Part 13

“Well, then, I will,” she said in a low voice. “I d’ ’low you are a good man, and as you do say I--I can’t always be so lonesome.”

She paused a moment with downcast eyes; then, taking up her basket again, turned away.

Robert stood stock still, watching her receding figure as it flitted away down the long alley. The sun had now set, and the woods were enveloped in even deeper mystery than that which had possessed them a little while ago; leafage and branch were inextricably mingled; yonder tiny object in the path might either be a rabbit or a stump; but Rebecca’s light dress defined her flying figure amid the gloom which otherwise would have engulfed her. Her shape showed white at first, then grey, as it receded farther, until at last it stood out for a moment almost black against the still glowing peep of sky which showed between the over-arching boughs at the farther end; then it vanished altogether. Even then Robert remained gazing after her, and at length he heaved a deep sigh.

“Yon chap,” he said, “him as was her sweetheart--I wonder if she was so stand-off wi’ him.”

The query seemed to open up an unpleasant train of thought; he struck at the sod with the heel of his heavy boot and frowned. “I’d ha’ summat to say to him if ever I comed across him,” he muttered; and then turned to continue on his beat.

“I never see a bonnier lass,” he said presently in a softer tone; “poor lass--how pitiful she looked at me; I could do wi’ her very well--’tis to be hoped as she’ll mak’ up her mind to do wi’ me.”

A bat twinkled round his head as he emerged into the open, a host of rabbits scurried away at his heavy footfall.

“And all they dumb things love her,” meditated Robert. “’Tis along of her bein’ so innocent-like! Eh, she’s a flower.”

Soon he, too, had left the woods behind, and was marching across the solitary down, grey at this hour save on the upper slopes, where the short grass still caught some faint remnant of the rosy after-glow. Night creatures were stirring in every thicket that he passed, and as the dull thud of his step fell upon the resonant ground it caused a flutter and commotion amid the drowsy children of the day, which had taken shelter there, deeming themselves secure from disturbance. A rustle of wings, a patter of tiny feet, a sleepy twitter, the shriek of a blackbird, the heavy beat of a startled pigeon’s wings as it darted blindly from its ambush--Robert held on his way without noticing any of these things, and presently darkness and liberty reigned undisturbed in the many-peopled waste.

For many subsequent evenings he visited Oakleigh Wood at the specified time, but, though he patrolled it from end to end, and strained his eyes in vain for a glimpse of Rebecca Masters, not so much as a flutter of her skirts rewarded his patient gaze.

Then, one day he suddenly heard an unwonted noise proceed from a corner of the copse. An owl was hooting intermittently; every now and then there came a pause, and then the cry would be sent forth again. Now, though the bats had been circling about for some time, it was as yet a little early for an owl to be abroad; and, struck by a sudden thought, Robert set off running in the direction whence the sound proceeded, imitating the call to the best of his ability. As he expected, he found Rebecca standing with her hands curved round her mouth, sending forth the eerie cry. Her back was towards him, and it was not until the ground vibrated beneath his rapid advance, that she perceived his advent.

“Dear, to be sure, how you did frighten me!” she cried, turning round with a little spring of terror.

“Did I?” said he. “You know you told me you often hooted to the owls and they answered ye back. I thought _I’d_ answer ye--I thought I’d coom.”

She did not speak, though he stood towering over her expectantly.

“Now I’m here must I bide?” he inquired.

“E-es, if you’ve a mind to.”

He thrust his hands into his pocket and drew out a cluster of half-ripened nuts.

“Ye can bite into ’em,” he said; “they’ll not hurt your teeth.”

Then he dived into his other pocket and held something towards her cautiously; curled up in his brown palm was a very small dormouse, sound asleep.

“’Tis for you,” he remarked briefly, “I’ve been carrying it about three days and more, knowin’ as you’d a likin’ for such things. ’Tis a mercy I’ve lit on ye at last, else it ’ud maybe be dead.”

This was Robert Formby’s mode of courting. It appeared to be successful, for Rebecca looked up at him with a bright smile.

“’Tis real good o’ ye,” she said. “There, I think it awful kind.”

