Between six and seven o’clock in the evening of the same day a young man
descended the hills into the valley of the Exe, at a point about midway
between Silverthorn and the residence of Margery’s grandmother, four
miles to the east.
He was a thoroughbred son of the country, as far removed from what is
known as the provincial, as the latter is from the out-and-out gentleman
of culture. His trousers and waistcoat were of fustian, almost white,
but he wore a jacket of old-fashioned blue West-of-England cloth, so well
preserved that evidently the article was relegated to a box whenever its
owner engaged in such active occupations as he usually pursued. His
complexion was fair, almost florid, and he had scarcely any beard.
A novel attraction about this young man, which a glancing stranger would
know nothing of, was a rare and curious freshness of atmosphere that
appertained to him, to his clothes, to all his belongings, even to the
room in which he had been sitting. It might almost have been said that
by adding him and his implements to an over-crowded apartment you made it
healthful. This resulted from his trade. He was a lime-burner; he
handled lime daily; and in return the lime rendered him an incarnation of
salubrity. His hair was dry, fair, and frizzled, the latter possibly by
the operation of the same caustic agent. He carried as a walking-stick a
green sapling, whose growth had been contorted to a corkscrew pattern by
a twining honeysuckle.
As he descended to the level ground of the water-meadows he cast his
glance westward, with a frequency that revealed him to be in search of
some object in the distance. It was rather difficult to do this, the low
sunlight dazzling his eyes by glancing from the river away there, and
from the ‘carriers’ (as they were called) in his path—narrow artificial
brooks for conducting the water over the grass. His course was something
of a zigzag from the necessity of finding points in these carriers
convenient for jumping. Thus peering and leaping and winding, he drew
near the Exe, the central river of the miles-long mead.
A moving spot became visible to him in the direction of his scrutiny,
mixed up with the rays of the same river. The spot got nearer, and
revealed itself to be a slight thing of pink cotton and shepherd’s plaid,
which pursued a path on the brink of the stream. The young man so shaped
his trackless course as to impinge on the path a little ahead of this
coloured form, and when he drew near her he smiled and reddened. The
girl smiled back to him; but her smile had not the life in it that the
young man’s had shown.
‘My dear Margery—here I am!’ he said gladly in an undertone, as with a
last leap he crossed the last intervening carrier, and stood at her side.
‘You’ve come all the way from the kiln, on purpose to meet me, and you
shouldn’t have done it,’ she reproachfully returned.
‘We finished there at four, so it was no trouble; and if it had been—why,
I should ha’ come.’
A small sigh was the response.
‘What, you are not even so glad to see me as you would be to see your dog
or cat?’ he continued. ‘Come, Mis’ess Margery, this is rather hard.
But, by George, how tired you dew look! Why, if you’d been up all night
your eyes couldn’t be more like tea-saucers. You’ve walked tew far,
that’s what it is. The weather is getting warm now, and the air of these
low-lying meads is not strengthening in summer. I wish you lived up on
higher ground with me, beside the kiln. You’d get as strong as a hoss!
Well, there; all that will come in time.’
Instead of saying yes, the fair maid repressed another sigh.
‘What, won’t it, then?’ he said.
‘I suppose so,’ she answered. ‘If it is to be, it is.’
‘Well said—very well said, my dear.’
‘And if it isn’t to be it isn’t.’
‘What? Who’s been putting that into your head? Your grumpy granny, I
suppose. However, how is she? Margery, I have been thinking to-day—in
fact, I was thinking it yesterday and all the week—that really we might
settle our little business this summer.’
‘This summer?’ she repeated, with some dismay. ‘But the partnership?
Remember it was not to be till after that was completed.’
‘There I have you!’ said he, taking the liberty to pat her shoulder, and
the further liberty of advancing his hand behind it to the other. ‘The
partnership is settled. ’Tis “Vine and Hayward, lime-burners,” now, and
“Richard Vine” no longer. Yes, Cousin Richard has settled it so, for a
time at least, and ’tis to be painted on the carts this week—blue
letters—yaller ground. I’ll boss one of ’em, and drive en round to your
door as soon as the paint is dry, to show ’ee how it looks?’
‘Oh, I am sure you needn’t take that trouble, Jim; I can see it quite
well enough in my mind,’ replied the young girl—not without a flitting
accent of superiority.
‘Hullo,’ said Jim, taking her by the shoulders, and looking at her hard.
‘What dew that bit of incivility mean? Now, Margery, let’s sit down
here, and have this cleared.’ He rapped with his stick upon the rail of
a little bridge they were crossing, and seated himself firmly, leaving a
place for her.
‘But I want to get home-along,’ dear Jim, she coaxed.
‘Fidgets. Sit down, there’s a dear. I want a straightforward answer, if
you please. In what month, and on what day of the month, will you marry
me?’
‘O, Jim,’ she said, sitting gingerly on the edge, ‘that’s too
plain-spoken for you yet. Before I look at it in that business light I
should have to—to—’
‘But your father has settled it long ago, and you said it should be as
soon as I became a partner. So, dear, you must not mind a plain man
wanting a plain answer. Come, name your time.’
She did not reply at once. What thoughts were passing through her brain
during the interval? Not images raised by his words, but whirling
figures of men and women in red and white and blue, reflected from a
glassy floor, in movements timed by the thrilling beats of the Drum
Polka. At last she said slowly, ‘Jim, you don’t know the world, and what
a woman’s wants can be.’
‘But I can make you comfortable. I am in lodgings as yet, but I can have
a house for the asking; and as to furniture, you shall choose of the best
for yourself—the very best.’
‘The best! Far are you from knowing what that is!’ said the little
woman. ‘There be ornaments such as you never dream of; work-tables that
would set you in amaze; silver candlesticks, tea and coffee pots that
would dazzle your eyes; tea-cups, and saucers, gilded all over with
guinea-gold; heavy velvet curtains, gold clocks, pictures, and
looking-glasses beyond your very dreams. So don’t say I shall have the
best.’
‘H’m!’ said Jim gloomily; and fell into reflection. ‘Where did you get
those high notions from, Margery?’ he presently inquired. ‘I’ll swear
you hadn’t got ’em a week ago.’ She did not answer, and he added, ‘_Yew_
don’t expect to have such things, I hope; deserve them as you may?’
‘I was not exactly speaking of what I wanted,’ she said severely. ‘I
said, things a woman _could_ want. And since you wish to know what I
_can_ want to quite satisfy me, I assure you I can want those!’
‘You are a pink-and-white conundrum, Margery,’ he said; ‘and I give you
up for to-night. Anybody would think the devil had showed you all the
kingdoms of the world since I saw you last!’
She reddened. ‘Perhaps he has!’ she murmured; then arose, he following
her; and they soon reached Margery’s home, approaching it from the lower
or meadow side—the opposite to that of the garden top, where she had met
the Baron.
‘You’ll come in, won’t you, Jim?’ she said, with more ceremony than
heartiness.
‘No—I think not to-night,’ he answered. ‘I’ll consider what you’ve
said.’
‘You are very good, Jim,’ she returned lightly. ‘Good-bye.’