Part 12

“I be pure sorry you should think I want to rob ye of any credit,” observed Simon mournfully. “There, you do seem to ha’ turned again’ me terrible; and ’tis quite other-way wi’ me--I did like ’ee from the first.”

“No thanks to ye, then!” retorted Rosy; and, snatching up a stick, she began to belabour the mat with so meaning an air that Simon felt as if the onslaught were committed on his own shoulders.

“I wish you’d get on with your work,” she exclaimed presently. “You’re the favourite, and you’ll get the reward, but you mid jist so well do summat to earn it.”

“Now look ’ee here,” said Simon, and his usually merry eyes flashed angrily; “this here bit o’ business bain’t to my likin’ no ways. What do I care for the wold stockin’? I can earn enough to keep myself--ah, that I can--an’ I could keep a wife, too, if I wanted one; an’ what’s farty pound? The wold ’ooman had best keep it to be buried with.”

“For shame!” cried Rosy. “’Tis pure ongrateful of ye to speak so, and Aunt Becky so took up wi’ ye.”

“Well, I can’t help it,” returned the young man bluntly. “The job bain’t to my likin’. I did come out for a hollerday, and here I be ordered to set ’taters--an’ what’s more, I get nothin’ but cross looks and sharp words what I don’t deserve.”

“I’m sure your aunt speaks civil enough,” said Rosy in a somewhat mollified tone.

“An’ so she mid,” responded he promptly. “She mid very well be civil when she do expect so much. But there’s others what’s uncivil, and ’tis that what I can’t abide. I’ve a good mind,” he added gloomily, “to cut an’ run--yes, I have,” he cried resolutely. “I’d sooner be cleanin’ out pigstyes nor be treated so unkind as you do treat I. But for that matter, my mother ’ull be glad enough to see I. I’ll step home-along--that’s the very thing I’ll do; I’ll step home-along.”

“Oh, but what will Aunt Becky say?” cried Rosy in alarm.

“Aunt Becky be blowed!” exclaimed Simon with decision. “Let her say what she pleases. I’ll leave her an’ you to make it up together. ’Tis more nor flesh an’ blood can stand to be treated as you’ve a-treated I since I did come to this house.”

“Oh, please--please don’t go!” gasped the girl. “There, I really didn’t mean--I--I--I only thought my aunt a bit unjust.”

“Well, and very like she was,” said Simon magnanimously. “I think the money what was saved out o’ the man’s wage did ought to go to the man’s folk. You’ve the best right to that there stockin’, Miss Rosy, and I’ll not bide here to stand in your light.”

This was heaping coals of fire on Rosy’s pretty head with a vengeance. She looked up in Simon’s face with a smile, though there were tears in her eyes, and she impulsively dropped the carpet and held out two little sunburnt hands.

“Oh, please, Mr. Fry,” she said pleadingly, “please, Simon, do stay--do ’ee now. I’ll--I’ll--I’ll never be unkind again!”

“Is that a true promise, my maid?” asked Simon very tenderly.

Mrs. Melmouth, chancing at that moment to emerge from her house with the view of ascertaining how the young folks’ labours were progressing, discovered them standing in this most compromising attitude; Simon clasping both Rosy’s hands, Rosy looking earnestly into his face; and thereupon, true to her instincts, rated the couple soundly for their idleness. In two minutes Rosy had returned to her carpet with a flaming face, and Simon was walking slowly towards the potato-plot. As their aunt, still full of virtuous indignation, was returning to the house, her nephew’s tones fell distinctly on her ear:--

“How would it be if I was to give you a hand wi’ they things first, my maid, and then you could be helping me wi’ the sets?”

“Well, I declare,” commented Mrs. Melmouth, stopping short, “I believe they’ve started coortin’. It do really seem like it. Well, I never!”

She was turning about in preparation for a fresh outpouring of wrath, when she was struck by a sudden idea, and paused just as Rosy, with a nervous glance towards herself, walked sheepishly up to Simon, trailing the carpet behind her.

“We’d certainly get on much faster,” she said, speaking ostensibly to Simon, but really for her aunt’s benefit.

