Joyce had been gone a week before Mr. Trayton Harrod arrived. I had
preserved my gloomy silence on the subject of his coming, although I
was dying to know all about it; and as father had given in to my mood
by telling me no particulars, it so happened that I did not even know
the exact day of his arrival.
It was a Monday and baking-day. There was plenty to do now that
Joyce was gone, and I did not do her work as she did it. Mother was
constantly reminding me of the fact. It did not make me do the work any
quicker, or like doing it any better; but, of course, it was natural
that mother should see the difference, and remark on it.
At last, however, the baking and mending and dusting was all done, and
mother gave me leave to take a little basket of victuals to an old
couple who lived down by the sea. I had been very miserable, feeling
pitiably how little I had done at present towards fulfilling my promise
to Joyce of trying to make things pleasant, and sadly conscious that I
was not in mother's good books, or for that matter, in father's either,
for which I am afraid I cared more. He had scarcely spoken a word to me
all the week.
Poor father! Why did I not remember that it was far worse for him
than it was for me? But as I ran across the lawn, with Taff yelping
at my heels, I do not believe that I gave a thought to his anxieties,
although I must have seen his dear old head bending over the farm
account-books through the study window as I passed. I was so glad to
have done with the house-keeping that I forgot everything else in the
tender sunshine of a May afternoon that was flecking the marsh with
spots of light, shifting as the soft clouds shifted upon the blue sky.
How could any troubles matter, either my own or other people's, when
there was a chance of being within scent of the sea-weed and within
taste of the salt sea-brine?
I whistled the St. Bernard, and we set off on a race down the cliff. My
hat flew off, I caught it by the strings; all the thickness of my hair
uncoiled itself and rippled down my back. I felt the hair-pins tumble
out one by one, and knew that a great curly, red mass must be floating
in the wind; but I had a hundred yards to run yet before I came to the
elms at the foot of the hill--and Taff was hard to beat.
Alongside the runnels that hemmed the lane, a ribbon, bluer than the
sea or sky, ran bordering the green; it was made up of thousands of
delicate veronica blossoms, opening merry eyes to the sun, and the red
campion dotted the bank under the cliff, and the cuckoo flowers nodded
their pale clusters on edges of little dikes. But I did not see the
flowers just then; I ran on and on, jumping the gate that divides the
marsh from the road almost as Taffy jumped it himself--on and on along
the dike, without stopping, till I came to the first thorn-tree that
grows upon the bank; and there, at last, I was fain to throw myself
down to rest, out of breath and trembling.
What a run it was! I remember it to this day. It drove away all my
ill-temper; and as I sat there twisting up my hair again, and laughing
at Taff, who understood the joke just as if he were a human being, I
had no more thought of anything ajar than had the white May-trees that
dotted the marsh all along the brown banks of the dikes, and lay so
harmoniously against the faint blue of the sky, where it sank into the
deeper blue of the sea beyond.
Dimly, beyond the flaxen stretch of plain that was slowly flushing
with the growing green, one could see the little waves rippling out
across the yellow sands, with the sunlight flashing upon their crests;
over the meadows red and white cattle wandered, and little spotless
lambs played with their mothers on the fresher banks; tufts of tender
primroses grew close to my hand, fish leaped in the still gray waters
of the dike, birds sang in the belt of trees under the Manor-house,
lapwing made strange bleating and chirping sounds amid the newly
sprouting growth of the rushes that mingled softly with the faint gold
of last year's mown crop; the cuckoo's note came now and then through
the air. The spring had come at last.
I tied on my hat again and jumped up. I began to sing, too, as I
walked. I was merry. What with Captain Forrester, and what with the
trouble about the bailiff, and what with Joyce's departure, and the
household duties falling upon me, I had not been out among my favorite
haunts for a long time, and the sight of the birds and the beasts and
the flowers was new life to me. I noted the marks of the year's growth
as only one notes them who knows the country by heart; I knew that the
young rooks were already on the wing, that the swifts and the swallows
had built their nests, that the song-thrush was hatching her brood,
and that a hunt along the sunny, sandy banks under the lea of the hill
would discover the round holes where the little sand-martin would be
laboriously scooping her nest some two feet deep into the soft ground.
