It was the first Monday of August; the shops were shut in the little
town of Branston, but life in the neighbouring villages was more astir
than usual, for the men were for the most part working in their gardens
and the women stood at their doorways or by their gates to view the
passing vehicles. These were not so numerous after all--one might never
have known it was a Bank Holiday--yet every now and then a brake or a
wagonette laden with noisy folk rattled by, leaving a trail of dust to
mark its progress that lingered in a kind of cloud about the hedgerows
long after it had passed.
Two miles away on the downs, another kind of haze caught the eye of
Robert Formby as he strode across them, the golden glimmering haze
which indicates intense heat; the sun had not yet set, but its rays
struck the short herbage as though they must scorch it, and made the
white streak of road which threaded the undulating tract positively
glitter. But yonder was Oakleigh Wood, heavily green in its luxuriance
of summer foliage. As Robert swung along, with the fierce sunshine
beating on his brown neck and hands, he pictured it to himself: first,
the grove of firs with all its spicy scents streaming forth at this
hour, then the open space where the rabbits would presently frolic,
then, stretching away, the wide dense coppice of hazel and oak and ash.
He thought of the broad drives where the feet sank deep in cool lush
grass, and of the narrow and more secret paths between serried green
walls, where scarce a single burning ray might penetrate, though far,
far away at the very end of a long vista, a peep of luminous sky was to
be had.
Robert dwelt on it all, not as a poet or an artist would have dwelt
on it, revelling in its beauty, but as a man thinks of familiar and
undeniably pleasant things.
The young gamekeeper shifted his gun to the other shoulder to ease
himself, and swung his now disengaged arm, whistling as he walked.
Oakleigh Wood was situated on a Dorset down, but Robert Formby was a
North-countryman. He had probably Danish blood in his veins, for his
big, loose-limbed figure, his blue eyes and yellow hair and beard,
would seem to belong to the race; his complexion, too, had been fair
but was now bronzed, though when, impatient of the heat, he threw open
the collar of his flannel shirt, the lower part of his throat showed
white as milk.
A very energetic, sensible, clear-headed fellow was Robert, full of
zeal, and most laudably anxious to do his duty. It was this zealous
anxiety which brought him to Oakleigh Wood on this particular occasion.
It was just possible that evil-disposed persons might take advantage
of the universal relaxation to trespass in these coverts; it behoved
Robert to see to that, he conceived.
Here were the woods at length, the undulating outlines of which had
wooed him from afar with such enticing promise; Robert’s feet fell
almost noiselessly on a crumbling carpet of pine-needles, and he paused
a moment to sniff the aromatic scent approvingly; then he went on. Now
the green depths engulfed him on every side; all was gentle gloom,
exquisite undefinable fragrance; silence the more palpable because of
the never-ceasing stir which seemed to pervade it. What a variety,
what a multiplicity of scarcely perceptible noises go to make up the
breathing of the wood! The flapping of leaf against leaf, the swaying
of twigs, the rattle of falling nuts or sticks, the falling apart of
fronds of moss, the dripping of tiny drops of dew or rain, the roamings
of minute insects--each sound infinitesimal in itself, yet repeated at
thousands and millions of points--in this harmony of life and motion,
combining with but never subduing the stillness of the forest, lies its
magnetism.
Sharper sounds break the all-pervading hush from time to time without
disturbing it; the cooing of a dove, the flight of blackbird or
thrush, the tapping of a woodpecker, the croaking of a frog, the hasty
passage of a mouse through dry leaves; while the barking of a dog in
some distant village, and the clanging of sheep-bells far away seem
nevertheless to form part of the mysterious whole.
Robert pushed his hat to the back of his head, rested his gun against
a forked sapling of birch, and, taking out his pipe, was proceeding to
fill it, when he suddenly started and threw back his head, inhaling the
air with a frown. A certain acrid penetrating odour was making its way
towards him, drowning the more delicate essences of the forest growths.
“’Tis wood smoke!” said Robert, and then his brow cleared. “Mayhap
somebody is burnin’ weeds nigh to this place,” he said, and went on
filling his pipe.
But before lighting it he once more raised his head and shot a
suspicious glance down the long green vista which faced him: a faint
bluish haze seemed to cling to the over-arching boughs of the hazels.