“I d’ ’low ye would,” said Mrs. Melmouth; and suddenly her brow cleared, and she turned once more to go indoors with a good-humoured smile. “I d’ ’low you’ll get on fast enough--wi’ the coortin’. But that ’ud be the best way o’ settlin’ it,” she added to herself--“I’ll leave the wold stockin’ in a lump to ’em both.”

A WOODLAND IDYLL.

It was the first Monday of August; the shops were shut in the little town of Branston, but life in the neighbouring villages was more astir than usual, for the men were for the most part working in their gardens and the women stood at their doorways or by their gates to view the passing vehicles. These were not so numerous after all--one might never have known it was a Bank Holiday--yet every now and then a brake or a wagonette laden with noisy folk rattled by, leaving a trail of dust to mark its progress that lingered in a kind of cloud about the hedgerows long after it had passed.

Two miles away on the downs, another kind of haze caught the eye of Robert Formby as he strode across them, the golden glimmering haze which indicates intense heat; the sun had not yet set, but its rays struck the short herbage as though they must scorch it, and made the white streak of road which threaded the undulating tract positively glitter. But yonder was Oakleigh Wood, heavily green in its luxuriance of summer foliage. As Robert swung along, with the fierce sunshine beating on his brown neck and hands, he pictured it to himself: first, the grove of firs with all its spicy scents streaming forth at this hour, then the open space where the rabbits would presently frolic, then, stretching away, the wide dense coppice of hazel and oak and ash. He thought of the broad drives where the feet sank deep in cool lush grass, and of the narrow and more secret paths between serried green walls, where scarce a single burning ray might penetrate, though far, far away at the very end of a long vista, a peep of luminous sky was to be had.

Robert dwelt on it all, not as a poet or an artist would have dwelt on it, revelling in its beauty, but as a man thinks of familiar and undeniably pleasant things.

The young gamekeeper shifted his gun to the other shoulder to ease himself, and swung his now disengaged arm, whistling as he walked. Oakleigh Wood was situated on a Dorset down, but Robert Formby was a North-countryman. He had probably Danish blood in his veins, for his big, loose-limbed figure, his blue eyes and yellow hair and beard, would seem to belong to the race; his complexion, too, had been fair but was now bronzed, though when, impatient of the heat, he threw open the collar of his flannel shirt, the lower part of his throat showed white as milk.

A very energetic, sensible, clear-headed fellow was Robert, full of zeal, and most laudably anxious to do his duty. It was this zealous anxiety which brought him to Oakleigh Wood on this particular occasion. It was just possible that evil-disposed persons might take advantage of the universal relaxation to trespass in these coverts; it behoved Robert to see to that, he conceived.

Here were the woods at length, the undulating outlines of which had wooed him from afar with such enticing promise; Robert’s feet fell almost noiselessly on a crumbling carpet of pine-needles, and he paused a moment to sniff the aromatic scent approvingly; then he went on. Now the green depths engulfed him on every side; all was gentle gloom, exquisite undefinable fragrance; silence the more palpable because of the never-ceasing stir which seemed to pervade it. What a variety, what a multiplicity of scarcely perceptible noises go to make up the breathing of the wood! The flapping of leaf against leaf, the swaying of twigs, the rattle of falling nuts or sticks, the falling apart of fronds of moss, the dripping of tiny drops of dew or rain, the roamings of minute insects--each sound infinitesimal in itself, yet repeated at thousands and millions of points--in this harmony of life and motion, combining with but never subduing the stillness of the forest, lies its magnetism.

Sharper sounds break the all-pervading hush from time to time without disturbing it; the cooing of a dove, the flight of blackbird or thrush, the tapping of a woodpecker, the croaking of a frog, the hasty passage of a mouse through dry leaves; while the barking of a dog in some distant village, and the clanging of sheep-bells far away seem nevertheless to form part of the mysterious whole.

Robert pushed his hat to the back of his head, rested his gun against a forked sapling of birch, and, taking out his pipe, was proceeding to fill it, when he suddenly started and threw back his head, inhaling the air with a frown. A certain acrid penetrating odour was making its way towards him, drowning the more delicate essences of the forest growths.