“I’ve got some shells at home,” he went on, brightening up amazingly. “Do ye like shells?”

“Sea-shells?” she inquired.

“Ah! little shells as lays upo’ the beach when tide goes down. I picked up a two-three handfuls when I wer’ last at home.”

Rebecca looked up from the dormouse, which she had been breathing upon to warm it, as it lay curled in her hand. “Is your home near the sea then?”

“Aye--right among the sand-hills. I used to hear tide come roarin’ in last thing o’ nights and first thing o’ morns when I were a lad. My mother used to send me out to fetch in drift for our fire--there’s always a lot o’ wood an’ chips an’ straw an’ stuff washed up upon the shore, an’ I used to fill a basket in no time. Eh, in winter it used to be nippin’ cold! Many a time I’d find my sticks all froze together. ’Tis pretty nigh always sharp up yonder; always a wind blowin’ fresh and free and salty on your mouth.”

“Be it a nice place?”

“Well, I think it bonny--not same as this is bonny, though. There’s sand-hills runnin’ all along the shore, some big and some little, wi’ star-grass growin’ over ’em. An’ t’other side o’ the hills there’s the plain country--fields an’ that. Soil’s light, but crops does wonderful well, an’ there’s woods, and little dykes an’ pits nigh to the woods--eh, many’s the big snig I’ve catched!”--he paused, rubbing his hands with retrospective relish--“but ’tisn’t not to say bonny same as ’tis about here,” he concluded.

“There, it do seem strange as I’ve never so much as had a sight o’ the sea,” said Rebecca. “They d’ say there’s a good view o’ Poole Harbour from Bulbarrow, but I’ve never been there.”

“Happen I might take ye there some day,” suggested Robert. “Bulbarrow! that’s not so far.”

A certain startled look in the girl’s eyes warned him that he was going too fast and he hastily changed the subject, embarking on a somewhat incoherent account of his childish adventures among the sand-hills. He went on to describe the dunes themselves more minutely, and then the river which ran along the shore so sluggishly that, however blue and clear the distant sea might be, the waves that broke upon the beach were always brown and muddy.

“That’s not nice,” said Rebecca.

“Nay,” acquiesced Robert unwillingly; “nay, I suppose not, but I liked it well enough.”

“Better than this?” asked the girl quickly.

The man’s sea-blue eyes looked straight into her face.

“Not now,” he said.

Next day when he came to Oakleigh Wood at the usual hour he made straight for the spot where he had heard the fictitious owl-hooting on the previous evening; and his heart leaped high when a repetition of the sound fell upon his ear. A few of his rapid strides brought him to the spot: Rebecca was standing beneath the beech-tree, as before, but so as to face the path, and as he approached she dropped her hand by her side with a little laugh.

“I knowed it was you,” said Robert breathlessly.

“I did it a-purpose,” said she.

His face lit up with tender triumph. It was as though some timid creature of the woods had been coaxed within reach of a friendly hand; its shyness was vanishing, but dared he as yet take hold?

He asked himself this question many times during their subsequent meetings; the girl would prattle to him confidently enough, and seemed interested in all his doings, past and present, but an impenetrable reserve took possession of her whenever he tried to speak about herself, and once when he offered to accompany her home, she curtly refused.

“Folks ’ud get talkin’,” she said.

Midway in September, Robert thought it time to put matters on a more business-like footing. With every day that passed he had fallen more deeply in love, and it seemed to him only right that their intercourse should be recognised as courtship proper--the necessary preliminary to matrimony.

He approached the trysting-place with a serious face therefore, and, as was his way, came to the point at once.

“We’ve been walkin’ nigh upon seven week now,” he remarked. “Do ye think ye can do wi’ me, lass?”

Rebecca turned sharply towards him with that frightened look in her eyes which he had learned to accept as a warning. This time, however, he was not to be deterred from his purpose, and went on, very gently but steadily:--

“Ye took me on trial, ye know. Will I do, think you?”

“Do for what?” she faltered.

“For a husband, my dear. Ye’ve no need to be scared. I don’t want to hurry ye, but I think ’tis time to put the question straight. I’ve been coortin’ you reg’lar. Coom, will ye wed me?”