It was not the mist of evening, for it proceeded from a certain point
about half-way up the narrow stretch, and, moreover, as Robert gazed,
little fresh wreaths came eddying forth to join the ethereal cloud
afore-mentioned. Restoring his pipe to his pocket, and catching up his
gun, Robert strode off in this direction as rapidly as the narrowness
of the path and the breadth of his shoulders would admit of. He had
indeed to proceed in a curious sidelong fashion, turning now the right
shoulder forward, now the left, so that he looked almost as if he
were dancing. The cloud of smoke increased in volume as he advanced,
and presently he could actually hear the hissing of flames and the
crackling and snapping of twigs; and now bending low, and peering
beneath the interlaced branches, he could see the fire itself. A rather
large beech-tree stood in the middle of the massed saplings, with a
small open space around it. In the centre of this space a fire was
burning briskly, and by the side of the fire a girl sat with her elbows
resting on her knees and her chin sunk in her hands. Her hat was hung
on one of the beech-boughs, and a small open basket lay beside her,
from beneath the raised lid of which protruded the brown spout of a
teapot.
“My word!” said Robert to himself.
Lowering his head he made a dive beneath the branches, pushing some
aside and breaking down others in his impetuous advance, and in another
moment, straightening himself, he stood beside the girl, frowning at
her sternly. She raised her head and looked at him with the action and
something of the expression of a startled deer; indeed her full dark
eyes seemed to carry out the comparison. She was a very pretty girl--so
much Robert saw at a first glance, yet the sight of her left him
entirely unmollified.
“What are you doing here?” he inquired roughly. “You’re trespassin’--d’ye
know that? I’ve a good mind to summons ye!”
The girl scrambled to her feet; she was slender and tall, her clinging
pink cotton gown defining the shapeliness of her form.
“I wasn’t doin’ any harm,” she returned with a pout.
Robert strode across the intervening space, and kicked wrathfully at
the fire which was cunningly composed of sticks and fir-cones.
“Oh, don’t!” cried the girl eagerly, “don’t! You’ll spoil my ’taters!”
“’Taters indeed!” retorted Robert, but he drew back the great boot
which he had uplifted for the second time.
“Who gave you leave to come picnicking up here? I s’pose you’re
expectin’ a lot more trespassin’ folks same as yourself?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head sorrowfully. “I was just a-havin’ a
little party for myself--I didn’t think no harm.”
“A tea-party all to yourself,” said Formby, and in spite of him, face
and voice relaxed, “why, that’s dull work!”
“Everybody do seem to be merry-makin’ to-day,” she went on, with a
little toss of the head that contradicted a certain quiver in her
voice. “I thought I’d come out too, and take my tea here. I don’t hurt
nothin’. I d’ ’low the wild things do know me quite well. I often walk
here of an evenin’ and the rabbits scarce run out of my road. I do
whoot like the owls and they do answer me back, and bats come flyin’
round my head--I often fancy I could catch ’em if I had a mind to.”
“Do ye?” said Robert.
He was bending down, resting a hand on either knee, and peering up at
her with a twinkle in his eye. She nodded, and dropping on her knees
beside the fire began to draw together the embers with a crooked stick,
and to turn over the potatoes.
“They be very near done now,” she said; “this one be quite done--will
ye try it?”
Sitting back upon her heels she held it out to him with a timid smile.
Robert, shaking his head half-waggishly, half-dubiously, took it from
her.
“’Tisn’t right, ye know,” he protested, “nay, ’tisn’t right. I didn’t
ought to be encouragin’ of ye in such ways.”
“I’ve got some salt here,” cried she, rummaging in her basket and
bringing forth a twisted paper which she unfolded and held out, poised
on her little pink palm.
Robert deliberately sat down, broke the potato in two, and dipped one
of the smoking halves in the salt.
“Ye mustn’t do this no more,” he remarked severely; “nay, I’m not
encouragin’ of ye, ye understand; ’tisn’t allowed--this here’s a
warnin’.” Here he took a bite out of the potato--“Ye can be summonsed
next time.”
The girl deposited the paper of salt upon the ground, and, extracting
another potato from the ashes, proceeded to peel it deftly with a
pocket-knife.
“Have ye got tea in that there basket?” inquired Robert, still sternly.
“’Tisn’t made yet,” she replied, “but kettle ’ull boil in a minute.”
She pulled the basket towards her and unpacked it with great rapidity.
“So that’s the kettle, is it?” commented Robert, as a sooty object came
to light, partially enveloped in a newspaper. He weighed it in his
hand. “There’s nought in it--eh, I see you’ve got water in yon bottle.
Shall I fill it?”
She nodded, and then making a pounce on a small bottle of milk,
endeavoured to uncork it. As the cork did not yield, she was preparing
to loosen it with her teeth when Robert interposed.
“Here, hand o’er! What mun ye go breakin’ your teeth for,” he inquired
gruffly; “ye’ll noan find it so easy to get more when they’re
gone--more o’ the same mak’ as how ’tis. They’re as white as chalk--and
chalk’s easy broke.”