I promised myself a happy afternoon when next I should have leisure,
searching for plovers' eggs along the banks of the dikes where the
moor-hen and lapwing make their homes; but to-day I dared not loiter,
for the old couple for whom I was bound lived under the shadow of the
great rock, where the marsh ends and the land swells up into white
chalk-cliffs fronting the sea; and that was four good miles from where
I now was. Taff and I put our best legs foremost, vaulting the gates
that separated the fields, and crossing the white bridges over the
water, until at last we came to where the dike meets the sea, and the
Martello towers stud the coast.
I confess we had not always walked quite straight. Once my attention
had been caught by the hovering of a titlark in the vicinity of a bank
by the way-side, and I had not been able to resist the temptation
of climbing a somewhat perilous ascent to look for the nest, whose
neighborhood I guessed. It was on the face of a curious sort of
cliff that lay across the marsh; one side of it sloped down into the
pasture-land, but the other presented a gray, rugged front to the
greensward below, and told of days when the sea must have lapped about
its massive sides, and eaten its way into the curious caves where now
young oaks and mountain-ash clove to the barren soil.
About half-way up the nethermost bank of this cliff I found the nest of
the titlark beneath a heather bush. But in it sat a young cuckoo alone
and scarcely fledged, while lying down the bank, about a foot from the
margin of the nest, lay the two little nestlings of the parent bird.
I picked them up and warmed them in my hand, and put them back in the
nest, where they soon lifted their heads again. Then I stood a moment
and watched. The young cuckoo began struggling about till it got its
back under one of them, and, blind as it still was, hitched it up to
the open part of the nest, and shoved it out onto the bank. Once more I
picked the poor little bird up and put it back into its mother's nest.
Then seeing that the cruel little interloper seemed to have made up
its mind to try no more ejecting for the moment, I slid down the bank
again and went on, promising myself, however, to look in upon this
quarrelsome family on my way home.
This little adventure delayed us, but we ran a great part of the
remainder of the way to make up for it, and reached old Warren's
cottage somewhat out of breath, and I with red cheeks and hair sorely
dishevelled by the journey. However, as we were old friends, we were
soon restored by the kindly welcome that we got. Taffy lay down on the
hearth with the great Persian cat, and I took my seat in the chimney
corner, Mrs. Warren insisting on preferring the bed for a seat.
It was a funny little hut, nestled away under the shadow of the
towering cliff, with the sea lapping or roaring within fifty yards of
it, and the lonely marsh stretching away miles and miles to the right
of it. No one knew why Warren had built it, but some fancied that he
still had smuggled goods hidden away in the caves of the cliffs, and if
so, he naturally chose a dwelling-place hard by, and not too much under
the eye of man. It was a poor hovel, better to die in than to live in,
one would have thought; but old Warren seemed to be of a contented
disposition, and to enjoy his life well enough, although as much could
not apparently be said of his wives, of whom he had had three already.
The present one had lasted the longest, the former two having been
killed off in comparatively early life (according to Warren) by the
loneliness of their life and the terrors of the elements which they had
witnessed.
Warren was a dramatic old fellow, and could tell many a story of
shipwreck and disaster, and even (when pressed) of encounters between
the revenue-cutters and the smugglers' boats, of dangerous landings
on this dangerous bit of coast, and of nights when it was all the
"boys" could do to get their kegs of spirits safely ashore and buried
in the sand before morning. This afternoon he was in particularly
good spirits. Something in the color of the land and the sea and in
the direction of the wind had reminded him of a day when the fog had
come up suddenly and had caused disaster, although, to my eye, the
heavens were clear and fair as any one could wish. I soon drew from
him the account of a terrible struggle between the Government officers
and the smugglers, when the fog had given the latter a miraculous and
unexpected triumph, and this led on to the tale--oft-repeated but never
stale--of the wreck of the Portuguese "merchant," when the "lads"
picked up the wicker bottles that floated ashore, and drank themselves
sick with eau-de-cologne in mistake for brandy.