“Oh, no,” cried Rebecca, darting suddenly away from him, “no, no, never! I don’t want to get married--I don’t--I never said I would.”

Robert followed her and took her gently by the shoulders.

“There! No need to be so scared, my wench. Nobody ’ull force ye--don’t think it. I did but ax--but we’ll say no more about it--not for a bit, till ye get more used to the notion. I’m content to bide as we are. There now! Give over tremblin’. I’ll not hurt ye. See, you’re as free as the birds.”

He removed his hands from her shoulders and smiled: this woodland thing was only half-tamed after all; he must be patient with it still, but he dreamed of the time when it would come at his call and nestle in his breast.

Autumn advanced rapidly that year--a golden luxuriant autumn, ablaze with colour and lavish with fruit. The thorn-trees upon the downs were laden with berries, the bryony flung long graceful tendrils from side to side of the thickets, chains of transparent gold, bearing here a beryl, and there a topaz, and there a coral bead. The blackberry brambles displayed their wealth in more wholesale fashion, for their clusters were now entirely black and now red. The days were still hot enough to cause Robert to throw open coat and shirt-collar when he crossed the down, but the nights were cold; a thick dew coated the grass, almost a white frost. In the secret recesses of the copse, where the sun scarcely penetrated, lay silvery patches by day as well as by night.

One afternoon Robert came gaily to the accustomed meeting-place, but found no one there.

“I’m a bit early,” he said to himself; “I’ll have a look round and then come back. I think she’ll wait--ah, I reckon she’d wait a bit for me now. She’s gettin’ used to me. I reckon she’s gettin’ to take to me.”

Smiling to himself he left the wider track and turned aside into one of the narrower alleys before described. The leaves were yellowing here on either side; and the grass beneath his feet was covered with thick rime. As he edged himself along it, lost in meditation, he suddenly stopped short, gazing fixedly at the ground. Its hoary surface bore traces of recent footsteps: a man’s footsteps--and a woman’s. They stared up at Robert as it seemed to him, and all at once, though he had been glowing with health and happiness a moment before, he fell a-shivering.

He knew the little foot that made those tracks--only the week before he had laughed admiringly as he had marked its impression in the dew. A little foot--and a great one side by side with it. A man’s foot! How close they must have walked there in the narrow path!

Robert’s shivering fit ended as suddenly as it had begun, and the blood coursed madly through his veins--hot enough now--boiling hot. His fingers closed tightly round his gun and he rushed forward, brushing aside the close-growing branches, on, on, never stopping, yet keeping his eyes fixed all the time upon those tell-tale tracks. Now they were lost in one another, now they were interlaced, now quite distinct and separate, side by side. He stopped short when he came to the junction of the path with the wider one in which it merged, a path which traversed the wood from end to end. Robert cast a hasty glance to left and to right and stood transfixed. Yonder where the green roadway abutted on the down he saw two figures standing out dark against the lambent evening sky--a tall and slender woman, a taller man. As he gazed transfixed he saw the man stoop and gather the woman in his arms; and then the two parted, the man walking away across the grass, the woman turning to the right and disappearing into the wood.

“She’s comin’ to our beech-tree,” said Robert to himself; “she’s comin’ to meet me.”

And for the moment he saw the world red.

He too turned and began to stride fiercely towards the trysting-place. As he entered the wider track he stopped and looked to his gun. But one barrel was loaded. He twisted round his cartridge bag, and with impatient, trembling fingers found the cartridge for the other barrel.

He reached the beech-tree first and stood gripping his gun tight and glaring up the path, still through that red haze.

All at once he saw her coming, very slowly, with her head bent.

Half-hidden by the tree-trunk he waited, motionless as a statue, for her to give the accustomed signal; at the first sound of it he would shoot her through the heart.

She came quite near, raised her head, and sighed.

Then the keeper made a step towards her; his grip on the gun relaxed.

“You here already?” she asked, and turning towards him laid her little hands upon his breast. It was the first time she had ever voluntarily touched him, and the man started and flushed.

“Robert,” she said falteringly. “I--I--want to tell ’ee summat.”

