppies in their -wooden box, and later his patient hands teaching them to drink as they -crowded round and blew bubbles in the bowl of milk, and later still, -when they grew into fluffy balls, cuffing one another and snarling in -their small rage, she watched him dangling old cotton-reels for their -amusement, or saw him cross the kitchen with the little pack prancing -after him, and was shrewd enough to recognise that this was the first -thing which had given him pleasure for many months. Now, when he was -out at work, she watched them tumbling over each other on the flags of -the kitchen, staggering on their still uncertain legs, and the longing -grew within her that they should be babies instead, fat babies, hers -and Lovel’s, and the more she longed for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> this the less she welcomed -the child that struck so strongly against her flanks. It should be a -hearty child, conceived in laughter of healthy parents, a child that -would lie content and kick and crow; a little ploughboy; but already -she dreaded to see it with Lovel,—would he touch it with his hands -that were so light and loving to train and fondle all young things? -or would he avert his eyes from it? would it grow up to toddle always -after him in preference to any one else, while he endured it between -pity and loathing, and would it call him father, poor fraudulent little -stranger in a house where it had no right? Only in one degree less did -she speculate over Olver’s attitude towards it,—Olver who was being -passed off as its father,—would he believe himself the father or did -he know better? and would he croon in his odd slanting way over the -cot, with a grotesque affection? and would he later try to win over the -child and fill its head with queer lore? and here a fire of maternal -protectiveness and indignation flamed through her, rising suddenly from -the depth, as she discovered that she was not willing that her child -should come under the influence of Olver.</p> - -<p>There were endless possible groupings to be foreseen about the tiny, -dangerous, controversial person of the child.</p> - -<p>Its burden weighed her down more and more as the seasons deepened -towards winter. This child, so light-heartedly conceived on a day in -spring, its presence unnoticeable through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> early summer, began to -oppress its mother in the saddening autumn, and with winter when the -days were dark and short and gloomy, she could no longer forget its -existence for a moment. The burden of the child and the burden of the -year moved together increasingly towards their culmination. She looked -back sadly to the easy days when the child had been light and even her -preoccupations had been leavened with hope. Now everything weighed upon -her, even the weather which was bleak and dismal: “I declare,” she -said fretfully to herself, “I’d be no worse off in the Kennet,” and -she skirted the idea, but lacked the desperation to execute it. She -was, however, by now quite sufficiently unhappy. She had nearly lost -any hope of gaining Lovel, her days were leaden, she lumbered about -the house in slovenly clothes, since at the beginning she had used -up all her poor finery by wearing her best every day in the hopes of -pleasing Lovel’s eye, but now in an access of dejection, she went to -the opposite extreme, and took a wilful pleasure in letting him see her -at her most sluttish and ungainly. But nothing, she noticed, caused him -to alter his manner towards her whether she presented herself in her -muslin, or in an old bodice made of some gray tartan-like material, not -joining on to her skirt, so that she appeared to be dressed in some -thrown-on coverings from off his mother’s bed. But he never varied in -his patience and his impersonal kindness; he neither retreated to a -greater distance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> nor allowed himself to become more approachable. -Every evening he returned to his house to rejoin the company of Olver, -his mother, and the cumbersome and plangent woman, but by no word did -he betray either his nausea or his weariness. “Oh, yes, he’s a good -husband,” said Daisy bitterly to young Gorwyn, “he doesn’t drink, he -doesn’t hit me, and he gives me all his money. He’s a good husband -enough.”</p> - -<p>Young Gorwyn lounged gracefully round the house-door.</p> - -<p>“Then you’ve fallen soft,” he observed in his drawling voice, surveying -Daisy from head to foot as she stood just within the entrance to the -dark passage.</p> - -<p>“I’ve fallen soft,” she echoed, full of sarcasm.</p> - -<p>This was in October, and in the blue early dusk people were gossiping -at their house-doors, up and down the street. Young Gorwyn felt a -spice of adventure in philandering thus openly with the newly-wedded -wife of the redoubtable Lovel,—advertising to the whole street his -disregard of Lovel. Not that there was any glory in passing the time of -day with Daisy; everybody knew that Daisy was cheap and easy, giving -impudence for impudence, a joke for a joke. But in making free with -Lovel’s property there was glory, in being so near to Lovel’s house; -almost inside it, one might say; in dawdling there, treating it as any -ordinary house. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his breeches, -and lounged, and stared at Daisy. She was a good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> sort, and he had got -off cheap, were his dominant reflections; and was quite sure,—with a -grin,—that she read his thoughts and wholly sympathised with them; -would not have been shocked, in fact, had he voiced them and held out -his hand, thanking her for the escape she had allowed him. He did not -credit her perhaps with very much respect for him, but then he had -equally little for her.</p> - -<p>“Let’s see our kid now and then,” he said.</p> - -<p>“What?” she said sharply.</p> - -<p>“Let’s see the kid now and then,” he repeated, so that she wondered -whether she had heard him right the first time.</p> - -<p>“Oh,—maybe,” she replied, trying to show herself nonchalant about it -as he, being a woman who readily took her cue from men.</p> - -<p>She remembered the wink in the porch of the church, and that small, -all-compromising word, so slily slipped into his phrase, seemed to her -a first cousin of the wink; they had the same family air of innuendo, -of confederacy. The impertinence! she thought, in her heart of hearts -frightened rather than indignant, and she had a good mind to have the -question out with him then and there, but, giving him a preliminary -look, she decided to hold her tongue; an admission, once made, could -not be recalled, whereas silence committed one to nothing. She was far, -however, from trusting young Gorwyn now that she came to examine him -more closely; he was strong and sleepy and graceful, lounging against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> -the door-post, but there was something of the cat in his face with the -broad cheek-bones, and the fair-lashed blue eyes so deep-set that when -he smiled they almost disappeared into two little slits, and the way -his fair hair grew so thick and low on his forehead; and she knew from -experience,—all too well,—how caressing were his hands, caressing -and heavy, when he reached them out towards a girl. A return of the -passing attraction he had had for her came upon her, and she had a -moment of queer disloyalty to Lovel, contrasting his slim darkness with -the square Saxon strength of Gorwyn, to whom she was really so suitably -mated. Their glances crossed; they understood one another too well, and -looked away. “I must be getting on,” said Gorwyn after a pause which -lasted a perceptible moment.</p> - -<p>But that was in October, and she had not seen him again for any private -conversation, however evasive. Autumn had gone, winter had come, with -the violence and completeness to which dwellers on those uplands were -accustomed. Snow blocked the roads. Communication with Marlborough -was cut off, the inhabitants of King’s Avon resigned themselves to -rely upon their own store of provisions, the Downs lay around them, -white and enormous. They did not resent their isolation, but accepted -it, almost yearly, as coming in its turn in the nature of things. It -imprisoned them, more than ever self-contained, in their cup within -the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>earthwork, with their pagan stones, their Christian church, -their shops, and their Manor House, where Mr. Warrener was now their -only representative of gentry; snugly a homogenous community. Lovel -alone saw in the snow something more than a mere barrier against the -outside world, a barrier that was almost a defence; he saw the stones -standing up black out of a white field, the black trees powdered and -spangled; he knew that he could go up on to the Downs without the fear -of meeting any stranger riding there for pleasure. He could look from -the crest of the White Horse Hill out over the country, without seeing -the roads of civilisation, without seeing the White Horse itself, and -his shepherd’s hut was as rough a shelter as primitive man would have -devised. He took a certain pleasure in the discomfort and severity of -his winter life. Often he would be the only man to leave the village of -a morning, passing out on his way to the uplands while a few isolated -figures trudged up the draughty street against the blizzard with sacks -thrown round their shoulders, going to their cowsheds or to clear a -space for their poultry; but Lovel passed them, leaving them to such -domestic occupations, and sought the high lands, where wind and sleet -swept across like aerial cavalry, and the driven snow was banked deep -in drifts against the scars and scoops of the hillsides. Here, as he -stood alone with the spears of the weather driving through him, he -had a sense of triumph: he had got the better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> of the Downs, he had -got the better of his own soul. His physical and mental endurance -were alike strong enough to cope with the utmost rigours that Nature -and fate were able to devise for his trial. This grim satisfaction, -he felt, was the last luxury he permitted himself to indulge. For the -rest, he had stripped himself bare of soft superfluities as a man -could be; down to bone and sinew he had stripped himself. At times, -in his moments of strange, harsh exaltation, when the gale screamed -most piteously around him, he wished he might divest himself of his -clothing, outward symbol of protection, and stand naked to support the -lashings of the wind and the frozen hail; he thought proudly that no -harm would come of it to his lean body. But although he never allowed -himself to exploit the desires of this fanatical folly, he knew that -he had touched the apex of his conquest over himself and his country, -and, relaxing, he considered with a grin the superstitious amazement -of his fellow-villagers should they, passing below, chance to see upon -the skyline the naked figure of Lovel (whom they had always known for a -wizard) crucified against elements where horse and man might scarcely -hope to live.</p> - -<p>He had his reward when the storm ceased, and, again alone upon the -heights, he surveyed, as though his will alone had imposed the calm, -the thick smooth quilt of snow and the blood-red sun descending towards -the beech-clump through the perfect stillness. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> - -<p>But in the direction of Starvecrow he never wandered, where Calladine -edged with some rare book closer to the fire, and Clare stood with her -face against the panes staring out of the window over the snowy Downs.</p> - -<p>Daisy began now to cling to him more and more. Her child was nearly -due, but since she alone knew this,—and perhaps young Gorwyn, if he -took the trouble to reckon up the dates,—every one believed the birth -to be distant yet another month. Daisy was frightened; she dared not -tell Lovel that the child might now be born any day; but she dreaded -his long absences, for she feared that she might die without making her -confession or obtaining his forgiveness. If all went well, she had no -intention of confessing; but if she saw her life in any danger she had -made up her mind to barter the security of this life against that of -the next. Superstitious, she imagined that she would run more danger -through bearing this child that she had carried during the months of -deception and fraud, than she would through bearing a child honestly -conceived and carried. She was mortally afraid of death, and mortally -afraid of losing Lovel. She tried to sound him, “You’d be sorry if -anything happened to me, Nicco?”</p> - -<p>Lovel had heard this a dozen times already.</p> - -<p>“Why should anything happen to you?” he replied.</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t have gone with Olver,” she mumbled, twisting the corner of -her skirt. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> - -<p>“That’s a long time ago,—that’s over and done with,” he replied -patiently and cheerfully, feeling sorry for what he thought was her -genuine repentance.</p> - -<p>“But this is the result,” she said, not consoled.</p> - -<p>“Don’t distress yourself,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Supposing I was tooken bad,” she began again.</p> - -<p>“’Tisn’t for a month yet,” said Lovel.</p> - -<p>“One doesn’t know always, with such things.”</p> - -<p>“Will you see the midwife?” he asked, perceiving that she was worried. -But the whole subject, and Daisy’s very existence, though he spoke with -solicitude and bent a kindly gaze on her to discover what were the poor -creature’s real wishes,—the whole subject to him was utterly remote -and meaningless.</p> - -<p>“The midwife over to Marlborough by this snow-fall!” she cried -disdainfully.</p> - -<p>“I’ll ride over and get her if you like,—I’ll bring her out on a -pillion.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, Lovel,” she said, shaking her head, “neither now nor when the -child is born,—I’ll die without midwife, or doctor, more likely.”