“’Tis wood smoke!” said Robert, and then his brow cleared. “Mayhap somebody is burnin’ weeds nigh to this place,” he said, and went on filling his pipe.

But before lighting it he once more raised his head and shot a suspicious glance down the long green vista which faced him: a faint bluish haze seemed to cling to the over-arching boughs of the hazels. It was not the mist of evening, for it proceeded from a certain point about half-way up the narrow stretch, and, moreover, as Robert gazed, little fresh wreaths came eddying forth to join the ethereal cloud afore-mentioned. Restoring his pipe to his pocket, and catching up his gun, Robert strode off in this direction as rapidly as the narrowness of the path and the breadth of his shoulders would admit of. He had indeed to proceed in a curious sidelong fashion, turning now the right shoulder forward, now the left, so that he looked almost as if he were dancing. The cloud of smoke increased in volume as he advanced, and presently he could actually hear the hissing of flames and the crackling and snapping of twigs; and now bending low, and peering beneath the interlaced branches, he could see the fire itself. A rather large beech-tree stood in the middle of the massed saplings, with a small open space around it. In the centre of this space a fire was burning briskly, and by the side of the fire a girl sat with her elbows resting on her knees and her chin sunk in her hands. Her hat was hung on one of the beech-boughs, and a small open basket lay beside her, from beneath the raised lid of which protruded the brown spout of a teapot.

“My word!” said Robert to himself.

Lowering his head he made a dive beneath the branches, pushing some aside and breaking down others in his impetuous advance, and in another moment, straightening himself, he stood beside the girl, frowning at her sternly. She raised her head and looked at him with the action and something of the expression of a startled deer; indeed her full dark eyes seemed to carry out the comparison. She was a very pretty girl--so much Robert saw at a first glance, yet the sight of her left him entirely unmollified.

“What are you doing here?” he inquired roughly. “You’re trespassin’--d’ye know that? I’ve a good mind to summons ye!”

The girl scrambled to her feet; she was slender and tall, her clinging pink cotton gown defining the shapeliness of her form.

“I wasn’t doin’ any harm,” she returned with a pout.

Robert strode across the intervening space, and kicked wrathfully at the fire which was cunningly composed of sticks and fir-cones.

“Oh, don’t!” cried the girl eagerly, “don’t! You’ll spoil my ’taters!”

“’Taters indeed!” retorted Robert, but he drew back the great boot which he had uplifted for the second time.

“Who gave you leave to come picnicking up here? I s’pose you’re expectin’ a lot more trespassin’ folks same as yourself?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head sorrowfully. “I was just a-havin’ a little party for myself--I didn’t think no harm.”

“A tea-party all to yourself,” said Formby, and in spite of him, face and voice relaxed, “why, that’s dull work!”

“Everybody do seem to be merry-makin’ to-day,” she went on, with a little toss of the head that contradicted a certain quiver in her voice. “I thought I’d come out too, and take my tea here. I don’t hurt nothin’. I d’ ’low the wild things do know me quite well. I often walk here of an evenin’ and the rabbits scarce run out of my road. I do whoot like the owls and they do answer me back, and bats come flyin’ round my head--I often fancy I could catch ’em if I had a mind to.”

“Do ye?” said Robert.

He was bending down, resting a hand on either knee, and peering up at her with a twinkle in his eye. She nodded, and dropping on her knees beside the fire began to draw together the embers with a crooked stick, and to turn over the potatoes.

“They be very near done now,” she said; “this one be quite done--will ye try it?”

Sitting back upon her heels she held it out to him with a timid smile. Robert, shaking his head half-waggishly, half-dubiously, took it from her.

“’Tisn’t right, ye know,” he protested, “nay, ’tisn’t right. I didn’t ought to be encouragin’ of ye in such ways.”

“I’ve got some salt here,” cried she, rummaging in her basket and bringing forth a twisted paper which she unfolded and held out, poised on her little pink palm.

Robert deliberately sat down, broke the potato in two, and dipped one of the smoking halves in the salt.

“Ye mustn’t do this no more,” he remarked severely; “nay, I’m not encouragin’ of ye, ye understand; ’tisn’t allowed--this here’s a warnin’.” Here he took a bite out of the potato--“Ye can be summonsed next time.”

