VI

The boys were playing ball in the stables, but she did not feel as if she

wanted to romp with them. There was a stillness and a sweetness abroad

which penetrated and absorbed her. She moved towards the paddock gate; the

pony and the donkey came towards her, and she rubbed their muzzles in

turn. It was a pleasure to touch anything, especially anything alive. She

even noticed that the elm trees were strangely tall and still against the

calm sky, and the rich odour of some carnations which came through the

bushes from the pleasure-ground excited her; the scent of earth and leaves

tingled in her, and the cawing of the rooks coming home took her soul away

skyward in an exquisite longing; she was, at the same time, full of

romantic love for the earth, and of a desire to mix herself with the

innermost essence of things. The beauty of the evening and the sea breeze

instilled a sensation of immortal health, and she wondered if a young man

came to her as young men came to the great ladies in Sarah's books, how it

would be to talk in the dusk, seeing the bats flitting and the moon rising

through the branches.

The family was absent from Woodview, and she was free to enjoy the beauty

of every twilight and every rising moon for still another week. But she

wearied for a companion. Sarah and Grover were far too grand to walk out

with her; and Margaret had a young man who came to fetch her, and in their

room at night she related all he had said. But for Esther there was

nothing to do all the long summer evenings but to sit at the kitchen

window sewing. Her hands fell on her lap, and her heart heaved a sigh of

weariness. In all this world there was nothing for her to do but to

continue her sewing or to go for a walk on the hill. She was tired of that

weary hill! But she could not sit in the kitchen till bedtime. She might

meet the old shepherd coming home with his sheep, and she put a piece of

bread in her pocket for his dogs and strolled up the hill-side. Margaret

had gone down to the Gardens. One of these days a young man would come to

take her out. What would he be like? She laughed the thought away. She did

not think that any young man would bother much about her. Happening at

that moment to look round, she saw a man coming through the hunting gate.

His height and shoulders told her that he was William. "Trying to find

Sarah," she thought. "I must not let him think I am waiting for him." She

continued her walk, wondering if he were following, afraid to look round.

At last she fancied she could hear footsteps; her heart beat faster. He

called to her.

"I think Sarah has gone to the Gardens," she said, turning round.

"You always keep reminding me of Sarah. There's nothing between us;

anything there ever was is all off long ago.... Are you going for a walk?"

She was glad of the chance to get a mouthful of fresh air, and they went

towards the hunting gate. William held it open and she passed through.

The plantations were enclosed by a wooden fence, and beyond them the bare

downs rose hill after hill. On the left the land sloped into a shallow

valley sown with various crops; and the shaws about Elliot's farm were the

last trees. Beyond the farmhouse the downs ascended higher and higher,

treeless, irreclaimable, scooped into long patriarchal solitudes, thrown

into wild crests.

There was a smell of sheep in the air, and the flock trotted past them in

good order, followed by the shepherd, a huge hat and a crook in his hand,

and two shaggy dogs at his heels. A brace of partridges rose out of the

sainfoin, and flew down the hills; and watching their curving flight

Esther and William saw the sea under the sun-setting, and the string of

coast towns.

"A lovely evening, isn't it?"

Esther acquiesced; and tempted by the warmth of the grass they sat down,

and the mystery of the twilight found way into their consciousness.

"We shan't have any rain yet awhile."

"How do you know?"

"I'll tell you," William answered, eager to show his superior knowledge.

"Look due south-west, straight through that last dip in that line of

hills. Do you see anything?"

"No, I can see nothing," said Esther, after straining her eyes for a few

moments.

"I thought not.... Well, if it was going to rain you would see the Isle of

Wight."

For something to say, and hoping to please, Esther asked him where the

race-course was.

"There, over yonder. I can't show you the start, a long way behind that

hill, Portslade way; then they come right along by that gorse and finish

up by Truly barn--you can't see Truly barn from here, that's Thunder's

barrow barn; they go quite half a mile farther."

"And does all that land belong to the Gaffer?"

"Yes, and a great deal more, too; but this down land isn't worth much--not

more than about ten shillings an acre."

"And how many acres are there?"

"Do you mean all that we can see?"

"Yes."

"The Gaffer's property reaches to Southwick Hill, and it goes north a long

way. I suppose you don't know that all this piece, all that lies between

us and that barn yonder, once belonged to my family."

"To your family?"

"Yes, the Latches were once big swells; in the time of my

great-grandfather the Barfields could not hold their heads as high as the

Latches. My great-grandfather had a pot of money, but it all went."

"Racing?"