</p> - -<p>“You’re determined to see it in its blackest light,” said Lovel, but he -spoke good-humouredly, without losing his patience.</p> - -<p>“Well, it isn’t of me or my baby you think, when you sit silent by the -hour, is it?” said Daisy, suddenly losing her temper, pulling herself -up with the help of the table, and wandering aimlessly around. “’Tisn’t -your baby, so why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> should you think of it? and if I come to die, well, -good riddance for you, and you’ll be able to think you did your duty -by me. But much you care now, when you go out into the snow like the -crazed gipsy you are,—to meet Miss Warrener, Mrs. Calladine, for all I -know,—much you care that I sit at home and think myself sick over the -danger I’ll run and the pain I’ll suffer, while you maybe won’t come -near home till it’s all over one way or the other.”</p> - -<p>“When the time gets near I’ll stop closer to home.”</p> - -<p>She wanted to cry out, “You dolt, you blockhead, the time is near -<i>now</i>,” but dared only repeat “One doesn’t always know ...” and began -to whimper.</p> - -<p>“I won’t go far afield,” said Lovel, soothing her. He was full of pity -for all women in her condition, so that none of her words had power to -anger him.</p> - -<p>A small remorse came over her when he was kind like this, a compunction -for having tricked him: would he have been so kind, so long-suffering -about the child had he not believed without question in his own -brother’s guilt? She tried to edge closer to him; “Nicholas, if -anything happened to me, you wouldn’t think too hardly of me, would -you?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” said Lovel, weary of the -discussion, but still patient and kind.</p> - -<p>“You won’t go far, Nicco, will you?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> - -<p>“No, if that comforts you.”</p> - -<p>He was committed now, having given his promise; there would be no more -roamings for him; but he was willing to forgo their small solace, -negligible in the midst of his desolation, if thereby he might reassure -the poor contemptible creature.</p> - -<p>“Nicco,” she said timidly, with an impulse of honesty, prompted by his -gentleness, “’tisn’t fair to ask you, hardly ... ’tisn’t your child, -after all’s said and done.”</p> - -<p>“I’m responsible for my brother,” said Lovel, and she turned away from -him and wept, overcome.</p> - -<p>“You’re an upright man, Lovel,” she cried through her tears, “too -upright for such as me.”</p> - -<p>He had not understood her full meaning, of course; he had told her -again not to distress herself, he had assured her again that he would -not go far from home, he had even patted her shoulder, letting her -see nothing of the effort it cost him, and he had gone out then, to a -house down the street where he had a small carpentering job to finish. -Daisy remained alone in the kitchen, alone with the satisfaction of -having gained her point that he would abandon his long absences, but -still she was not satisfied as she expected; she sat on where he had -left her, bluntly probed by conscience, she whose conscience had never -troubled her until this contact with Lovel and his standards: what was -she doing to Lovel,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> she asked herself now? she had got him, but was -that all? was that enough for her? to have got him and to know she had -caught him by a trick? to see him inert under his dull unhappiness? -never to hear him complain, never to catch him at fault, but to see -him quiet as though his spirit was ebbing daily from him? Even she, -in her blundering insensitiveness, stirred uneasily at the thought -of his injuries. “But what was I to be at?” she cried to herself in -self-justification; “I wanted him, and all’s fair....” She moved in -her chair and twisted her hands. “Nicco, Nicco,” she moaned. “If he -knew how I wanted him he’d forgive me,” and with this reflection came -a deeper stab: it was probably true that he would indeed forgive -her,—that she had indeed broken him down to the extent of that -saint-like clemency. What would put anger and mettle back into him? -what would put life back into him? Clare, nothing but Clare, without -whom he was incomplete, only a gentle husk; and for a passing moment -her thoughts travelled to Clare, living out her life in some fashion -or another by Calladine’s side at Starvecrow. What, in her ignorance, -had she helped to bring about? She paused and drew back on the brink of -things she did not understand, taking refuge again in her own miseries, -comfortably familiar by reason of the many times she had pored over -them, with no dark corners or frightening perspectives, but all close, -small and personal, under the range of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> her poor niggling microscope. -And she was in the right frame of mind for such brooding, feeling -herself oppressed and full of foreboding, as she sat in the kitchen big -with the child, and big with the failure of her life, waiting indeed -for deliverance from the child, but seeing no solution to the greater -oppression, which she might expect to continue until she should grow -as spiritless and broken as Lovel and their existence should dwindle -to a grey twilight of apathy unenlivened even by anger or revolt. She -had rarely felt so dejected; the very stones of the kitchen walls -crushed her with their rude size; the child within her, usually so -active, so ironically vigorous, was so quiet to-day that she began to -wonder whether it were dead; the old woman overhead made no sound; and -all round the house lay the thick soft deadening pall of snow that -muffled the country from Thames to Severn. She wished that Lovel had -not gone out; disheartened though she now was, she still clung to the -tormenting comfort of his presence; it was almost a consolation to see -him suffering beside her. Since life held neither hope nor joy for -either of them, let her in her own pain at least be able to sneer at -the sight of his; let them be together in their separation. She grew -frightened at the wildness and virulence of her thoughts. They were -not so much thoughts, as impulses that floated a little crazily across -her mind. She was not well to-day; it was not surprising; it was cruel -of Nicholas to leave her alone. She stirred, and looked round,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> saw -no one, but fancied that eyes watched her. “Olver!” she cried out, -although she had seen nothing.</p> - -<p>In a pause that followed her cry she breathed heavily, staring round -with eyes that dared not flutter into a blink. Her eyeballs became -tense and dry, her hands strained at the edge of the table. For all -that she knew, her brother-in-law might have been in the room all the -time; she was still startled by his soft appearances and vanishings, -as by his sudden meaningless laughter, and by the arrows of shrewdness -that would dart across his erratic brain. “Olver?” she whispered next, -half-expecting him to answer from under her very feet, and little -as she desired his company, she thought that any answer would be -preferable to the continued silence in the room and to the doubt as to -whether Olver was there or not.</p> - -<p>She was coming to the conclusion that her instinct had been a mistaken -one, since five minutes had certainly elapsed while she stared and -peered round the room, and she was about to relax from her strain of -looking and listening for Olver, when she heard a faint tap on the -window, and, looking round, she saw his face pressed against the window -pane from outside. Her fright gave way to petulance; she called out -to him to give over his tricks, and at the same time she beckoned -imperiously to him to come into the house. Well-accustomed to him by -now, she felt relief when he materialised out of the silence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> “How -long had you been watching me?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“That’s my secret,” he replied.</p> - -<p>She struggled, impatient of the little mysteries he liked to make.</p> - -<p>“Anyhow, Nicholas isn’t here,” she observed, turning away from Olver -and tapping her fingers irritably upon the table.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want Nicholas,” said Olver, “I want you.”</p> - -<p>He came further into the room, while she looked at him in enquiry.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’ve found an old bird’s nest you want to show me,” she said -disdainfully.</p> - -<p>“That’s as far as you can think,” replied Olver with equal disdain. He -came up to her. “Have you ever thought that there’s things you’ve no -idea of going on all round you?”</p> - -<p>“Why,” she said, fright again overtaking her, “that’s what I was -thinking just now.”</p> - -<p>“But you didn’t like to think too close on it?”</p> - -<p>“No, perhaps I didn’t. Let me be, Olver; I’ve troubles enough without -you moidering me.”</p> - -<p>“And are you the only one to have troubles?”</p> - -<p>“Let me be, Olver, I tell you.”</p> - -<p>“No, I won’t let you be. I’ve a grudge against you. I’ve thought it -out.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not well, Olver; keep your grudge till I’ve got my baby. Then I’ll -have it out with you if I must.”</p> - -<p>“You hadn’t any pity on Nicco.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s how the land lies, is it?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> - -<p>“No use being brazen about it, Daisy. I’m here to speak for Nicco, and -nothing you say’ll stop me.”</p> - -<p>“If you don’t let me be, I’ll tell Nicholas, and he’ll be angry with -you.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not afraid of Nicco.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, you are. We all are. Even me,—and I’m his wife.”</p> - -<p>“A pretty wife. Nicco can kill me if he likes; I’ll speak first. I know -better what’s good for him than he knows himself. You’ve broken his -heart.”</p> - -<p>“Not me, Olver, not me only. His heart would have been broken anyhow. -And God knows he’s breaking mine.”</p> - -<p>“Who cares about yours? Nicco’s worth everything.”</p> - -<p>“I know that, do you suppose I don’t know that? It’s making me mad, -Olver. Can’t you have a little pity on me and leave me to myself?”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t have any pity for you, not if you were dying.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I shall be dying before very long, if that’s any consolation to -you.”</p> - -<p>“You aren’t the sort that dies. Nicco’ll have you stuck to him for -years; he’ll leave you before you leave him.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say that, Olver; he’s strong; different, but as strong as me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, his body’s strong enough, but there’s something burns him away -inside. Look at his eyes.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Olver, don’t say such terrible things. What do you know? I never -can tell how much you know,—you’re simple, aren’t you? He doesn’t -complain. He doesn’t complain to you, does he?”</p> - -<p>“He’ll die, but he won’t have complained once. And we shall never know. -He’s good to us both, isn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Good,—yes, he’s good; but you don’t understand, Olver, you needn’t -rub it into me how good he is or how much he’s worth. I know it -already, I love him so much it makes me sick and mad. It’s almost -too much for me, what I have to put up with, what with one thing and -another.... Now go away, can’t you? I’ve told you, I’ve admitted it all -to you; I can’t put it more plainly.”</p> - -<p>“He’s good to you just as he’s good to me; he hasn’t a ha’pennyworth of -feeling for you.”</p> - -<p>“I know, Olver, I know; can’t you leave me alone? I’m not well, I tell -you; it isn’t the moment to come baiting me.”</p> - -<p>“There’s another woman he wanted....”</p> - -<p>“You shan’t speak of her!” screamed Daisy.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I will,” said Olver, seizing her by the wrists. “Do you call -to mind what you once told me, that you saw them together, and it -seemed a week wasn’t enough for all they had to say? Where are they -now. Three miles apart, yet they haven’t seen one another for six -months,—from the time the Downs were green to the time the Downs are -white. And do you <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>suppose he’s left her for a moment in thought, or -she left him? Not they. They used to slip together to the Kennet, those -two, and they’ve been suddenly divided. And you whine to me because -you’re unhappy. You say you’re not well. Not well! You! Who cares? You -could whelp a litter and be none the worse, and you can stand a bit of -unhappiness just as well as you can stand your baby. I’ve no pity for -you. But Nicco,—he’ll break,—he’ll die inside.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t, Olver, don’t; what’s the good of torturing me now. What can I -do?”</p> - -<p>“What can you do? You can clear out, can’t you? Go and have your baby -in a ditch, somewhere where Nicco can never find you again,” he said -brutally.</p> - -<p>“Where would be the good of that? She’s married herself, Miss Warrener -is, and I love Nicco, I keep on telling you; I can’t give him up,” -cried Daisy, confused and hunted to the last extremity; and she thought -of something she could say to Olver, something which would either -silence him or else force him to throw down all his cards upon the -table, “Whose fault is it, anyhow, that Nicco had to marry me, to save -me from the shame his own brother brought upon me?”</p> - -<p>“You think you can trick me like you tricked him,” cried Olver, -horrible with rage. “Why don’t you say the shame Peter Gorwyn brought -on you? You might be a little nearer the mark.”</p> - -<p>“Peter Gorwyn?