The girl deposited the paper of salt upon the ground, and, extracting another potato from the ashes, proceeded to peel it deftly with a pocket-knife.

“Have ye got tea in that there basket?” inquired Robert, still sternly.

“’Tisn’t made yet,” she replied, “but kettle ’ull boil in a minute.” She pulled the basket towards her and unpacked it with great rapidity.

“So that’s the kettle, is it?” commented Robert, as a sooty object came to light, partially enveloped in a newspaper. He weighed it in his hand. “There’s nought in it--eh, I see you’ve got water in yon bottle. Shall I fill it?”

She nodded, and then making a pounce on a small bottle of milk, endeavoured to uncork it. As the cork did not yield, she was preparing to loosen it with her teeth when Robert interposed.

“Here, hand o’er! What mun ye go breakin’ your teeth for,” he inquired gruffly; “ye’ll noan find it so easy to get more when they’re gone--more o’ the same mak’ as how ’tis. They’re as white as chalk--and chalk’s easy broke.”

He produced a large clasp-knife, and selecting a corkscrew from the multiplicity of small implements which were attached to it, drew out the cork with a flourish. But the sight of the knife, which had been a present from his former master, recalled graver thoughts, and it was in a harsh admonitory tone that he next spoke:--

“’Tis all very well for once,” he said; “this ’ere tay-party mun be overlooked for this time, I reckon; but there mun be no more on ’em. Do ye hear, lass? These ’ere woods is private, and Squire doesn’t intend no young wenches to go trapesin’ about in ’em o’ neets, talkin’ to the owls and that. I doubt ye don’t go lookin’ for bats and owls alone,” went on the keeper in a tone of ferocious banter. “I doubt some young chap----”

“Oh, don’t!” interrupted she, flushing fiery red, “I can’t bear it!”

And to his surprise and distress she burst into tears.

“Eh, don’t ye cry, my lass!” he exclaimed with deep concern. “Whatever have I said to hurt ye? I ax your pardon. I meant no harm--no harm at all. Give over, there’s a good lass.”

The girl sobbed on, with averted face. Robert looked distractedly round, and his glance fell upon the kettle which was boiling cheerfully.

“She’d like her tea,” he said, confidentially addressing this kettle--“a sup o’ tea ’ull put her to rights. Come we’ll make it in a minute.”

He reached for the teapot, rinsed it, dropped the contents of another little twisted paper into it, and poured in the boiling water.

“Don’t fill it quite full,” said the girl, turning sharply round, and displaying a tear-stained face which was nevertheless alight with interest.

“Oh, mustn’t I fill it? I always fill mine right up to the brim.”

“Have you got nobody to do for you then?”

“Nay, I’m a single man. I have lodgin’s over yonder, but I do for myself mostly.”

He paused looking at the girl curiously. “You never told me your name,” he said.

“You did never ax me,” she said with a dawning smile. “My name’s Rebecca Masters. I live down there, just at the foot of the hill, wi’ my grandmother.”

“Father and mother livin’?” inquired Formby.

“No, they died when I was quite a little thing.”

“My father’s livin’ right enough,” he volunteered. “He’s a fine old chap, my father is.”

“You’re Keeper Formby, bain’t ye?” inquired Rebecca with interest.

“Eh! ye know me, do ye? A good few folks do, I doubt.” Here Robert drew himself up; he felt what was due to himself as a public character and once more his voice took a graver inflection. “Now, see you, my lass, you mustn’t coom here again.”

“I’m to have nothin’, an’ to do nothin’,” broke out Rebecca passionately. “’Tis the only thing I care for, comin’ here where I did use to walk when--when I was happy.”

Robert paused with a potato midway to his mouth.

“Is he dead?” he inquired in a tone of respectful sympathy.

“Who?”

“Your young man.”

“No,” she returned sharply, adding unwillingly, as if in response to his expectant gaze, “he’s gone away.”

Robert pulled thoughtfully at his yellow beard, his blue eyes looking very kind and sympathetic the while.

“P’r’aps he’ll coom back,” he hazarded after a moment.