Then his great chest heaved and the gun dropped from his hand.

“Eh, bless you for that word, my lass!” he cried brokenly. “I reckoned you meant to cheat me.”

“Then you do guess?” stammered Rebecca. “Oh, Robert--’tis Jim. He be come back--he only went away to get work after all.”

Robert’s heart leaped up with an odd mixture of anguish and joy. It was her sweetheart--“the only man in the world”. Who could blame the lass?

“Ah,” he said unsteadily, “coom back, is he? It’s right then. You be in the right to stick to him if he’ll stick to you.”

“Oh, e-es,” returned the girl quickly, “he’ve a-come back for that--he do want us to get married at once.”

A spasm crossed Robert’s face. “You’re not afeard now, I see,” he said.

“Oh, I can’t help it, I can’t help it,” she cried. “I love him best--I did al’ays love him best, but I--I--oh, Robert, I be so sorry!”

He drew down her hands and gently shook them; then he let them drop.

“It’s right,” he said, “ye’ve no need to fret yoursel’, my lass--you’re a good lass--I give ye j’y.”

He stooped and picked up his gun, half-absently unloading it, and dropping the cartridges into his pocket. Then he turned towards Rebecca again.

“I’ll say good afternoon,” he said.

Rebecca extended her hand with a sob, and he shook it once more.

“Good afternoon,” he repeated, and left her.

The sun had not yet quite set as he crossed the open space that lay between the woods proper and the outlying grove of fir-trees; its level shafts struck the ruddy trunks of these and ran along the lower branches, turning the very needles into fire; the aromatic scent gushed forth, strong and sweet. Yonder the downs were all ablaze in the same transitory glow; the distant hills were sapphire and amethyst, the nearer woods a very glory of autumn tints and sunset fires. Robert stood still as he emerged into the open; his heart was swelling to suffocation, his eyes smarting with unshed tears. They are children of nature, these burly Northmen, and he would have been fain to weep now, though he had not wept since that far-away day when, as a little lad, he had seen them lay his mother in the grave. A great loathing of the beauty and the radiance and the sweetness which had encompassed his dead dream, came upon him; in his actual physical oppression he thought with a sick longing of the pure tart air blowing over the dunes at home; the tall bleak dunes, all sober grey and green; the brown waves leaping in upon the tawny shore.

“I reckon I’ll shift,” said Robert.

And early on the following morning, when the yellowing leaves of Oakleigh Wood were catching the first rays of the sun, Robert Formby took to the road, with his face turned northwards.

THE CARRIER’S TALE.

“E-es, I d’ ’low I do see a-many queer things while I be a-goin’ o’ my rounds, year in, year out, every Tuesday an’ Friday so reg’lar as clockwork--only when Christmas Day do fall on a Friday, or Boxin’ Day, an’ then I do have to put it off. E-es, I do often say to Whitefoot when he an’ me be joggin’ along; ‘Whitefoot,’ I d’ say, ‘if you an’ me was to get a-talkin’ of all we’ve a-seen in our day, Lard! we could tell some funny tales.’ Whitefoot do seem to take jist so much notice as what I do do--he be the knowin’est mare in the country. There! ye midn’t notice as he be a-goin’ along a bit unwillin’ to-day, same as if he hadn’t a-got much heart in him; ’tis because he knows so well as me what day ’tis--Friday, d’ye see? He d’ know he’ll have to bring back a heavy load. Fridays we calls at Brewery for two or three cases o’ bottled beer--we do bring ’em full o’ Fridays up to Old’s, at Graychurch--right a-top o’ the hill--an’ we do fetch back empties o’ Tuesdays, an’ then ye should jist see Whitefoot a-steppin’ along.

“E-es, we do see all sorts o’ things, an’ we do hear all kind o’ talk. Miffs do go on many a time under that there wold green shed. When I do hear folks a-havin’ words one wi’ t’other, I do never take notice if I can help it. Sometimes they’ll be for drawin’ me in. ‘Don’t ye think so, Jan?’ one ’ull say; and then another ’ull go, ‘I’m sure Jan ’ull agree wi’ I’. An’ I do always make the same answer, ‘Settle it among yourselves, good folks,’ says I; ‘I don’t take zides wi’ one nor yet wi’ t’other. ’Tis my business for to drive, an’ I do do that,’ I do tell ’em, ‘and don’t interfere wi’ nothin’ else.’