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> - -<p>They faced one another, all civilisation gone from them. They struck -blindly at one another, keeping nothing back.</p> - -<p>“I saw you, oh, I saw you, the day of the Scouring.”</p> - -<p>“I loved Nicco, I do love him; I had to have him!”</p> - -<p>“<i>You</i> love him?—you’re killing him.”</p> - -<p>“He couldn’t have got Miss Warrener,—not with a brother like you. Do -you hear? ’Tisn’t me that keeps him from her; it’s you, you, you.”</p> - -<p>“Me?” shouted Olver.</p> - -<p>“You, did you never think of that before? It doesn’t matter whether -my baby is your baby or Peter Gorwyn’s baby. It’s you that spoil his -life for him, you and your mother, you mischievous dolt, and your dirty -blood in him. He’s tainted, and he knows it. ’Tisn’t me. I came long -after; I’m just an extra. ’Tis you and your mother destroyed him, from -the day he was born.”</p> - -<p>She clasped her hands suddenly to her side and fell back on to her -chair.</p> - -<p>“You’ve done for me,” she groaned.</p> - -<p>The door opened and Lovel stood upon the threshold. Olver ran to him, -touching him all over with his hands, reaching up to pass his hands -even over his brother’s head.</p> - -<p>“Look at her, Nicco; she’s tricked you, the brat isn’t mine, it’s Peter -Gorwyn’s, and she says ’tis I that kept you from Miss Warrener. Why -don’t you kill her, Nicco? and I’ll go right away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> if it’s true; I love -you better than she does; you shall have Miss Warrener.”</p> - -<p>“What’s all this?” said Lovel. He put Olver’s passionate fumbling hands -aside, and went over to Daisy. “You’re ill,” he said in a practical -voice; “What is it? has Olver hurt you?”</p> - -<p>“You heard what he said,” she replied, looking up at him with terrified -and pain-racked eyes.</p> - -<p>“Never mind about that. Are you ill? Let me help you up.”</p> - -<p>“She’s tricked you, Nicco,” cried Olver, fawning round him.</p> - -<p>“Hold your tongue, Olver; she’s in pain. You poor fool, why didn’t you -tell me? Heaven knows if I can get to Marlborough through this snow -with darkness coming on. Lean on me, I’ll take you upstairs. Lean on -me; never mind anything else.”</p> - -<p>Olver was pulling frantically at him.</p> - -<p>“Is it true, Nicco? is it me? Oh, my poor Nicco,—first me and then -her,—what can I do?—but I’ll do something,—I’ll find something to -do,—oh, my head, my heart.”</p> - -<p>“The pain, the pain!” cried Daisy.</p> - -<p>“Lean on me,” said Lovel, putting his arm round her.</p> - -<p>“Gorwyn’s child!” screamed Olver in a frenzy. He followed them to the -foot of the stairs, where he stumbled and fell on the lowermost step, -still calling incoherently after Lovel, who was persuading his wife up -to her room, saying <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>meanwhile, “Lean on me, Daisy, I won’t let you -fall, don’t be afraid, it’ll all be over soon.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">The word was quickly passed down the village street that Daisy Lovel’s -time was come, and that Lovel begged the kindness of some charitable -woman to remain near his wife while he rode to Marlborough in search -of the midwife. “There’s a chance for somebody,” said one woman, “to -see the inside of that house for herself.” “And there’s a come-down -for Gipsy Lovel,” said another, “to have to beg for one of us to go -into his place. Where would he be if we all refused?” “Her time come -already? and she married,—let me see,—four, five months, is it?” said -a third. But in spite of these and other scornful remarks, volunteers -were forthcoming, and even those who had lagged most behind, or who had -recommended that Lovel be left to suffer now the penalty of his years -of unneighbourliness, watched enviously the departure of Mrs. Blagdon -for the house of mystery and evil legend. They saw her received at the -door by Lovel, drawn in and swallowed up, as to their imagination Daisy -herself had been swallowed up on the day of her wedding.</p> - -<p>They continued, however, to observe Lovel’s house for some time, -glancing at intervals between the lace curtains which decked their -own windows, and saw a light spring up in the room they assumed to be -Daisy’s, and a gigantic shadow passing to and fro upon the blind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> -Evening had come, swiftly to be followed by night; the snow had -begun to fall again in large flakes; very soon the street was white, -unbroken by footmarks, since every soul was within doors. The women -idly watching between their curtains saw Lovel emerge from his house, -close the door behind him, and pass down the alley between two houses -to the shed where he kept his horse. They saw him emerge again, leading -the horse; they saw him swing himself into the saddle and ride away, -his coat collar turned up high against the snow, tall and spare as he -disappeared silently into the thick dusk. The women said, “He’s off to -Marlborough to find the midwife. Things can’t be going,” they added -with relish, “as well as they should.” The men only growled, “He must -be crazed to think he can find the road to Marlborough on a night like -this; he’ll break his own neck and his horse’s legs.” But the women had -a curious faith in Lovel’s efficiency.</p> - -<p>Few village confinements were honoured with so much interest. The -darkness in the street was now intense, heightened by the snow that -continued to float down in large, soft flakes; only the little yellow -lights in the windows broke it, all on the ground-floor level but for -the significant exception of Daisy’s window, whose lighted rectangle -on the upper storey threw its beams out against the falling snow. All -was silent in the Lovels’ house; ever Mrs. Blagdon seemed to have -fallen into the clandestine habits of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> hosts, for she had not -once run out across the street in an interval for a moment’s gossip -with a neighbour; only the shadow passed upon the blind, enormous and -suggestive, to show that any life stirred within the house. The snow -fell thicker; the few black holes left by the hoofs of Lovel’s horse -had been long since blotted out, and Lovel himself had disappeared into -the night as completely as though he had no intention of ever coming -back. Hours had passed, suppers were finished and cleared away in all -the little lighted kitchens, still the good wives were reluctant to -move upstairs to bed, while careful to conceal their reluctance from -the men. And Mrs. Blagdon, when she finally threw up a window in spite -of the steely cold, to call out in an irritable and impatient voice, -“Anybody seen anything of Lovel?” was answered by a dozen voices in -negation.</p> - -<p>“How’s things, Mrs. Blagdon?”</p> - -<p>“Turned round the wrong way,” came the reply laconically.</p> - -<p>The street fell back into its silence after the small disturbance. -Women who had been through the experience gave a moment’s pity -to Daisy. Gorwyn, the smith, knocking out his pipe against his -hearthstone, reiterated the opinion that Lovel would not be seen again -that night. Peter, his son, stirred uneasily. “Is it all up with her, -would you think, mother?” But Mrs. Gorwyn was contemptuous. “Lord, no; -a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> solid girl like Daisy’d stand a deal more than that.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">Country news, that most unaccountable traveller, spread even to -Starvecrow in its isolation. Mrs. Quince was full of it,—she who -towards Clare had kept herself so very prim and respectfully reserved. -“You will remember, madam, the girl you saw in the attic bedroom here, -Daisy Morland by name?”</p> - -<p>“I remember perfectly, Mrs. Quince; what of her?”</p> - -<p>“You will remember she was stitching at some baby-linen,—she was -married to that good-for-nothing Lovel,—Gipsy Lovel, they call him,—a -fortnight later,—a matter of three weeks before you were married -yourself, madam.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Quince?”</p> - -<p>“She was brought to bed of a son in the early hours of this morning, -madam,” said Mrs. Quince importantly.</p> - -<p>“Really. I hope she is well?”</p> - -<p>“Well enough; these country girls make nothing of it. Lightly born -as lightly come by, I always say. Yet at one time it was a question -whether they could save the baby.” Mrs. Quince added some details. -“Yes, madam. Her husband had to ride to Marlborough and brought the -doctor out a-pillion, and how he could ha’ done it with the night as -black as pitch, and the snow falling, and the roads hedge-deep in -snow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> is what the folk are all asking themselves. They saw him start, -but no one saw him come back, but sure enough when they went to unbar -their doors this morning there were the tracks of a horse up the -street. A fine boy, they say. It’s fortunate he hasn’t taken after his -Uncle Olver.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Clare.</p> - -<p>“It’s my opinion, madam, I don’t know if it’s yours too,—that people -like that have no business to get children. ’Tisn’t fair, as a matter -of conscience, when you don’t know what dark blood you may be handing -on. Anybody has only got to look at the Lovels to know there’s no good -in them,—well, they ought to restrain themselves, that’s what I say.”</p> - -<p>Seeing that Clare did not reply, Mrs. Quince resumed after a moment, -“There always were things about those Lovels that weren’t natural. Now -here’s another thing: how did he ride from King’s Avon to Marlborough -and back on a night like last night, if something unholy wasn’t in -league with him? No other man in the village could have done it, and -there’s not many that would have tried. No, let the baby go, they’d -have said, and the woman too, if need be. And he’s always out on those -hills; if he had to go after sheep there would be some sense in it, but -he just goes straying alone when most men are glad enough to keep their -fireside. He’s been seen on the top of White Horse Hill, in the middle -of a blizzard fit to cut you in half. And I have heard it told, that -after he’s passed by,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> the Grey Wethers have been found uncovered; yes, -even though they were at the bottom of the deepest drift there they’ll -be, sticking up black in the middle of the snow.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t believe everything you’re told, Mrs. Quince.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s as it may be, madam. All the same, I stick to it that -there is something unholy about those Lovels; it’s easy to say the -younger one is daft, but there’s nothing daft about Nicholas,—far from -it. So why does he look so dark and queer? and why must he pass on his -sly Egyptian blood to an English girl? if he must get children, let him -get them on one of his own sort, that’s what I say.”</p> - -<p>Here Calladine came in.</p> - -<p>“Secrets?” he asked in his most urbane manner, seeing Mrs. Quince -become silent in the midst of garrulity.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Clare. “Mrs. Quince was telling me that Lovel’s wife has had -a son, and that Lovel had to go to Marlborough in the middle of the -night to fetch the doctor.”</p> - -<p>“Dear me, that’s a daring, uncomfortable thing to do,” said Calladine, -smiling in a patronising way.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Clare, looking at him. “Not many people would have cared -for the job, I think.”</p> - -<p>Calladine laughed negligently.</p> - -<p>“You always had a weakness for your poacher,” he replied. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Would you be wanting me any more, madam?” enquired Mrs. Quince.</p> - -<p>“If Lovel’s wife is in need of anything I can send her, please let me -know, Mrs. Quince.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam. Very good of you, madam.”</p> - -<p>When the housekeeper had left the room, Calladine said, “I never -question your actions, as you know, Clare, but do you think it -judicious to encourage these people? The woman was married not very -long before ourselves, yet she already gives birth to a baby; the man -is well-known as an undesirable in the whole neighbourhood.”</p> - -<p>Clare went up to him. “Oh, Richard,” she cried gaily, “are they worth -talking about any longer?” She pushed him down into his armchair and -knelt at his feet. “What are we going to do to-day, tell me?”</p> - -<p>“To do?” repeated Calladine in surprise. “Why, what is there that -we could possibly do on a day like this? What a restless spirit it -is—always crying out to be up and doing—when I am quite content if I -may sit and look into your eyes.”</p> - -<p>“That’s very pretty, Richard, but it doesn’t mean much; don’t you ever -want to be out, moving, riding, anything! anything but sit cooped -indoors day after day with books?”</p> - -<p>“I confess I haven’t much desire to be riding into snow-drifts on this -particular morning,” said Calladine, glancing at the white-and-leaden -prospect out of the window. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And you wouldn’t allow me to do so either, if I had a mind to?”</p> - -<p>“Such a wild child!” said Calladine fondly, stroking her hair. “How -fortunate that you should have a staid, elderly husband to look after -you.”</p> - -<p>“How do you think I looked after myself for nineteen years, then, -Richard?”</p> - -<p>“Heaven knows,” said Calladine in mock dismay; banter with Clare was -a form of conversation he particularly enjoyed. The morning promised -to pass agreeably; there was nothing he liked better than for Clare -to kneel at his feet, as she was doing now, sitting back on her -heels, while he looked at her fresh youthfulness with that fond and -tender glance of his, and rallied her gently, or caressed her with -the courtly phrases she had heard from him alone among men. “How -<i>did</i> you look after yourself?” he repeated. “You always escaped from -old Martha Sparrow, and even the poacher cannot always have been at -hand for a ready rescue, and in any case he is scarcely my idea of a -knight-errant.