"A good bit, I've no doubt. A rare 'ard liver, cock-fighting, 'unting,

'orse-racing from one year's end to the other. Then after 'im came my

grandfather; he went to the law, and a sad mess he made of it--went

stony-broke and left my father without a sixpence; that is why mother

didn't want me to go into livery. The family 'ad been coming down for

generations, and mother thought that I was born to restore it; and so I

was, but not as she thought, by carrying parcels up and down the King's

Road."

Esther looked at William in silent admiration, and, feeling that he had

secured an appreciative listener, he continued his monologue regarding the

wealth and rank his family had formerly held, till a heavy dew forced them

to their feet. In front of them was the moon, and out of the forlorn sky

looked down the misted valleys; the crests of the hills were still touched

with light, and lights flew from coast town to coast town, weaving a

luminous garland.

The sheep had been folded, and seeing them lying in the greyness of this

hill-side, and beyond them the massive moonlit landscape and the vague

sea, Esther suddenly became aware, as she had never done before, of the

exceeding beauty of the world. Looking up in William's face, she said--

"Oh, how beautiful!"

As they descended the drove-way their feet raised the chalk, and William

said--

"This is bad for Silver Braid; we shall want some more rain in a day or

two.... Let's come for a walk round the farm," he said suddenly. "The farm

belongs to the Gaffer, but he's let the Lodge to a young fellow called

Johnson. He's the chap that Peggy used to go after--there was awful rows

about that, and worse when he forestalled the Gaffer about Egmont."

The conversation wandered agreeably, and they became more conscious of

each other. He told her all he knew about the chap who had jilted Miss

Mary, and the various burlesque actresses at the Shoreham Gardens who had

captivated Ginger's susceptible heart. While listening she suddenly became

aware that she had never been so happy before. Now all she had endured

seemed accidental; she felt that she had entered into the permanent; and

in the midst of vague but intense sensations William showed her the

pigeon-house with all the blue birds dozing on the tiles, a white one here

and there. They visited the workshop, the forge, and the old cottages

where the bailiff and the shepherd lived; and all this inanimate

nature--the most insignificant objects--seemed inspired, seemed like

symbols of her emotion.

They left the farm and wandered on the high road until a stile leading to

a cornfield beguiled and then delayed their steps.

The silence of the moonlight was clear and immense; and they listened to

the trilling of the nightingale in the copse hard by. First they sought to

discover the brown bird in the branches of the poor hedge, and then the

reason of the extraordinary emotion in their hearts. It seemed that all

life was beating in that moment, and they were as it were inflamed to

reach out their hands to life and to grasp it together. Even William

noticed that. And the moon shone on the mist that had gathered on the long

marsh lands of the foreshore. Beyond the trees the land wavered out into

down land, the river gleamed and intensely.

This moment was all the poetry of their lives. The striking of a match to

light his pipe, which had gone out, put the music to flight, and all along

the white road he continued his monologue, interrupted only by the

necessity of puffing at his pipe.

"Mother says that if I had twopence worth of pride in me I wouldn't have

consented to put on the livery; but what I says to mother is, 'What's the

use of having pride if you haven't money?' I tells her that I am rotten

with pride, but my pride is to make money. I can't see that the man what

is willing to remain poor all his life has any pride at all.... But, Lord!

I have argued with mother till I'm sick; she can see nothing further than

the livery; that's what women are--they are that short-sighted.... A lot

of good it would have done me to have carried parcels all my life, and

when I could do four mile an hour no more, to be turned out to die in the

ditch and be buried by the parish. 'Not good enough,' says I. 'If that's

your pride, mother, you may put it in your pipe and smoke it, and as you

'aven't got a pipe, perhaps behind the oven will do as well,'--that's what

I said to her. I saw well enough there was nothing for me but service, and

I means to stop here until I can get on three or four good things and then

retire into a nice comfortable public-house and do my own betting."

"You would give up betting then?"

"I'd give up backing 'orses, if you mean that.... What I should like would

be to get on to a dozen good things at long prices--half-a-dozen like

Silver Braid would do it. For a thousand or fifteen hundred pounds I could

have the 'Red Lion,' and just inside my own bar I could do a hundred-pound

book on all the big races."

Esther listened, hearing interminable references to jockeys, publicans,

weights, odds, and the certainty, if he had the "Red Lion," of being able

to get all Joe Walker's betting business away from him. Allusions to the

police, and the care that must be taken not to bet with anyone who had not

been properly introduced, frightened her; but her fears died in the

sensation of his arm about her waist, and the music that the striking of a

match had put to flight had begun again in the next plantation, and it

began again in their hearts. But if he were going to marry Sarah! The idea

amused him; he laughed loudly, and they walked up the avenue, his face

bent over hers.