“One day I d’ mind, Mrs. Collins, what fell out wi’ her darter for marryin’ some chap down to Bere--dalled if she didn’t meet the young woman plump in my cart! And they hadn’t been speaking for above a year.

“You see, ’twas this way. I took up Mary--that’s the darter--an’ her little child--a hinfant it was, not above four or five month old; I took ’em up first, an’ we was goin’ along the road Branston-ways, an’ it was gettin’ darkish when the wold lady met us.

“‘Can you make room for me, Jan?’ she says. ‘I bain’t so young as I was, an’ I’ve a-got a pair o’ new boots what do fair lame me.’

“‘To be sure, mum,’ says I. ‘Up wi’ ye; you can set along of I,’ I says, ‘here in front. There bain’t much room under the shed.’

“Well, she sits her down, an’ all of a minute the little baby under the shed begins a-cryin’, an’ poor Mary she begins a-hushin’ of it an’ a-talkin’ to it; and soon as ever the wold ’ooman hears her voice she gives a great start what very nearly throws her off the seat.

“‘Studdy, mum,’ says I; ‘if you do go a-jumpin’ up an’ down like that we’ll be a-droppin’ of ye into the road,’ I says.

“She made no answer and never turned her head.

“Well, the baby kep’ on a-cryin’ and a-cryin’--it had been vaccinated or some such thing--an’ the mother kep’ hushin’ it, an’ at last the wold ’ooman couldn’t hold out no longer.

“‘Give I that child, Mary,’ says she, sharp-like. ‘I d’ ’low you don’t know how to hold it,’ she says. ‘’Tis a shame to let a pore little hinfant scream like that. I d’ ’low ’twill do itself a mischief.’

“‘Oh, mother,’ says poor Mary; an’ she begins to cry herself as she hands over the child.

“Well, soon as ever Mrs. Collins had a-got hold o’ the little thing, an’ got the little face up again hers an’ began singin’ to it, an pattin’ it, an’ rockin’ it, it _did_ stop cryin’--’twas a knowin’ little thing, that baby, I did al’ays say afterwards, for ’twas that done the job. The wold body was so pleased as could be.

“‘Didn’t I say you didn’t know how to hold it?’ says she. ‘’Tis a very fine child too,’ she says.

“And then, ‘oh, mother,’ says Mary, ‘I did so want ye to see it.’

“And so they made friends straight off, and Mary went home wi’ her mother to tea.

“Coortin’? Well, we don’t see so much o’ that--not these times. The young chaps be all for bicylin’ these days; they wouldn’t be bothered wi’ travellin’ in my cart. But I do mind one queer thing what happened many years ago now--dally! ’twas the very queerest thing as ever I knowed, or did happen in these parts.

“’Twas one Tuesday. I wur jist puttin’ in Whitefoot, an’ a few o’ my fares was a-standin’ about waitin’ for I to be ready to start, when I see a great big fellow marchin’ down the hill from Old’s.

“‘Goin’ Branston-way?’ says he with a nod to I.

“‘E-es,’ I says, ‘I be goin’ Branston-way. Be you a stranger?’ says I. ‘All the folks as lives about here do know as Branston is my way.’

“‘I’m a stranger and I’m not a stranger,’ says he. ‘My folks used to live here. I used to live with my grandfather up yonder at Whitethorns,’ he says. ‘He was called old Jesse Taylor--d’ye mind him?’

“‘I mind him very well,’ says I. ‘A fine wold fellow.’

“‘Well, I come here to have a look at his grave,’ says the young chap. ‘’Twas a notion I had.’

“‘Let me see,’ says I, turnin’ round to look at ’en as I were a-climbin’ into the cart, for Whitefoot was hitched by this time, ‘let me see who mid you be then? Wold Taylor had nigh upon farty grandchildren--I heard ’en say so many a time.’