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Clare, “he hasn’t such pretty manners as you, Richard.”</p> - -<p>“Now you’re laughing at me,—are you, or aren’t you? I never know,” and -he caught her to him and began flecking her face and hair with quick -kisses, but desisted to say more seriously, “You’re so exquisitely a -woman, Clare, so deliciously a child; I realised that you were both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> -from the day you first came to visit me here.”</p> - -<p>The phrase had a vague echo of familiarity for Clare; “so exquisitely -a woman”; she felt sure that she had heard him say that, or something -very like it, before; and she thought with the hardness that was -becoming habitual to her where he was concerned, that from no woman -would he demand anything further.</p> - -<p>“What a toy I am to you, Richard,” she said idly; “what a toy you like -to make of me.”</p> - -<p>“The most exquisite toy that ever came into the life of a sad and -lonely man,” he said, with a return to his old manner, and he took her -hand and began to play with the bangle on her wrist. He handled her -much as he would handle his terra-cotta statuettes, and for a while she -endured it, but presently sprang away and went to stand at the window -where she might look out upon the prospect of shining snow.</p> - -<p>“Always looking out, Clare? what liberty do you see out there? you -think I ought to let you go, little caged bird, but you would soon -perish,—your pretty limbs wouldn’t stand the cold,—better stay -happily where you are, believe me,—don’t fret,—come back to me,—let -me whisper how precious you are,—come back to our lovely idleness.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t like idleness, Richard; no use pretending I do; you should -not have married some one so restless as I.” His hands were upon her -shoulders; she wanted to shake them off. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Did the poacher ...” began Calladine.</p> - -<p>“Ah, leave Lovel alone,” she cried; “what impels you to speak of him -this morning? Leave him alone, with his wife and his baby; they can -very well look after themselves without any interest from us.”</p> - -<p>“But, Clare, Mrs. Quince was speaking of them; it’s only natural that -my thoughts should continue to run in that direction; and even you -yourself....”</p> - -<p>“You’re fascinated by the subject of Lovel,” she said, whirling -round on him, “now, aren’t you? own to it. You always bring him in: -the Downs, the circus, and now his baby,—everything’s an excuse -for bringing in Lovel. And why? Is it because he took me out of the -circus-tent that night? is it because I rode with him? why not speak -out what’s at the back of your mind?”</p> - -<p>“But, Clare, Clare! why so fierce and challenging suddenly? there’s -nothing at the back of my mind.” (“There is,” she thought, “and you too -great a coward to face it out.”) “Come now, don’t let us quarrel and we -won’t speak of Lovel if it offends you,—will that satisfy you?”</p> - -<p>“It’s of no importance whether we speak of a man in the village or -not,” she said, turning away and hunching her shoulders.</p> - -<p>They went back to sit by the fire, a bulk of hostility unspoken -between them. Calladine felt peevish; his indolent, graceful, vaguely -amorous morning had been spoilt; and spoilt by what?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> by the presence -of Lovel. “You’ve never yet shaken off that lean rogue,” he broke -out once, sudden and querulous after a spell of silence. They both -sat staring into the fire, separate as they could be. They had not -previously spoken of Lovel, not directly, not insistently; only to -range round him with that nagging, niggling hesitation that seemed to -pull at Calladine. But now his presence blocked every other road of -conversation; he got in the way, he was near, he could not be got rid -of. Almost, he was in the room.</p> - -<p>Calladine looked at Clare; fair and slight, delicate even, but so -unafraid. A touch, and she was instantly up and all-daring. She kindled -at a spark. What was it that she and Lovel had in common? the same -apparent frailty of body, the same flame of spirit,—Calladine had all -the lyricism to clothe his perceptions with words. He had apprehended -Lovel; on the rare occasion when he had seen him, he had apprehended -him fully, to his own disquietude. And he apprehended Clare and -their resemblance, with pain and resentment. They were two fine and -vulnerable things, he thought; vulnerable and brave. But he thought it -with only half of his brain, the lyrical, romantic half; with the other -half he was peevish and irritated.</p> - -<p>If only they were not so silent; Clare had never faltered or -complained. Only she had wanted to go out; she had looked out of the -window with a kind of homesickness. He was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> always catching her eyes -at their straying, and being made aware how far removed she was from -himself. But this, again, had been with half of his brain; with the -other half he had known that she was his wife and that he had got her -under his roof. And he had not allowed his lyrical self to call her a -prisoner.</p> - -<p>What if she were to escape? He would be without persuasion or authority.</p> - -<p>“You stay with me out of apathy,” he cried. “If once your fancy -changed, you would be gone.”</p> - -<p>Clare, who had not been thinking of him, turned a mild glance of slight -attention on him. He was glaring at her, frightened and angry.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he continued, “I don’t hold you; you’re kind to me, and you -indulge my game of pretence. But you’re not really here. You’re -indulgent to me as if I were a child,—‘yes, dear, very nice,’ between -your own, grown-up preoccupations. But you ought to remember that I am -your husband,” he said.</p> - -<p>“When have I forgotten it?”</p> - -<p>He sulked. It was true she had not forgotten it. He had no reproaches -against her; she had been patient, gentle.</p> - -<p>“I don’t hold you,” he grumbled.</p> - -<p>It was a long time since she had seen him like this; usually he was -assertive and complacent. How slight a thing it took to disturb him! -His complacency was only a façade, a painted hoarding propped up by -struts,—theatrical, like <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>everything else about him. But she really -bothered very little with him, now that she had found him out.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, Richard,” she said, to pacify him and to be done with the -argument.</p> - -<p>“But I say no,” he cried, hitting his fist on the arm of his chair. -“You’re for ever looking out of the window, and sometimes when I speak -to you, you answer beside the point. I married you to get a wife, not a -woman languishing like a captive in my house.”</p> - -<p>She laughed at that, quite amusedly, and he felt he had been foolish. -Still he would not abandon his point.</p> - -<p>“That fellow would only have to beckon ...” he grumbled.</p> - -<p>“Lovel again?” asked Clare.</p> - -<p>“You enjoy saying his name.”</p> - -<p>“I do not,” said Clare quietly.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, staring at her, “perhaps you do not.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps she did not. Perhaps the very name was pain to her. But he must -go wrangling on at her.</p> - -<p>“Lovel wouldn’t keep you indoors, perhaps you think.—He would let you -out into the snow,—take you out into it himself perhaps.”</p> - -<p>She only looked at him. He went on, more judicial now; deliberate, less -blatantly bad-tempered.</p> - -<p>“Yet, after all, I don’t know why you hold such a good opinion of -this fellow Lovel. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> sticks to no trade,—he gets a country girl -into trouble and has to marry her,—not a very creditable record, it -seems to me.” He was leaning back in his chair, with his finger-tips -together. “And, judging by his stock, he has no right to beget -sons,—better if he did not associate with women at all,—such people -should be allowed to die out.”</p> - -<p>“So Mrs. Quince was saying. Perhaps he feels the same himself,” said -Clare in a contained voice.</p> - -<p>“It looks like it! a child born after four months of marriage. I -am bound to say, my dear, your suggestion isn’t very convincing. -But there, what should you know of the lusts of these country young -men? Animals, merely. Forgive me if I seem self-righteous. I feel -strongly,—very strongly.” He leaned forward and patted her. “You can -understand that I don’t like to think of my Clare contaminated by such -company.”</p> - -<p>“You mean Lovel?”</p> - -<p>“Most certainly I mean Lovel.—Why do you look at me so darkly, Clare?”</p> - -<p>“Did I look at you darkly? I didn’t mean to. My thoughts were far away.”</p> - -<p>“And where....”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Richard, mayn’t I have my thoughts to myself?”</p> - -<p>“By all means, Clare. I hope, my dear, that no one has ever accused -me of being a tyrant. Of course your thoughts are your own.—But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> you -don’t resent, do you, the things I have been saying of Lovel?”</p> - -<p>“I am only tired of the whole subject.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,—of course,—naturally,—I quite understand that. Mrs. Quince is -an old gossip. I must tell her that it really doesn’t interest you to -be informed every time a woman in the village has a baby. It doesn’t -does it?”</p> - -<p>“No, of course not,—but don’t say anything to Mrs. Quince, I beg you.”</p> - -<p>“But I can’t have my wife bothered by my old gossip of a housekeeper. I -daresay she meant it well, thinking you were interested in Lovel.”</p> - -<p>“Richard, please,—let us leave Lovel now,—I shall begin to scream if -I hear his name mentioned again, I warn you.”</p> - -<p>“Clare. You try to joke, but the idea of saying that wouldn’t come into -your head if there were not some truth in it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I told you I was tired of the subject.”</p> - -<p>“You are talking now like an irritable woman.”</p> - -<p>“Am I? But I <i>am</i> a woman, and not a man, and therefore I daresay as -irritable as all other women.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that men can be every whit as irritable,—myself, for -example.”</p> - -<p>“Now you are putting words into my mouth that I never said. Is it a -guilty conscience, Richard?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You persist in joking when I want you to be serious!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Richard, what a childish conversation. Instead of sitting here and -talking, let us....”</p> - -<p>“Well, what? Let us what?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, I’ve thought better of it.”</p> - -<p>“Let us go out, you were going to say. Always the same folly! Have you -any idea of the depth of the snow? Out, indeed!”</p> - -<p>“I never said it.”</p> - -<p>“No, but you thought it.—Ah, if I say that, you will ask again if you -mayn’t have your thoughts to yourself. There are moments when I don’t -know how to deal with you, Clare.” He knew his own injustice, but his -querulous jealousy pricked him on. “Any other woman would be content to -sit by her own fireside this bitter day with the man she had married so -short a time ago.”</p> - -<p>“Four months,—getting on for half a year.”</p> - -<p>“I see,—you have found the time long. If you entered a little more -into my interests, instead of having your own thoughts to yourself so -much, my dear, perhaps you would find it pass quicker, and it would be -more companionable.”</p> - -<p>Clare thought that he looked at her almost with hatred. She was herself -too indifferent to be interested either one way or the other.</p> - -<p>“I shall be glad when this accursed snow is melted and gone,” he added, -“and you will perhaps be a little less restless.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> - -<p>At that moment Mrs. Quince came in, looking perturbed.</p> - -<p>“There is Olver Lovel downstairs, madam, asking to see you,—I didn’t -know what to say,—he seems so bent upon it,—but he looks like a -scarecrow, that he does, with his coat torn and his hat stove in, and -bits of straw all over him as though he had spent the night sleeping in -a barn.”</p> - -<p>Clare rose.</p> - -<p>“Where is he, Mrs. Quince?”</p> - -<p>Calladine started forward with a detaining hand.</p> - -<p>“No, Clare, you can’t see this man,—let me speak to him first,—at -least it’s not right, not safe, for you to see him.”</p> - -<p>“And he says he must speak to Mrs. Calladine alone, sir,” Mrs. Quince -put in.</p> - -<p>“Of course I shall see him,” said Clare.</p> - -<p>Calladine grew agitated. “Mrs. Quince, you need not wait; please leave -the room. Now, Clare, understand: it is against my wishes that you see -this man. Let me go down and find out what he wants, and then if I find -that he is quiet and reasonable I will allow you to interview him in my -presence. He has probably come to beg, in which case I can give him a -few shillings as well as you can, and send him away.”</p> - -<p>Clare faced him. “Please let me pass, Richard; I am sorry to do -anything against your wishes, but I intend to speak to Olver,—and -alone.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Let me make myself quite clear: it is not only against my wishes, but, -since my wishes fail to touch you, also against my orders.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry, Richard, but I mean what I said.”</p> - -<p>He blustered; she remained quiet; in their first encounter he was no -match for her.</p> - -<p>“You disobey me deliberately, then?”</p> - -<p>“This is a case in which I must use my own judgment.”</p> - -<p>“You will not expect me to receive you back into my favour afterwards.”</p> - -<p>She smiled a little.