This was my favorite story; but it was hard to know whether to
laugh or to cry when Mrs. Warren number three would shake her head
sympathetically at the tearful account of the demise of Mrs. Warren
number two, who "lay a-dying within, while the lads drank the spirits
without," and old Warren was forced to take a drain himself to help him
in his trouble.
The time always passed quickly for me with the funny old couple in
their funny old hovel under the cliff, and it was late afternoon before
I got out again onto the beach. Warren's memories had not been awakened
by mere fancy; his prophecy was right. There was a heavy sea-fog over
the marsh, blown up by a wind from the east. I gathered my cloak around
me and set off walking as fast as I could. The mist was so thick that
the dog shook himself as he ran on in front of me; the damp stood in
great drops on the bristles of his shaggy coat and of my rough homespun
cloak; it took the curl even out of my curly hair, which hung down in
dank masses by the side of my face.
I could not see the sea, though I could hear it lapping on the shore
close by; I could not even see the dike at my left, and yet it was
not thirty yards away. I knew the way well enough, however, and the
fog only made an amusing variety to an every-day walk. I started off
merrily, avoiding the road, which was not the shortest way, and making,
to the best of my belief, a straight line across the marsh, as I had
done hundreds of times before. But a mist is deceptive, and I could not
have been walking more than a quarter of an hour when I felt the ground
suddenly give way beneath me, and I found myself disappearing into one
of the deep ditches that intersect the marsh between the broader dikes.
I knew that there was brackish water at the bottom of the ditch, and
though I did not mind a ducking, I did not care for a ducking in dirty
water, and so far from home. By clutching onto the docks and teasels on
the bank, I managed to hold myself up and get my heels into the soil,
and then, with one spring, I landed myself on the opposite bank. My
petticoats would not escape Deborah's notice, but my feet were dry, and
even my skirts would not attract immediate attention.
But how had I got to the ditch? and where was I now? Yes, I must have
borne farther to the left than I had intended; but it did not much
signify--one way across the marsh was as good as another to me, and
I had better keep to this side now, and go home under the lea of the
hill. There would be the advantage that I might be able to find my
little titlark again. I whistled, for I could not see the dog, and
presently my call was answered by a loud barking close in front of me,
and lifting up my face, I vaguely saw Taff chasing some larger object
before him into the mist.
I knew at once that in coming to this side of the ditch I had landed
myself among a herd of the cattle that had now taken up their summer
quarters upon the marsh. I was not afraid of the cattle; I had seen
them there ever since I had been a child, browsing in the warm weather;
they were part of the land. But I wondered just where I had got to, and
I stopped to think where the sea was, and where the dike. Without these
two landmarks I was somewhat bewildered. The cattle closed around me.
They, too, seemed to be doubtful about something, but they kept their
eyes on me. I wished Taff would not bark so.
I turned round, and once more began walking briskly in the direction
which I thought was the right one. A great brown beast stood just in
front of me. I had not noticed him before, but he had come up over
a mound of the uneven marsh-land and stood staring at me with head
gently rocking. Up till now I had not had a moment's uneasiness, but I
began to wonder whether the marsh cattle were always safe. I moved, and
the bull moved too. Taff barked louder than ever, and the bull began
to bellow softly. I was never so cross with the dog in my life, and I
could not punish him, for I dared not take my eyes off the brown beast.
I moved forward till I had passed the place where the bull stood.
But now it was worse than ever. The mist was so thick, and I had so
entirely lost my way, that I dared not retreat backward for fear of
falling into an unseen dike, and some of the dikes were deep at this
time of the year. I began to run gently, but my heart failed me as
I heard behind me the bull following, still bellowing softly. If I
were only on the right road there must be a gate soon, but I feared
I was not on the right road. Taff kept running round in front of me,
hindering my speed. I felt that the creature was gaining on me. I
don't think I was ever so frightened before. I don't remember that my
presence of mind ever so entirely failed me as it did on that day.
But my legs seemed as though they were tied together. I stood still,
waiting, and then I think I must have fallen to the ground.
I knew that the bull must be close upon me, and it was no more than
what I expected when I felt myself suddenly lifted up by the waist
and flung to what seemed to me an immense distance through the air.
