THE next day the hay-mowing was completed, and a large portion of the
hay already made carted away to be stacked. Kenelm acquitted himself
with a credit not less praiseworthy than had previously won Mr.
Saunderson’s approbation. But instead of rejecting as before the
acquaintance of Miss Jessie Wiles, he contrived towards noon to place
himself near to that dangerous beauty, and commenced conversation. “I am
afraid I was rather rude to you yesterday, and I want to beg pardon.”
“Oh,” answered the girl, in that simple intelligible English which
is more frequent among our village folks nowadays than many popular
novelists would lead us into supposing, “oh, I ought to ask pardon for
taking a liberty in speaking to you. But I thought you’d feel strange,
and I intended it kindly.”
“I’m sure you did,” returned Kenelm, chivalrously raking her portion of
hay as well as his own, while he spoke. “And I want to be good friends
with you. It is very near the time when we shall leave off for
dinner, and Mrs. Saunderson has filled my pockets with some excellent
beef-sandwiches, which I shall be happy to share with you, if you do not
object to dine with me here, instead of going home for your dinner.”
The girl hesitated, and then shook her head in dissent from the
proposition.
“Are you afraid that your neighbours will think it wrong?”
Jessie curled up her lips with a pretty scorn, and said, “I don’t much
care what other folks say, but is n’t it wrong?”
“Not in the least. Let me make your mind easy. I am here but for a day
or two: we are not likely ever to meet again; but, before I go, I should
be glad if I could do you some little service.” As he spoke he had
paused from his work, and, leaning on his rake, fixed his eyes, for the
first time attentively, on the fair haymaker.
Yes, she was decidedly pretty,--pretty to a rare degree: luxuriant brown
hair neatly tied up, under a straw hat doubtless of her own plaiting;
for, as a general rule, nothing more educates the village maid for the
destinies of flirt than the accomplishment of straw-plaiting. She had
large, soft blue eyes, delicate small features, and a complexion more
clear in its healthful bloom than rural beauties generally retain
against the influences of wind and sun. She smiled and slightly coloured
as he gazed on her, and, lifting her eyes, gave him one gentle, trustful
glance, which might have bewitched a philosopher and deceived a _roue_.
And yet Kenelm by that intuitive knowledge of character which is often
truthfulest where it is least disturbed by the doubts and cavils of
acquired knowledge, felt at once that in that girl’s mind coquetry,
perhaps unconscious, was conjoined with an innocence of anything
worse than coquetry as complete as a child’s. He bowed his head, in
withdrawing his gaze, and took her into his heart as tenderly as if she
had been a child appealing to it for protection.
“Certainly,” he said inly, “certainly I must lick Tom Bowles; yet stay,
perhaps after all she likes him.”
“But,” he continued aloud, “you do not see how I can be of any service
to you. Before I explain, let me ask which of the men in the field is
Tom Bowles?”
“Tom Bowles?” exclaimed Jessie, in a tone of surprise and alarm, and
turning pale as she looked hastily round; “you frightened me, sir: but
he is not here; he does not work in the fields. But how came you to hear
of Tom Bowles?”
“Dine with me and I’ll tell you. Look, there is a quiet place in yon
corner under the thorn-trees by that piece of water. See, they are
leaving off work: I will go for a can of beer, and then, pray, let me
join you there.”
Jessie paused for a moment as if doubtful still; then again glancing at
Kenelm, and assured by the grave kindness of his countenance, uttered a
scarce audible assent and moved away towards the thorn-trees.
As the sun now stood perpendicularly over their heads, and the hand
of the clock in the village church tower, soaring over the hedgerows,
reached the first hour after noon, all work ceased in a sudden silence:
some of the girls went back to their homes; those who stayed grouped
together, apart from the men, who took their way to the shadows of a
large oak-tree in the hedgerow, where beer kegs and cans awaited them.