</p> - -<p>“Really, Richard, I am afraid I must take the risk of that.”</p> - -<p>“Go, then,” he said, stepping dramatically aside, “go, in direct -defiance.” Still he did not quite expect her to flout his authority, -and remained amazed when she passed him and went swiftly out of the -room.</p> - -<p>Left to himself, he made a movement to follow her, but drew back. Let -her go, to her Lovels and her secret life: he had never really held -her. Let her go, to the summons which had come, and to which she had -so instantly responded. He himself, from the moment Olver Lovel’s name -had been pronounced, had dwindled to nullity; he had ceased, on the -spot, to exist for her. All these months, she had lived with him, a -stranger, away from her kind. And he recalled Mrs. Quince’s description -of Olver,—“he looks like a scarecrow, that he does,”—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>this emissary -from Nicholas Lovel to his, Calladine’s wife.</p> - -<p>Calladine strode up and down the room. She was downstairs now with -Olver; what was he saying to her? What was in the future, haunted by -the presence of Lovel as the past had never been? How should they -ever get rid of Lovel now, standing between them? That uncomfortable -presence of Lovel in the past, at which Calladine had pecked and -nagged, was nothing to his dominion over the future. Surely he had been -mad not to take Clare’s acquaintance with the poacher as a matter of -course? mad to harass her as he had harassed her that morning? By his -own folly he had created the spectre, the giant, of the situation. He -strode up and down, hitting fist against palm in his vexation. Then he -grew afraid; what if the poacher should not restrict his poaching to -game alone? What if he should entice Clare by the occult powers with -which the countryside credited him? Occult powers, or human powers, it -was all one. Calladine felt his helplessness; he was weak, wordy, he -could be set aside. They would set him aside, those two.</p> - -<p>He was an ill-used man. Self-pity nearly brought tears to his eyes. -Life used him ill: first the woman who had fooled him, now Clare. -Clare’s kindness to him had been a dalliance, while she had nothing -better to do; it had evaporated at the mention of a name. He hated -her, he hated Lovel, he hated the Downs and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> snow. Glittering and -cold, without compromise; he did not understand the Downs and the -winter, but Clare and Lovel understood them. What was Olver saying to -Clare? Calladine felt his life finished; and through his perfectly -genuine anguish he did not fail to perceive the romantic value of his -situation. He fell into a chair, and remained there with his legs -extended as he gazed despondently on the floor before him.</p> - -<p>Clare would tell him nothing. He foresaw that, and his foresight -was justified. She came back, immeasurably far removed from him. He -wanted to ignore her return, to remain stiff with dignity, but it was -not long before his curiosity weakened him. “Well, you are not very -communicative. I see that you have no desire to make amends for the -distress you have caused me. Was the poacher’s message, then, too -sacred,—too personal,—to be imparted to me?”</p> - -<p>Clare’s eyes, when she turned them on him, were narrowed with pain.</p> - -<p>“Richard, must you ask me questions now? I have come back to you; I ask -you only to leave me to myself.”</p> - -<p>But that was precisely what he could not do.</p> - -<p>“You ask a good deal, don’t you, in asking that? I see you white and -shaken, yet I am not to know the cause. You ask a good deal of my -forbearance, indeed. I am not to know what messages another man sends -you. I am not to know what is going on, nearly under my nose, but kept -away from me. I am to be defied by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> my wife, and then kept in ignorance -by her. This is the state of affairs we have come to in one short -morning! What has happened to us? it bewilders me.... I insist upon -knowing,—I <i>will</i> know,—has that half-wit come to you with a message -from his brother?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Clare.</p> - -<p>“How you have to force even that one monosyllable from your lips! -What, he came on his own initiative? Clare, you are not speaking the -truth.—Yes, I am sure you are; I beg your pardon. You distract me by -your coldness. Clare, forgive me, I scarcely knew what I was saying.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t touch me,” said Clare, recoiling, “for pity’s sake don’t touch -me now.”</p> - -<p>“I am a very unhappy man,” said Calladine, falling again into his -chair and taking his head between his hands. “I am indeed an unhappy -man,—what am I to do with my life?”</p> - -<p>He remained for some time with his head sunk between his hands, then, -glancing up to see what effect his attitude might have had upon Clare, -he found her gazing out of the window.</p> - -<p>“I see,—you forget my very presence,” he said reproachfully, and his -sense of injury was doubled. But because his distress was genuine, -although he could not refrain from rhetoric, he followed her across the -room in a tormented way, and tried to see into her face. “Clare, speak -to me; I am not angry, only unhappy. There is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> something now in your -mind which I do not share; you live in a half-hour which is secret from -me.—Or have you always,” he cried suddenly, “lived in hours I knew -nothing of?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Quince peeped in through the door.</p> - -<p>“Ah, that’s good,” she said in a relieved tone; “I wasn’t easy so long -as I thought Mrs. Calladine was with that scamp,” and she retired.</p> - -<p>“Even the servants, you see, Clare, are concerned for you.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Quince, far from being concerned,” Clare said, returning briefly -to a consciousness of Calladine and of the house that held her, “is -full of delight.”</p> - -<p>“Clare, these bitter words from you! you are changed indeed, or am I -seeing you as you are for the first time? I begin to look back at these -four months as at a long delusion; I am utterly bewildered. You are -withdrawn to an unbelievable distance from me; I feel it, yet I cannot -say what has taken place. This morning, we were close to one another; -we were, as it seemed, enclosed by our little room, leisured, snug, -sheltered; now, I am striving to reach you, and am held off.” His words -beat without meaning against Clare’s isolation; she could not emerge at -all from the tumult of the terrible scene she had endured from Olver. -She looked, indeed, at Calladine, intently, as though she were trying -to bring herself back to the importance of his world, but her eyes were -empty. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> - -<p>The day dragged away; Calladine continued to clamour fitfully. He could -not leave her alone, and, though she clearly suffered, he, perverse, -must torment her. By adding to her pain, he added to his own, but could -not desist. She answered him very little; a negative, an affirmative -now and then, was all he could get from her; for her part, all that she -wished was that his voice might cease, so that she might have a lull, -a silence, alone with her own mind. Yet it seemed to her that she had, -indeed, a silence at the core of her being, still and inviolate against -his ineffectual clamour, like the stillness in the heart of a cyclone, -where birds poise and sing. At this core, this kernel, this patch of -peace, she dwelt apart; Lovel was there, and so was Olver, Olver with -the urgent hands and fanatical eyes, passing from Lovel to her and -from her to Lovel, almost crushing them up against one another by the -force of his urgency, Olver’s determination was like a menace, becoming -almost malevolent by virtue of its very violence. He overwhelmed, he -terrified her; she had nothing but weak refusal; she had tried to push -him away with hands that had no strength in them. She had covered -her eyes, but he had forced away her hands; she had shut her ears, -but he had screamed past her defences. It was easy to remain deaf to -Calladine’s whining; it had been impossible to shut out the ferocity -of Olver’s attack. And yet, in spite of the din, she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> aware of -that core of silence, in which she and Lovel were, with Olver rushing -between.</p> - -<p>She and Calladine, Lovel and Daisy, there they were, the four of them, -all separate; and Olver, like a firebrand, a trail of fire, working -between them. They might have had some control, the four, but for this -crazy creature, obsessed by the one idea, not to be reasoned with. He -was the incalculable element; he made the others helpless, taking their -intentions out of their hands and throwing them away.</p> - -<p>The danger of Olver,—what if he should see Calladine? What if he -should irrupt into the room and shout irreparable words before she had -time to stop him? The danger of Olver,—what had he said to Lovel? -what to Lovel’s wife? But Calladine and Lovel’s wife alike remained -insignificant; she and Lovel were the two full of meaning, shut up with -the wild, charging Olver in their core of silence.</p> - -<p>Vaguely somewhere, she was sorry for Calladine, but he was -insignificant; she could not pause to consider him; where she and Lovel -came together, he faded into that poor wisp drained of blood, that he -had dwindled to on the evening of the circus fire, when she and Lovel -had stood together on the embankment. They shed him; he slipped off, -and only his noise reached them intermittently, scarcely troublesome.</p> - -<p>Daisy herself was less unreal than Calladine; Daisy knew suffering too, -Clare supposed; in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> clumsy, common way she knew it; blundering, but -human; yes, she could be sorry for the other woman.</p> - -<p>But they must be sacrificed, the two, Calladine and Daisy, if matters -came to a head; sacrificed to the blazing reality of herself and Lovel.</p> - -<p>Would Olver come again? Would he leave her alone now? Would he give her -a chance to forget the words he had spoken? some of them remained, rang -in her head, brassy, like beaten gongs; fell on her like big sparks -from an anvil, burning. It had been a strange experience, to hear Olver -voice the passion that had upreared itself, always mute, in Lovel.</p> - -<p>Olver came again. He came like an avenging angel, inspired, the crazed -creature, by the urgency of his message. Like a reproachful angel he -came to rebuke her, grotesquely disguised in his scarecrow travesty; -the beauty of his selflessness shone through the ramshackle of his -appearance. She scarcely knew whether to find him pathetic or alarming; -she wanted to pity, she could only be disturbed; he disturbed her to -the darkest places of her soul. The fixity of his idea, the strength -of his purpose, his devotion, his anger, raised his simplicity to the -plane of nobleness. She could not answer him; she was abashed before -him.</p> - -<p>She was afraid of him, his image pursued her, his upraised hand -denouncing her, his eyes and tongue pouring scorn upon her. At moments -he seemed like fate itself, like a thing she could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> not escape from. -She never knew at what hour of the day he would come, so all day, -sometimes for two or three days on end, she waited, dreading and -longing for his coming. She could have refused to see him, but had not -the strength; but when she must crush Calladine’s protests, then she -had strength in plenty.</p> - -<p>The snow lay deeper than ever, after another heavy fall, upon the -Downs, but although still a prisoner her restlessness had left her: -the life she had wanted came now to her from without. Olver brought -that life; he brought tumult, anguish, but it was life that he brought, -besieging her. And although he was not Lovel’s envoy, still it was -straight from Lovel that he came. His eyes, as they flamed on Clare, -an hour earlier had been filled with Lovel; she could fancy Lovel’s -image still lingering in them. And after he had left her, it was to -Lovel’s presence that he would return; he would hear Lovel’s voice and -see Lovel’s hands, that so haunted her. Once she broke her silence to -ask about Lovel, “What does he do, these days of snow? does he get out? -stay at home?” and Olver answered, “To-day he has been twisting new -snares, and last night he brought home a lamb that still lies by our -fire.”</p> - -<p>She knew that an end must come; beleaguered, she knew that. She had -pushed life away, but it had followed her, even into her retreat. It -was useless; Calladine was not life; his need of her had not been life. -He was a shadow, a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> of pretence, sufficient to himself, with his -own pretences for company. It was only the true solitaries, the really -lonely people, like Lovel, who had absolute need of their chosen loves. -The strong, clamping loves, that fastened on to one another, to lose -their hold only when they lost their hold on life; the unalterable, -ordained loves. She could not justify the argument; her selfishness -towards Calladine remained unjustified. But she knew that that would -not weigh with her; she and Lovel would reach one another when the day -came, even through a stone wall.</p> - -<p>Still she could not justify it. She tried to, perfunctorily. She sat -frowning, and saying the words over to herself. Selfishness, duty. -They remained mere words; she could not feel them in her blood, as -she felt her need for Lovel and Lovel’s need for her; they were words -pitted against instinct. Was it love, that need? Was it no more than -that ordinary miracle, love? She thought that it was more. They had -the Downs as a bond between them; the Downs, and all nature, of which -Lovel seemed the spirit, the incarnation. He was the darkness of the -Downs, their threat, their solitude, their intractability; she was -their light, their windiness, their sunlit flanks, their springiness of -turf. United, they formed a whole. There was an essential significance -in Lovel, as there was an essential insignificance in Calladine.