Part 14 (1/2)

”Pretty well. Braver than I was. Mary, my girl, why didn't ye marry him?”

”What--you are at me with the rest, are you?” she answered. ”Why, because he was a gaby, and you're another; and I wouldn't marry either of you to save your lives--now then!”

”Do you mean to say you would not have me, if I asked you? Pooh! pooh!

I know better than that, you know.” And again the shrubbery rang with his laughter.

”Now, go in, Tom, and let me get out,” said Mary. ”I say Tom dear, don't say you saw me. I am going out for a turn, and I don't want them to know it.”

Tom twisted up his great face into a mixture of mystery, admiration, wonder, and acquiescence, and, having opened the gate for her, went in.

But Mary walked quickly down a deep narrow lane, overarched with oak, and melodious with the full rich notes of the thrush, till she saw down the long vista, growing now momentarily darker, the gleaming of a ford where the road crossed a brook.

Not the brook where the Vicar and the Major went fis.h.i.+ng. Quite a different sort of stream, although they were scarcely half a mile apart, and joined just below. Here all the soil was yellow clay, and, being less fertile, was far more densely wooded than any of the red country. The hills were very abrupt, and the fields but sparely scattered among the forest land. The stream itself, where it crossed the road, flowed murmuring over a bed of loose blue slate pebbles, but both above and below this place forced its way, almost invisible, through a dense oak wood, deeply tangled with undergrowth.

A stone foot-bridge spanned the stream, and having reached this, it seemed as if she had come to her journey's end. For leaning on the rail she began looking into the water below, though starting and looking round at every sound.

She was waiting for some one. A pleasant place this to wait in. So dark, so hemmed in with trees, and the road so little used; spring was early here, and the boughs were getting quite dense already. How pleasant to see the broad red moon go up behind the feathery branches, and listen to the evensong of the thrush, just departing to roost, and leaving the field clear for the woodlark all night. There were a few sounds from the village, a lowing of cows, and the noise of the boys at play; but they were so tempered down by the distance, that they only added to the evening harmony.

There is another sound now. Horses' feet approaching rapidly from the side opposite to that by which she had come; and soon a horseman comes in sight, coming quickly down the hill. When he sees her he breaks into a gallop, and only pulls up when he is at the side of the brook below her.

This is the man she was expecting--George Hawker. Ah, Vicar! how useless is your authority when lovers have such intelligence as this.

It were better they should meet in your parlour, under your own eye, than here, in the budding spring-time, in this quiet spot under the darkening oaks.

Hawker spoke first. ”I guessed,” he said, ”that it was just possible you might come out to-night. Come down off the bridge, my love, and let us talk together while I hang up the horse.”

So as he tied the horse to a gate, she came down off the bridge. He took her in his arms and kissed her. ”Now, my Poll,” said he, ”I know what you are going to begin talking about.”

”I daresay you do, George,” she answered. ”You and my father have quarrelled.”

”The quarrel has been all on one side, my love,” he said; ”he has got some nonsense into his head, and he told me when I met him this morning, that he would never see me in his house again.”

”What has he heard, George? it must be something very shocking to change him like that. Do you know what it is?”

”Perhaps I do,” he said; ”but he has no right to visit my father's sins on me. He hates me, and he always did; and he has been racking his brains to find out something against me. That rascally German doctor has found him an excuse, and so he throws in my teeth, as fresh discovered, what he must have known years ago.”

”I don't think that, George. I don't think he would be so deceitful.”

”Not naturally he wouldn't, I know; but he is under the thumb of that doctor; and you know how HE hates me--If you don't I do.”

”I don't know why Dr. Mulhaus should hate you, George.”

”I do though; that sleeky dog Stockbridge, who is such a favourite with him, has poisoned his mind, and all because he wanted you and your money, and because you took up with me instead of him.”

”Well now,” said Mary; ”don't go on about him--he is gone, at all events; but you must tell me what this is that my father has got against you.”

”I don't like to. I tell you it is against my father, not me.”

”Well!” she answered; ”if it was anyone but me, perhaps, you ought not to tell it; but you ought to have no secrets from me, George--I have kept none from you.”

”Well, my darling, I will tell you then: you know Madge, at our place?”