“No, no, never!” she cried brokenly; then in a curiously hard voice and with a sudden flash in her eyes--“What do I care if he does? He’s nothin’ to me now--nothin’. He’s gone an’ left me wi’out so much as a word--just took an’ walked off. And he’ve never wrote either--not so much as a word. He mid be dead only I do know he bain’t.”

Formby continued to contemplate her, still stroking that fine yellow beard of his.

“Poor lass! poor lass!” he said at last. “And ’tis a comfort to you, is it, to coom walkin’ here? Well, see you, my dear, you can coom here as often as ye like about this time. I’m pretty often here mysel’ then, and ’twouldn’t be same thing as if you was trespassin’. Ye mustn’t bring no young chaps here, though,” he added after a pause. “I doubt they’ll want to come, however little you might want them. You’re a bonny lass--as bonny a lass as ever I see in all my days!”

She heaved an impatient sigh.

“I did tell ’ee plain as I don’t want nobody,” she cried. “Much good it do do me to be nice when----”

“Is there no other man at all i’ th’ world?” inquired Robert.

“Not for me,” returned Rebecca.

Kneeling up, she began hastily to collect the tea-things, and Robert, leaning forward, pushed them towards her with willing clumsy hands. Then he rose to his feet.

“I’m fain to hear ye say there’s no other man, my wench,” he said, “but p’r’aps somebody ’ull coom.”

“What d’ye mean?”

“Somebody ’ull begin coortin’ ye afore long,” he returned with conviction; “it might just as well be me as another. If there’s nobody else, why not me?”

Rebecca now rose to her feet.

“I don’t want anybody,” she said.

“Somebody ’ull coom,” reiterated Robert, “an’ why not me? Coom, my lass, I ax ye straight. Will ye give me the first chance? Honest now! I like ye very well, an’ I doubt I’ll soon like ye better. ’Tisn’t in nature as a lass same as you can be for ever thinkin’ of a chap as has showed no more feelin’ nor your chap has. Ye must tak’ another soon or late. Tak’ me--ye’ll not rue it.”

“I can’t settle to do such a thing all in a hurry,” cried Rebecca petulantly. “I’ve never set eyes on you before.”

“Nor me on you,” returned Robert, “but I feel as if I could like ye very well. Give me first chance--I don’t ax for nought else. Let’s walk a bit an’ see how we get on; but you must give me your word not to take up wi’ nobody else while I’m on trial.”

“Oh, I can do that,” said she, and suddenly began to laugh. The little white teeth which had already called forth Robert’s admiration, showed bewitchingly; a dimple peeped out near the lip, another in the chin.

Robert gazed at her rapturously. “I like ye very well. Eh, my word, that I do! ’Tis a bargain--a proper bargain!”

He had possessed himself of one of her little sunburnt hands, and was shaking it up and down; as she laughed on, he drew her to him suddenly; but at that she started back, striking out at him like a little wild cat.

“None of that,” she cried, “I’ll never ha’ nothin’ to say to ye, if you do try to do things like that.”

“Eh, I ax your pardon,” faltered Robert, much abashed. “I didn’t mean no harm, my dear--’tisn’t reckoned no harm at all up i’ th’ North when folks begins coortin’. You did look so bonny--an’ I just reckoned ’twould give us a good start like.”

“I won’t have it then!” she broke out violently.

She stooped over her basket, packing away the remainder of the tea-things with a certain amount of unnecessary clatter. Robert, whose proffered help was curtly declined, stood by dejectedly till she had concluded, when, snatching up the basket, she darted suddenly from his side, and bending her head rushed into the track. He immediately followed her, carrying her hat which she had left suspended on the branch.

“You’re forgettin’ this,” he began diffidently. “Now then, lass, coom! This didn’t ought to make no difference. Will ye gie me a straight answer?”

Rebecca had deposited her basket on the ground and was putting on her hat with trembling fingers.

“I’ll think of it,” she stammered. “You must be respectful though.”

A dark flush overspread Robert’s face.

“I didn’t mean nought but what was respectful,” he said, “and ye’ve no need to think so much as that cooms to. It must be Yes or No. I could never bear shilly-shally work. Yes or No--take me or leave me--on trial of course. I only ax to be took on trial.”