</p> - -<p>Olver seemed to know these things; he had an untutored insight. -Calladine seemed to know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> them too, but that was less surprising; with -his subtle, lyrical mind he might well be expected to apprehend, and -apprehending, to drape in wordiness; to give a name; to illuminate -blind impulse by giving a name. Poor Calladine; she watched him, -detached, as he rambled from discovery to definition, tormenting -himself by the beauty of his own phrasing. At moments he viewed them, -herself and Lovel, as a spectator, losing himself in the romanticism he -wove around them; recalled to the fact that it was his own wife of whom -he spoke, he relapsed into the gloom and terror of his pain. For he -lived in terror, impotent terror. And Clare watched him, living herself -in her hours with Olver and in her consciousness of Lovel.</p> - -<p class="space-above">There was the little round mirror she had given to Olver. He always -brought it with him; he told her, chuckling, and tapping its bright -surface with his finger, that he could see her in it even when she was -not present. She did not believe this, but still she half believed it. -“Look into it now,” he said, thrusting it under her eyes, “and you -will see Nicholas.” She shrank back, afraid; he could not persuade her -to look into it, he could not even deride her into looking into it. -“You don’t believe me, yet you won’t look,” he said, “but if you don’t -believe me, why then won’t you look?” He was for ever daring her to -look into it, to find the image of Nicholas. She would not; she did not -believe in the magical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> properties of the mirror, yet nothing would -induce her to glance into its queer convexity. “I watched the circus in -this, the night Nicholas took you out of the tent,” he said, and she -wondered whether he knew how bound to Lovel she had felt herself that -night; “I watched Nicholas’ wedding in this; I looked in this at him -and Daisy sitting in the kitchen. Look into it now,” he said, offering -it to her again: “maybe you’ll see Daisy nursing her baby; maybe you’ll -see Nicholas twisting snares; maybe you’ll see him riding up on White -Horse Hill, alone, in the snow.”</p> - -<p>“Do you remember what I told you once?” he said to her another time, -“that Nicholas could bring you out to him, even at midnight, if he gave -his mind to it?”</p> - -<p>She wondered how long this strange period would last; she was not even -impatient; the core of peace and silence within her lay so certain, so -quiet, that she dwelt already as it were serene in the fulfilment of -herself and Lovel.</p> - -<p>Calladine came to her door to find it locked against him. He shook the -handle. “Clare! it is I.” A wild winter night; the wind blew along the -passage, lifting the loose matting on the floor, the gas-jet on the -stair flickered and below the well of the staircase was dark. “Clare!” -said Calladine again, shaking the handle.</p> - -<p>Her voice within answered him, faint, shut away.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I am here; I am in bed.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> - -<p>She was there! the house contained her at least; she had not fled.</p> - -<p>“Let me come in, Clare.”</p> - -<p>A long pause, and then her voice again.</p> - -<p>“I cannot, Richard.”</p> - -<p>“You have locked me out?”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry, Richard; I can’t let you in.”</p> - -<p>He stood irresolute. Then he started shaking the door, frightened by -its wooden resistance. Still she did not come to open, she remained -hard to him, did not even pray him to desist. He ceased his useless -shaking and began to plead with her, tears in his voice, humiliating -himself. She made no answer. He went away, down into the sitting-room, -where the embers of the fire still gleamed red between the bars. “I -gave her everything,” he whispered, looking round upon the comfort of -the room. Upstairs, she lay in her bed, soft and sweet and indifferent -as he had always known her,—lost to him. He went over to the window -and looked out; the masses of the clouds flew before the wind, so -that the stars seen between the rifts seemed to be rushing across -heaven. Starvecrow lay beneath them, small and lonely. A hatred of -the place overcame him. “I shall take her away,” he muttered; “we -will go to London.” And he saw her a fleeting figure, hurrying down -straight narrow London streets, her footsteps that were used to the -short turf ringing forlornly along the pavement. He pitied her in the -midst of his anger and frustration: surely in London she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> droop -and pine. But she must be the one to suffer now; it was her turn; he -had suffered enough. He could not run the risk of leaving her among -these open hills, in league with the Lovels,—even now that crazy boy, -that wild scarecrow figure, might be frisking beneath the windows. -His wife, linked with those dark people,—so linked, that she was and -always had been a stranger to him. Misery drove him to superstition: -there was a kinship between the Lovels and the country, witchcraft and -legend, the crazy boy, the sarsen stones, the ancient sacrifices, Lovel -the vagabond poacher, the wayward shepherd, his immunity from cold or -fatigue,—all these things ran together in Calladine’s unhappy head.</p> - -<p>And Clare, what place had she among them? she was the country in its -loveliness, the running brooks, the soaring birds, the sheep-bells, the -dew, the distance, the manifold music.</p> - -<p>He would take her away. Next day, he told her so, challenging her -refusal. And although she neither refused, nor, indeed, made any -answer, he insisted on the point, growing noisy in his insistence. -“We shall leave this place, do you hear? We shall go, we shall take -the railroad to London.” But London must be an empty sound to her, -he thought, whose world was the Downs. “The city of London,” he -emphasised, seeing the streets, the squares, the endless houses,—a -maze of streets, in which she would lose herself, seeking in vain the -way out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> He looked at her with hatred; there, in London, where he -would feel himself at home, he would at last get the better of her, be -revenged upon her for all the pain she had made him endure; there, she -would be the bewildered stranger, and not he; perhaps she would even -cling to him for reassurance, and he would mock at her in her distress, -and spurn her, over and over again, until she crept broken at his heels.</p> - -<p>Then, seeing her so pale and fragile, he was remorseful, and fell on -his knees beside her, crying, “Forgive me, Clare.”</p> - -<p>She sat with him after dinner in their room. He was not restive, -that evening; his panics overtook him only periodically; sometimes -he appeared to regain all his old confidence. Olver had not troubled -Starvecrow for several days, and Calladine readily forgot. He was -standing now by his bookcase, lovingly shifting the volumes; his touch -slipped like velvet over the frail old leather; delicately he fluttered -over the pages. Clare could even find it in her heart to envy him, -life to her came so rough and violent, to him so veiled and mellowed, -always, so to speak, at second-hand. He murmured to himself over his -books, or was it to her that he addressed his murmurings? how real -was her presence to him? was she more real than those fugitive terra -cotta nymphs of his? was she perhaps less real? as lovely, but more -troublesome? a nymph that would not stay there quiet on her stand, but -whose draperies were blown by the wild wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> from outside, and whose -feet stirred mutinous towards escape? Still he murmured over his books, -without that uneasy glance which meant that he was afraid of losing -her; he had forgotten, for the moment; it was providential how easily -he forgot, his excitability easily roused, and almost as easily abated.</p> - -<p>But as for her, an oppression was on her, an exaltation. She rose. -“Richard, I am going to the door to look at the night; don’t come; it’s -cold outside.”</p> - -<p>He was startled, but he had known her do this before, and he had no -desire to leave his books or the warmth of the room. “Take a coat,” he -said. She went up to him and kissed him lightly. He patted her shoulder -with affection, and watched her cross the room to the door. “Graceful -... graceful,” he murmured to himself in appreciation, turning again to -his shelves.</p> - -<p>Clare passed downstairs to the hall. She moved as though her feet did -not touch earth. With a fur cloak thrown round her, she opened the door -and stepped out into the night, closing the door again behind her. The -Downs were there, white in the starlight. Overhead, in a black sky, -blazed the constellations, not yet sunk from the splendour of winter: -Orion, low in the west, the splendid Plough, and Sirius, single and -more brilliant than the rest. Clare passed down the dark path, swept -clear of snow, to the little gate; at the gate the dark shape of a man -came forward to meet her; it was Lovel. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I knew you would be here,” she said without surprise.</p> - -<p>“I have not been before,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied, “I knew that.”</p> - -<p>There was a little silence.</p> - -<p>“Will you come with me now?” he said.</p> - -<p>“What, out on the Downs?” she asked, trying to see his face through the -darkness.</p> - -<p>“Well, we belong there, don’t we?” he said patiently.</p> - -<p>“Then what has kept us apart, I wonder?” she said. She wondered -genuinely; their union seemed so large and simple. “Yes, I will come,” -she added then.</p> - -<p>“I have tried not to come to you, Clare,” said Lovel. “The child is not -mine, you know,” he went on.</p> - -<p>“I know; Olver told me. But what does it matter? Shall we go?”</p> - -<p>He followed her through the gate, and they took the track up on to the -Downs.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Three days later Calladine rode into King’s Avon, turning in at the -Manor House gates at the slow walk which had been his pace for the -whole three miles of his journey. He rode slackly and without interest, -letting his horse stumble; even the instinctive check on the reins -seemed to have deserted him. He gave his horse to William Baskett, who -ran out from the stables, and, laying his gloves and crop on the bench -in the hall, trod wearily into Mr. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>Warrener’s presence. The old man -was surprised and delighted to see him. “My dear Calladine,—my dear -Richard, fancy your riding over in this snowy weather,—why, I thought -you scarcely stirred out of doors. And what brings you?” He peered -closer. “Dear me, there’s surely nothing the matter?”</p> - -<p>“Clare has left me,” said Calladine. The phrase had been in his head -for three days now. It was a relief to him to pronounce it at last -aloud. “She has gone away with young Lovel.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t understand,” said Mr. Warrener. “Left you? gone away with -young Lovel? The shepherd fellow? But why? where have they gone to? -what for?”</p> - -<p>Calladine raised his hands and let them fall again with a gesture of -hopelessness,—the hopelessness of explaining to Mr. Warrener. Yet in a -way he relished lacerating himself with the explanation.</p> - -<p>“Clare and the shepherd fellow,” he said, “are lovers. Yes, it is as -I tell you. They have been lovers for many months, perhaps for many -years. They were in the habit of meeting on the Downs,—I don’t know -how often,—frequently,—perhaps every day. I can’t tell. Since Clare -has been married to me they had not, so far as I know, met at all. She -has only seen Lovel’s brother,—the simpleton. He has come over to -Starvecrow to see her. I don’t know what he has said to her. I can only -suppose that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> engineered their meeting. All I can tell you is that -three evenings ago she went out, as she said, to look at the night, and -has not since returned.”</p> - -<p>“Three evenings ago!” exclaimed Warrener. “But I knew nothing of all -this.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Calladine wearily, “I gave strict orders that you were not -to be told. I thought she would come back, you see. But as she has not -come back, I cannot keep it a secret from you any longer. We must take -some action, I suppose, if you think it necessary. Or shall we leave -them to themselves. If any one is capable of looking after her, Lovel -is the man. And he knows the Downs,—they both know the Downs,—surely -the Downs wouldn’t hurt them?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Warrener took no notice of this pitiable cry wrung suddenly out of -his anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Of course we must search for them,” he said, frightened and bewildered -and angry. “But,—really this is a most extraordinary story,—how do -you <i>know</i> she has gone with young Lovel? Clare!” he said, indignant, -“whom I trusted to wander about at will,—to deceive me in this -fashion!—but she never came to any harm, whilst she was under my -care,—no, not until <i>you</i> were responsible for her. Upon my word, sir, -you’ve fulfilled your charge very badly,—what excuse have you to give -to me?”</p> - -<p>“You let her grow up into a wild thing,—the blame’s with you as much -as with me,—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> as to responsibility, she’s my wife even if she <i>is</i> -your daughter.