RECOGNITION—A TIMID GIRL
Bathsheba withdrew into the shade. She scarcely knew whether most to be
amused at the singularity of the meeting, or to be concerned at its
awkwardness. There was room for a little pity, also for a very little
exultation: the former at his position, the latter at her own.
Embarrassed she was not, and she remembered Gabriel’s declaration of
love to her at Norcombe only to think she had nearly forgotten it.
“Yes,” she murmured, putting on an air of dignity, and turning again to
him with a little warmth of cheek; “I do want a shepherd. But——”
“He’s the very man, ma’am,” said one of the villagers, quietly.
Conviction breeds conviction. “Ay, that ’a is,” said a second,
decisively.
“The man, truly!” said a third, with heartiness.”
“He’s all there!” said number four, fervidly.”
“Then will you tell him to speak to the bailiff,” said Bathsheba.
All was practical again now. A summer eve and loneliness would have
been necessary to give the meeting its proper fulness of romance.
The bailiff was pointed out to Gabriel, who, checking the palpitation
within his breast at discovering that this Ashtoreth of strange report
was only a modification of Venus the well-known and admired, retired
with him to talk over the necessary preliminaries of hiring.
The fire before them wasted away. “Men,” said Bathsheba, “you shall
take a little refreshment after this extra work. Will you come to the
house?”
“We could knock in a bit and a drop a good deal freer, Miss, if so be
ye’d send it to Warren’s Malthouse,” replied the spokesman.
Bathsheba then rode off into the darkness, and the men straggled on to
the village in twos and threes—Oak and the bailiff being left by the
rick alone.
“And now,” said the bailiff, finally, “all is settled, I think, about
yer coming, and I am going home-along. Good-night to ye, shepherd.”
“Can you get me a lodging?” inquired Gabriel.
“That I can’t, indeed,” he said, moving past Oak as a Christian edges
past an offertory-plate when he does not mean to contribute. “If you
follow on the road till you come to Warren’s Malthouse, where they are
all gone to have their snap of victuals, I dare say some of ’em will
tell you of a place. Good-night to ye, shepherd.”
The bailiff, who showed this nervous dread of loving his neighbours as
himself, went up the hill, and Oak walked on to the village, still
astonished at the rencontre with Bathsheba, glad of his nearness to
her, and perplexed at the rapidity with which the unpractised girl of
Norcombe had developed into the supervising and cool woman here. But
some women only require an emergency to make them fit for one.
Obliged, to some extent, to forgo dreaming in order to find the way, he
reached the churchyard, and passed round it under the wall where
several old chestnuts grew. There was a wide margin of grass along
here, and Gabriel’s footsteps were deadened by its softness, even at
this indurating period of the year. When abreast of a trunk which
appeared to be the oldest of the old, he became aware that a figure was
standing behind it on the other side. Gabriel did not pause in his
walk, and in another moment he accidentally kicked a loose stone. The
noise was enough to disturb the motionless stranger, who started and
assumed a careless position.
It was a slim girl, rather thinly clad.
“Good-night to you,” said Gabriel, heartily.
“Good-night,” said the girl to Gabriel.
The voice was unexpectedly attractive; it was the low and dulcet note
suggestive of romance; common in descriptions, rare in experience.
“I’ll thank you to tell me if I’m in the way for Warren’s Malthouse?”
Gabriel resumed, primarily to gain the information, indirectly to get
more of the music.
“Quite right. It’s at the bottom of the hill. And do you know——” The
girl hesitated and then went on again. “Do you know how late they keep
open the ‘Buck’s Head Inn?’” She seemed to be won by Gabriel’s
heartiness, as Gabriel had been won by her modulations.
“I don’t know where the ‘Buck’s Head’ is, or anything about it. Do you
think of going there to-night?”
“Yes——.” The female again paused. There was no necessity for any
continuance of speech, and the fact that she did add more seemed to
proceed from an unconscious desire to show unconcern by making a
remark, which is noticeable in the ingenuous when they are acting by
stealth. “You are not a Weatherbury man?” she said, timorously.
“I am not. I am the new shepherd—just arrived.”
“Only a shepherd—and you seem almost a farmer by your ways.”
“Only a shepherd,” Gabriel repeated, in a dull cadence of finality.
“His thoughts were directed to the past, his eyes to the feet of the
girl, and for the first time he saw lying there a bundle of some sort.
She may have perceived the direction of his face, for she said
coaxingly,—
“You won’t say anything in the parish about having seen me here, will
you—at least, not for a day or two?”
“I won’t if you wish me not to,” said Oak.
“Thank you, indeed,” the other replied. “I am rather poor, and I don’t
want people to know anything about me.” Then she was silent and
shivered.
“You ought to have a cloak on such a cold night,” Gabriel observed. “I
would advise you to get indoors.”
“O no! Would you mind going on and leaving me? I thank you much for
what you have told me.”
“I will go on,” he said; adding hesitatingly,—“Since you are not very
well off, perhaps you would accept this trifle from me. It is only a
shilling, but it is all I have to spare.”
“Yes, I will take it,” said the stranger, gratefully.
She extended her hand; Gabriel his. In feeling for each other’s palms
in the gloom before the money could be passed, a minute incident
occurred which told much. Gabriel’s fingers alighted on the young
woman’s wrist. It was beating with a throb of tragic intensity. He had
frequently felt the same quick, hard beat in the femoral artery of his
lambs when overdriven. It suggested a consumption too great of a
vitality which, to judge from her figure and stature, was already too
little.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“But there is?”
“No, no, no! Let your having seen me be a secret!”
“Very well; I will. Good-night, again.”
“Good-night.”
The young girl remained motionless by the tree and Gabriel descended
into the village. He fancied that he had felt himself in the penumbra
of a very deep sadness when touching that slight and fragile creature.
But wisdom lies in moderating mere impressions, and Gabriel endeavoured
to think little of this.