For a moment I lay stunned. The bellowing of the bull, the barking of
the dog, the murmur of the sea--all mingled in my ears in one great
booming sound. Then slowly I became conscious that there was a human
presence beside me in the fog. I opened my eyes. I was lying close
under a five-barred gate. The bull was on the other side of it; Taffy
lay whining beside me, and over me stood a big, tall man, looking down
at me quietly.
"Are you hurt, miss?" said he.
I struggled into a sitting posture, and pulled myself up on my feet by
the help of the gate.
"No; no, thank you," answered I. But my head was dizzy, and my arm
ached dreadfully.
"I'm afraid I flung you over rather hard," said he. "But there wasn't
time to do it nicely."
"You flung me over!" cried I, aghast.
"To be sure," answered he, "Did you think it was the bull?"
He gave a short laugh, scarcely a laugh, it was so very grim and quiet.
But when he laughed his smile was like a white flash--I remember
noticing it. I gazed at him. Angry as I was--and I was absurdly,
childishly angry--I could not help gazing at this man, who could take
me up like a baby and fling me over a five-barred gate in a twinkling.
He was very broad and strong, his eyes were dark brown, his hair was
black and curling, and so was his beard. He had neither a pleasant face
nor a handsome face--until he smiled. I was not conscious at the time
of any of these details; but there in the fog I thought he looked very
imposing.
"I'm afraid if it had been the bull he would have flung you farther,
and hurt you more," said he. "You lay there very handy for him."
How I hated myself for having fallen to the ground!
"Come, Taff," said I, giving the dog a little kick, "get up."
The dog sprang to his feet with his tail between his legs. No wonder
he was frightened and surprised. I had never done such a thing to him
before. But I had a vague feeling that if he had not hindered me I
should have got over the gate alone, and I was savage at the idea of
having needed help from a man.
"Good-evening to you," said I, curtly, nodding my head in the direction
of the man, but without looking at him again.
"Good-evening," answered he, raising his hat. "I hope you'll be none
the worse for your fall."
I vouchsafed no answer to this speech, but strode on down the track as
fast as my aching limbs and dizzy head would allow me to do. The sea
murmured on the beach at my right. I could not see it for the fog, but
I could hear it. After a while I think it must have lulled my anger to
rest. The sea has always been a good friend to me, in its storms as in
its calm. I like to see it rage as I dare not rage, and I like to see
it calm as I cannot be calm. The restless sea has taught me as many
things as the quiet marsh; they are both very wide. And that day I am
sure it lulled my irritable temper.
Before long I began to think that I, to say the least of it, had
treated my deliverer with scant courtesy. When I got to the farm
that divides the marsh from the beach I turned round to see if he
were following. The fog was beginning to lift. The distant hills of
the South Downs rose out of the sea of vapor, and were as towering
mountains in the mystery, lying dim and yet blue against the struggling
light of the sunset behind. The white headland that I had left detached
itself boldly against the sea-line--for the mist was only on the level
land now, where it lay like a sheet a few feet above the marsh, so that
the objects on the ground itself shone, illumined by the slanting rays
of the sun, till each one had a value of its own in the scene. Through
the golden spray of the sunlit vapor the red and the white cattle shone
like jewels upon the brown land, where every little line of water was
like a snake in the vivid light; and as I turned and looked towards
the gray cliff, where I had climbed the bank after the bird's-nest
an hour ago, the long line of hill behind, dotted with fir-trees and
church-steeples and little homesteads, lay midway in the air through
the silver veil.
I stood a while looking back. I do not know that I was conscious of
the wonder of the scene, but I remember it very vividly. At the time I
think I was chiefly busy wishing the stranger to come up that I might
rectify my lack of courtesy. I saw him at last. He came in sight very
slowly, and stood a long while leaning against the last gate lighting
his pipe. I watched him several minutes, and he never once looked along
the path to see if I was there. Why was I annoyed? I had dismissed him
almost rudely. He did but do as he was bid. And yet I do believe I was
annoyed; I do believe I was unreasonable to that point.