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well,” said Mr. Warrener, relapsing into his customary mildness, -“it won’t help matters if you and I start wrangling. But tell me -now, what makes you so certain she has gone with this ... his name -positively sticks in my throat,—this shepherd fellow?”</p> - -<p>“What makes me so certain? What do you suppose I have been doing these -three days?” said Calladine querulously. “What do you suppose my state -of mind has been? I knew Clare was safe, in one sense, I know she was -with Lovel. Yes. His wife came to Starvecrow after him; she had guessed -where he was going. Oh, a pretty interview I had with her—I have Clare -to thank for that. She came crying to the door, and Mrs. Quince let her -in, so Mrs. Quince, at least, guesses the whole story. She brought the -woman up to my room, and left her alone with me, and I saw her smirk -as she went out of the door. A pretty business.... She cried to me, -this woman; she sat in Clare’s chair and cried. She owned up—a long -tale—how she had got Lovel to marry her and how her child was neither -his child nor his brother’s; I really don’t know what else—a long -tale. She talked very extravagantly—said she was dying for love of -him—and how he had never touched her,—a lot of nauseous detail. She -kept on saying that he was decent,—decent, decent to her,—that kept -on coming back,—and that she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> sorry now,—she was being punished -for what she had done. He was civil to her always, she said, but as -cold as winter, and now he had gone. There was nothing left for her -now, she said, but to stay looking after his people,—his old mother -and his mad brother,—that was her idea of making amends. We went out -together and looked all over the Downs for Clare and Lovel; she sobbed -and cried all the time. She wanted me to raise a hue and cry, to put -the police on their trail, but of course I would not do that. ‘If they -want to go,’ I said, ‘let them go with as little noise as possible.’ -But I looked for them myself, and if I had found them I would have -besought Clare to come back. She was with me nearly all the time, this -dreadful woman. I kept sending her away, but half an hour later there -she was again. She brought her child with her, wrapped in a shawl. -She said she felt like drowning it,—a shocking thing to hear a woman -say. Saxon fair it was, and I believed her when she told me Lovel had -nothing to do with it. She has been with me almost uninterruptedly now -for three days; I kept her at Starvecrow because I didn’t want the -story trumpeted over the whole village. Certain that she has gone with -Lovel, indeed! Of course I am certain. Besides, I found the tracks of -two persons’ feet in the snow—a man’s and a woman’s.”</p> - -<p>“Well, why didn’t you follow those tracks?” asked Mr. Warrener, who had -been staring at Calladine all through his recital. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You may be sure I did, and they led me to the top of the -Downs,—knee-deep in some places. Then snow began to fall again and the -tracks were blotted out,—I lost them,—I fancied the Downs and the -snow were conspiring against me with Clare and Lovel. Lovel’s wife grew -frantic when she saw the tracks blurring; she began running round and -round in a senseless circle. There was I, up on the height with that -common woman, she having lost her husband and I having lost my wife. -That is what your daughter, sir, has exposed me to.”</p> - -<p>“Is that all you think about?” said Mr. Warrener.</p> - -<p>“Heaven knows it isn’t!” cried Calladine. “I think horrible things,—I -think of Clare suffering from the cold, and then I think of her close -with Lovel, and upon my soul I don’t know whether to wish her dead or -alive. You don’t understand, Mr. Warrener, the passion they have for -one another. I suppose I knew it, a long way back, but I shut my mind -to it. It seemed preposterous. I put it away. And then, when it began -to come closer, I did not know how to fight it,—I knew how strong it -was. And Clare was like a little trapped thing all the while; gentle -to me, but always looking out of the window. I tried to tame her; she -pretended to be quite tame, but all the while she kept that poised look -about her,—ready to spread her wings.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You seem to have a good deal to say about it all,” Mr. Warrener -observed.</p> - -<p>Calladine was silent; he felt rebuked.</p> - -<p>“I have been crushing down my thoughts for three days,” he muttered -then, sulkily.</p> - -<p>“But what are we to do?” said Mr. Warrener. He took out his big -handkerchief and began to mop his forehead, then, remembering that the -day was cold, he replaced it in his pocket. “Is it snowing now?” he -asked irrelevantly.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Calladine. “It is bright and frosty, and there is no wind; -the wind has dropped ever since the night that Clare went. I used to -think the wind made her more restless, ‘Le vent qui vient à travers la -montagne,’ you know, ‘me rendra fou.’”</p> - -<p>“But what are we to do?” said Mr. Warrener again. They were two -helpless beings, to confront such a problem. “At all events, she -is safe enough with young Lovel; I believe he is a capable sort of -creature; he won’t let her come to any harm.”</p> - -<p>“Curse him,” said Calladine, resentful that the legend of Lovel’s -efficiency should have percolated even to Mr. Warrener’s secluded room.</p> - -<p>“We must go out and look for them,” said Mr. Warrener. “Come, -Calladine,” he said, rousing himself, “you don’t seem able to take any -action. Bestir yourself; we must go out and look for them.”</p> - -<p>“Must we?” said Calladine without interest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> “But I don’t think it’s -any good, you know. I have a superstitious feeling about it; there was -something intangible about Clare. I never got hold of her,—she was my -joy, she tinkled about my house, in and out of my rooms, but it was -like having a linnet in a cage. You know how the men go out and snare -the larks under nets on the Downs; well, it was like that. She didn’t -mope; no, never; but I think she was only waiting for the day when she -should fly away.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, nonsense,” said Mr. Warrener. “Don’t encourage such -ridiculous fancies, Richard.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve seen her,” said Calladine, “looking out of the window, looking -out of the window....”</p> - -<p>“Come,” said Mr. Warrener again; “if you won’t come with me I must go -alone.”</p> - -<p>“And the man too,” said Calladine, obstinately; “he was always on the -Downs; he wouldn’t bind himself down to a master; he slipped free.”</p> - -<p>“Are you coming?” asked Mr. Warrener, standing up. He cast a glance at -his writing-table. “Fancy Clare....” he said with a sigh. “She was a -help to me, Calladine, you don’t know. I made a sacrifice in giving her -to you. But I thought it was for the child’s happiness; and she hadn’t -a mother. I missed her more than anybody knew. You never realised how -much she helped me; why, look here....” and he showed Calladine a thick -note-book filled with Clare’s handwriting. “She had an instinct for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> -archæology,” he said, “and she wrote a beautiful hand—clear and pretty -both.”</p> - -<p>“You make it sound like an epitaph,” said Calladine bitterly.</p> - -<p>“Heaven forbid,” said Mr. Warrener, a little startled. “She’s safe -enough, never you fear. All we have to do is to get her back and -perhaps we’ll find your fears were groundless,—a burst of wildness, -only,—she was accustomed to liberty, you know,—perhaps it’s no worse -than that,—lovers, you said,—but oh, no, I can’t believe....”</p> - -<p>“You and I, Mr. Warrener,” said Calladine, fixing the old man with a -gaze full of meaning, “have perhaps lived a little too remote from -life. Clare is alive, Lovel is alive; you and I are left behind.”</p> - -<p>“But all the same....” said Mr. Warrener, greatly troubled, “all -the same.... Lovers, you said. Oh, no, surely not,” and he looked -embarrassed, uncomfortable, as at an indecency.</p> - -<p class="space-above">They went out together. They went on foot, with no very definite scheme -of action in their minds. Vaguely they intended to make their way up on -to the Downs, on to the topmost height if possible, and from there to -scan the rolling country. They went side by side, Calladine long and -spare, Mr. Warrener, round, short and bespectacled, and as they went -they tried to disguise their anxiety from one another, and to pretend -that they had gone out for no more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> serious purpose than to recall a -troublesome child from an escapade. But there were periods of silence -between them, broken with a jerk by Mr. Warrener with brisk questions, -“Now in what direction did she ride for choice, Calladine?” or “If the -fellow is a shepherd, he must have a hut up on these hills.” “Yes, I -have visited that: it was empty,” said Calladine, forced into a morose -reply.</p> - -<p>They took the road out of the village, the only road cleared by the -snow-plough, and presently struck up into the hills, climbing with -caution, for they were afraid of sinking suddenly into a drift against -a bank. They climbed, prodding with long sticks before them, a long -wearisome climb, their feet sinking over the ankle at every step into -the soft snow; by now they had the excuse for speaking very little, for -their energies went all on their progress. “I have spent my time like -this for the last three days,” said Calladine, grimly.</p> - -<p>It was noteworthy that neither of them considered for a moment that -Clare and Lovel might have moved on to another part of the country; -they took it for granted that they had remained among the Downs.</p> - -<p>No paths were to be seen anywhere, only the rolling white hills, broken -by the sky-line beech-clumps. No sound; neither the tinkling of water, -nor the quivering of larks, nor the quaver of sheep, nor even the wind; -only the hush of quiet snow lying spread. It was a stillness that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> grew -as they climbed; a stillness, a shroud. There was the glitter of the -snow, and the black clubbed trees, and the white sky, and the silence.</p> - -<p>It occurred to them that they might get lost, for all the hills looked -much the same, and the landmarks were all covered up; the White Horse, -the Grey Wethers. Still, Calladine was contemptuous of that; and as for -Mr. Warrener, he plodded on with an unrepining, pathetic obstinacy.</p> - -<p>At last they came to the top, and stood on White Horse Hill, two puny -figures scanning the horizon. “There is Lovel’s hut,” said Calladine, -pointing it out. “We had better go down to it,” said Mr. Warrener, and -they began the descent, which was almost as trying as their climb, for -they had to hold themselves back, the snow being blown into deeper -drifts on that side of the hill.</p> - -<p>The great scoops in the flank of the hill forced them to follow a -circular route which lengthened their road. The hut seemed to stand -always equally far ahead, and never to draw any nearer; nor had they -much hope of finding either Clare or Lovel within it. Mr. Warrener, -now that he had gained a few hours of experience, was beginning to -share Calladine’s hopelessness; before they started, it had seemed -comparatively simple an undertaking to go out and search and shout for -Clare over the Downs. Now, although he called her name tentatively on -approaching the hut, the quilted silence swallowed up the small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> echo -of his voice. Yet it was a bell-like name to call, “Clare! Clare!”</p> - -<p>Calladine let Mr. Warrener go forward and peer into the hut, and he -felt a sudden tenderness for the old man. “If,” he said to himself, -“Clare should never return to me, Mr. Warrener and I must keep house -together,” but the idea of Clare not returning gave him a pang which -eclipsed the amenities of the prospect with Mr. Warrener, leading a -scholar’s life, and he was ashamed of the glimpse that had opened out -on to a life so congenial, so secure.</p> - -<p>Mr. Warrener turned in the doorway and beckoned.</p> - -<p>“They have been here,” he said.</p> - -<p>Calladine drew near and looked. Yes, they had been there. The hut was -poor, a shepherd’s shelter, with a rough table arranged on a couple -of boxes, and a thick pallet of bracken on the floor; warm enough, -no doubt, and even snug, with the paraffin lamp burning and the door -closed against the cold. Mr. Warrener and Calladine looked in silence. -A horn mug stood on the table, beside a loaf of bread; two sugar-boxes -served as stools. A couple of blankets were thrown over the bracken; a -bag stuffed with bracken did for a pillow. There was nothing else.</p> - -<p>“My God,” said Calladine, staring at the pallet, “they lay there last -night,—they lay there!” He looked round the pitiful cabin, and a groan -was forced from him. “He brought her here!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> he said, “and I who gave -her everything she could desire,—comfort, even beauty, refinement....” -He sat down and buried his face, and touched perhaps the bitterest -moment he had yet gone through. “How much she must have loved him,” he -said, raising a suddenly haggard face to Mr. Warrener.</p> - -<p>Mr. Warrener was deeply perturbed and distressed. Such things were -altogether beyond his experience and understanding.</p> - -<p>“Hush,—don’t take it so much to heart,” he said, confused, but meaning -to be kind, and he touched Calladine on the shoulder with a gesture -singularly awkward. “Now let us think what is to be done. Shall we -remain here, and trust to their return at nightfall? It is true that we -could not, all four of us, spend the night in this hut, but probably -Lovel knows the way,—he can take us all home safely.”</p> - -<p>“You seem to have a curious confidence in the fellow,” growled -Calladine.</p> - -<p>Mr. Warrener blinked in his mild fashion.</p> - -<p>“Yes,—I don’t quite know why,” he said, “except that I’ve seen -him about the village,—he seemed an alert, romantic kind of -creature.—Forgive me, I see that pains you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, not at all,” said Calladine, ironical.</p> - -<p>“We must wait,—there is nothing else to be done,” said Mr. Warrener, -reluctantly.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Calladine, rousing himself to a sudden determination, -“I will wait, but you, Mr. Warrener, must make your way home while -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>daylight lasts. You will only have to follow our own tracks in -the snow. Indeed, I should prefer it,” he said, seeing the old man -hesitate, and gently he took Mr. Warrener by the arm and urged him out -of the hut. A hard cruel sun was already setting red behind a clump of -beeches. The white sky became suffused with crimson in the west; on the -rounded tops of the hills the snow flushed to pink. But it was a hard, -cruel world that they saw, the hard red of the snow where the sunset -did not catch it. The line of the beech-clump curved already across the -slowly sinking sun, and presently hid it altogether from sight; the -tops of the hills lost their flush, and only a few red bars lingered -still in the sky.</p> - -<p>“What a desolate spot!” exclaimed Mr. Warrener, impressed, “and what a -spot,” he went on, “for a shepherd to study the courses of the stars, -for such has been the tradition of shepherds since the days when the -known world was not one tithe of the size we now learn it to be. Think -of that, Calladine,” said the old man, warming to his subject, “those -early shepherds on the hills were more conversant with the cycle of the -heavenly bodies than with the distribution of their own planet. A fine -tradition among shepherds—for what else have they to do? They don’t -read in books, but they read in the heavens through the long, lonely -nights; and observe, Calladine, that in winter, when the pleasures -of the earth are less, the heavens in compensation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> treble their -magnificence. I don’t believe that a man who spends his nights alone -in the open remains similar to other men. He’s soaked in the sense of -space; and young Lovel....”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” said Calladine impatiently, “but there is no time to be -lost if you are to reach King’s Avon before dark. Follow our tracks; -there are no other tracks to confuse you, for it snowed a little this -morning; indeed, there is still snow about in the air.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like to leave you alone in this lonely place,” said Mr. -Warrener, still hesitating.</p> - -<p>“Doubtless Clare and Lovel found no fault with its loneliness last -night,” Calladine replied harshly.</p> - -<p>“My dear Richard,” said Mr. Warrener, vexed at his son-in-law’s harping -on this theme, “I am sure you distress yourself unnecessarily. Clare -will be able to reassure you,—and she is a very truthful child,” -he added, with a certain pleading pathos, as though to justify his -upbringing of her.</p> - -<p>“Where, then, did the man sleep?” said Calladine, turning on him. -“Supposing he gave Clare the pallet, where did he pass the night -himself? Tell me that.”</p> - -<p>“Why, I don’t know,—sitting up, I suppose,—he could lean his back -against the wall,” replied Mr. Warrener.</p> - -<p>Finally he consented to go, and set off, Calladine watching him -until after trudging up the hill he topped its crest and was lost to -sight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> Calladine then, a prey to such loneliness as he had never -dreamt, returned into the hut to wait. Twilight came, the long, cold, -late-winter twilight when the world seems dead. The last vestiges of -colour faded out of the west. Such sharp shadows as there had been, -merged into a greyer, universal shadow; the hard black and the hard -white turned to grey, vast and mournful; the sky was all grey now, -and the dusk heavy with impending snow. The quietness and the poverty -of the hut settled down round Calladine. He had examined its few poor -resources, fingering the utensils he found in the little cupboard on -the wall, the tea-pot, the canister of tea and sugar, the rasher of -bacon put ready on a plate; but now he sat listless, with hanging -hands, and not so much as a sound came to make him raise his head. -He did not know how long he sat there. The darkness deepened; soon -the black night was again over the Downs, vaulted; the big golden -stars, and the dim huge shapes of the hills. He was without sensation, -numb, having the consciousness only of his extreme solitude. So numb -was he, that he was scarcely aware what he waited for. He simply -sat on, in complete darkness now, feeling neither hunger nor cold, -forgetful almost of his sorrow, patient only like a man condemned to an -indefinite suspense.</p> - -<p>When he heard the sound of a voice singing out on the hill, he raised -his head and waited. The voice drew nearer, singing a cheerful song;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> -it trilled and carolled, as in an exuberant lightheartedness. To -Calladine it came with a strange effect, this voice singing out in -the night, unexplained, bearing down upon the hut, frivolous and -rollicking. Suddenly it sounded quite close, outside. The door was -torn open, a figure carrying a lantern appeared on the threshold, and -Calladine beheld the grinning face and battered hat of Olver Lovel.</p> - -<p>The boy carried parcels in his arms, besides the lantern swinging from -his wrist. He appeared in excellent spirits, grinning broadly, skipping -as he stood on the threshold of the door, with little excited skips -from foot to foot. He seemed scarcely able to contain his high spirits -and his excitement. When he saw that the hut was already occupied, he -gaped stupidly, then burst into peals of laughter. Calladine, remaining -seated, looked at him without a word. He perceived nothing startling -in the advent of this apparition, apathetic as he was, and at the same -time strung up to the most improbable occurrences. It seemed to him -quite natural that Olver should stand shouting with laughter in the -doorway; he saw nothing grotesque in the encounter of himself with the -crazy boy out in this hut on the hills. Clare!—this was the note to -which Clare had re-tuned his life.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Calladine!” said Olver, ceasing from his laughter. He came forward -and put his parcels and his lantern down on the table. Its rays -illuminated the little hut. “So you were <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>waiting for them, sitting -here in the dark, were you?” he observed.</p> - -<p>“Will they come?” asked Calladine.</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, they’ll come,” replied Olver easily. “But they won’t let you -stop here, you know,” he added. “No, nor me either,” he pursued, coming -closer to Calladine and speaking confidentially. “They’ll put us both -out into the snow, get-yourselves-home-as-best-you-can. They won’t -care. They won’t notice us, scarcely. They’re in a dream. Nod to me, -perhaps; give me a pat, like a dog. Good Olver; he brings our food. But -do they eat it? they seem like they don’t need food.”</p> - -<p>“Have you seen them, then?” said Calladine.</p> - -<p>“Seen them? Lord bless you, yes; and seen you too, wandering round with -Daisy. I was behind you, many and many a time, but you didn’t turn.”</p> - -<p>He began now to unpack his parcels, bringing out a loaf of bread, a -tin of milk, some eggs, and finally some raw meat in slices. Calladine -watched him in silence. He disposed of everything in a business-like -manner, fetching two plates out of the cupboard, laying the table, -putting ready the tea-pot and the canister.</p> - -<p>“You might well have lit the lamp for them,” he said reproachfully to -Calladine.</p> - -<p>He lit the little paraffin lamp himself, and the hut was further -irradiated by its yellow glow. The hut made now a patch of warmth and -light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> among the cold, dark hills; a box of light, like a star in the -blackness of space. Calladine felt the warmth creep through him, as -though he were admitted to a hint of the sufficient and radiant secret -of those lovers. The poverty of the shelter disappeared now, in the -golden warmth of the light from within. And he felt that he, and not -they, was the pauper.</p> - -<p>Olver meanwhile had set the meat to fry over the lamp. It frizzled as -he turned it with a fork, and he crouched over it, humming his song. -“You seem very well contented,” said Calladine.</p> - -<p>Olver looked up, having forgotten Calladine’s presence.</p> - -<p>“I am contented, because Nicholas is happy,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“Simple enough!” said Calladine.</p> - -<p>“But she is happy too,” said Olver, sitting back on his heels and -staring at Calladine.</p> - -<p>“He is only a mad boy,” thought Calladine to himself.</p> - -<p>Olver sang. He sang an old song, of a girl drowned in the mill-pool -because she had lost her lover. The wistful beat of the ballad came -back at the end of each verse; it droned on, with mournful persistence. -At last Calladine could bear its monotony no longer, and asked, “When -will they come?”</p> - -<p>Olver shrugged. “Who can tell?”</p> - -<p>“Where are they?” Calladine asked. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> - -<p>Olver shrugged again. “Who can tell?”</p> - -<p>Calladine remembered how often he had asked Clare, “Where have you -been? where have you been?”</p> - -<p>He remembered that her answers had never left him any the wiser; he had -never come near to what he really wanted to know.</p> - -<p>What was it, indeed, that he had really wanted to know? the whole -secret of her being, to be explained in a dozen words?</p> - -<p>He said to Olver, “It is night, it is cold; have they lost their way -out on the hills?”</p> - -<p>Olver laughed at him. “Lost? They?”</p> - -<p>“They are only human!” cried Calladine, afraid. He got up and stood -over Olver. “Tell me, they are human, aren’t they?”</p> - -<p>Olver laughed again.</p> - -<p>Calladine went to the door. He opened it and looked out; the cold met -him, and the stars in the blackness. “Clare!” he cried. “Clare!”</p> - -<p>“I am going mad,” he said to himself. “I am going out of my mind.”</p> - -<p>Looking back into the hut, he saw Olver still on his knees on the -floor, prodding at the meat over the lamp. He went back, bent down, and -cried close to Olver’s ear, “What are we doing here? they are keeping -us waiting.”</p> - -<p>“We don’t count,” replied Olver indifferently.</p> - -<p>He began his song again. He had taken his mirror from his pocket, and -was squinting into it, at the reflection of the hut; on each beat of -the measure, he nodded down towards it. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“Her hair was tangled in the reeds.</div> -<div class="i1">Her hair so gold and gay,”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>he sang.</p> - -<p>“Would you like to look into my mirror?” he asked Calladine.</p> - -<p>An idea took him; he scrambled to his feet.</p> - -<p>“They’re all afraid of my mirror,” he said. “<i>She</i> wouldn’t look into -it, for fear of what she might see there. But you shall look. Look into -it now, and you’ll see them; you shall see them as they were in here, -last night.”</p> - -<p>Calladine pushed him away; made him stagger against the wall of the hut.</p> - -<p>“You would see them! you would see them!” cried Olver, delighted.</p> - -<p>Neither of them noticed that the door had opened, and that Lovel stood -in the hut.</p> - -<p>“Nicco!” cried Olver.</p> - -<p>Calladine wheeled round. Clare came into the hut, and her face shone -out like Lovel’s, both golden in the light, both arrested in the midst -of their carelessness.</p> - -<p>Lovel spoke to Calladine.</p> - -<p>“This was the only place we had,” he said, “couldn’t you leave it to -us?”</p> - -<p>Clare looked at Calladine; her face wore that oblique, fugitive look -which he had known, and loved, and dreaded.</p> - -<p>She turned to Lovel, and they swayed towards one another as though -something drew them.</p> - -<p>“We had better go,” she said, inviting him. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes,” he replied, drifting idly on the stream of her will, of their -common will, one with her.</p> - -<p>She gave him her hand, and in the gold light they hung briefly, -transient creatures of eternal flight. The curtain of night and stars -stretched behind them, in the rectangle of the open door.</p> - -<p>“The scenery is set!” cried Calladine hysterically, pointing with his -hand.</p> - -<p>The rays of the lantern streamed out towards the snow, gilding a path -up the whiteness, quickly lost into the dark.</p> - -<p>“They need no shelter,” cried Calladine.</p> - -<p>The hills were outside, waiting, and the stars, silent.</p> - -<p>“Why linger?” cried Calladine to Clare and Lovel.</p> - -<p>They faded into the night, noiseless and swift. Calladine ran out of -the hut, he ran up and down, he cried “Clare! Clare!” and the hills -answered him. He came back into the hut, where Olver, dancing, held the -mirror up to his eyes. “Look! and you shall see them.” He dashed the -mirror out of Olver’s hand; it smashed upon the ground. “You will never -see them again, now,” cried Olver, “you will never see them again.”</p> - -<p> </p> -<hr /> -<p> </p> - -<div class="mynote"><p class="center">Transcriber’s Note:<br /><br /> -Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.<br /></p></div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREY WETHERS***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 65182-h.htm or 65182-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/5/1/8/65182">http://www.gutenberg.org/6/5/1/8/65182</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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