He produced a large clasp-knife, and selecting a corkscrew from the
multiplicity of small implements which were attached to it, drew out
the cork with a flourish. But the sight of the knife, which had been a
present from his former master, recalled graver thoughts, and it was in
a harsh admonitory tone that he next spoke:--
“’Tis all very well for once,” he said; “this ’ere tay-party mun be
overlooked for this time, I reckon; but there mun be no more on ’em. Do
ye hear, lass? These ’ere woods is private, and Squire doesn’t intend
no young wenches to go trapesin’ about in ’em o’ neets, talkin’ to the
owls and that. I doubt ye don’t go lookin’ for bats and owls alone,”
went on the keeper in a tone of ferocious banter. “I doubt some young
chap----”
“Oh, don’t!” interrupted she, flushing fiery red, “I can’t bear it!”
And to his surprise and distress she burst into tears.
“Eh, don’t ye cry, my lass!” he exclaimed with deep concern. “Whatever
have I said to hurt ye? I ax your pardon. I meant no harm--no harm at
all. Give over, there’s a good lass.”
The girl sobbed on, with averted face. Robert looked distractedly
round, and his glance fell upon the kettle which was boiling cheerfully.
“She’d like her tea,” he said, confidentially addressing this
kettle--“a sup o’ tea ’ull put her to rights. Come we’ll make it in a
minute.”
He reached for the teapot, rinsed it, dropped the contents of another
little twisted paper into it, and poured in the boiling water.
“Don’t fill it quite full,” said the girl, turning sharply round, and
displaying a tear-stained face which was nevertheless alight with
interest.
“Oh, mustn’t I fill it? I always fill mine right up to the brim.”
“Have you got nobody to do for you then?”
“Nay, I’m a single man. I have lodgin’s over yonder, but I do for
myself mostly.”
He paused looking at the girl curiously. “You never told me your name,”
he said.
“You did never ax me,” she said with a dawning smile. “My name’s
Rebecca Masters. I live down there, just at the foot of the hill, wi’
my grandmother.”
“Father and mother livin’?” inquired Formby.
“No, they died when I was quite a little thing.”
“My father’s livin’ right enough,” he volunteered. “He’s a fine old
chap, my father is.”
“You’re Keeper Formby, bain’t ye?” inquired Rebecca with interest.
“Eh! ye know me, do ye? A good few folks do, I doubt.” Here Robert drew
himself up; he felt what was due to himself as a public character and
once more his voice took a graver inflection. “Now, see you, my lass,
you mustn’t coom here again.”
“I’m to have nothin’, an’ to do nothin’,” broke out Rebecca
passionately. “’Tis the only thing I care for, comin’ here where I did
use to walk when--when I was happy.”
Robert paused with a potato midway to his mouth.
“Is he dead?” he inquired in a tone of respectful sympathy.
“Who?”
“Your young man.”
“No,” she returned sharply, adding unwillingly, as if in response to
his expectant gaze, “he’s gone away.”
Robert pulled thoughtfully at his yellow beard, his blue eyes looking
very kind and sympathetic the while.
“P’r’aps he’ll coom back,” he hazarded after a moment.
“No, no, never!” she cried brokenly; then in a curiously hard voice
and with a sudden flash in her eyes--“What do I care if he does? He’s
nothin’ to me now--nothin’. He’s gone an’ left me wi’out so much as a
word--just took an’ walked off. And he’ve never wrote either--not so
much as a word. He mid be dead only I do know he bain’t.”
Formby continued to contemplate her, still stroking that fine yellow
beard of his.
“Poor lass! poor lass!” he said at last. “And ’tis a comfort to you, is
it, to coom walkin’ here? Well, see you, my dear, you can coom here as
often as ye like about this time. I’m pretty often here mysel’ then,
and ’twouldn’t be same thing as if you was trespassin’. Ye mustn’t
bring no young chaps here, though,” he added after a pause. “I doubt
they’ll want to come, however little you might want them. You’re a
bonny lass--as bonny a lass as ever I see in all my days!”
She heaved an impatient sigh.
“I did tell ’ee plain as I don’t want nobody,” she cried. “Much good it
do do me to be nice when----”
“Is there no other man at all i’ th’ world?” inquired Robert.
“Not for me,” returned Rebecca.
Kneeling up, she began hastily to collect the tea-things, and Robert,
leaning forward, pushed them towards her with willing clumsy hands.
Then he rose to his feet.
“I’m fain to hear ye say there’s no other man, my wench,” he said, “but
p’r’aps somebody ’ull coom.”
“What d’ye mean?”
“Somebody ’ull begin coortin’ ye afore long,” he returned with
conviction; “it might just as well be me as another. If there’s nobody
else, why not me?”
Rebecca now rose to her feet.
“I don’t want anybody,” she said.
“Somebody ’ull coom,” reiterated Robert, “an’ why not me? Coom, my
lass, I ax ye straight. Will ye give me the first chance? Honest now!
I like ye very well, an’ I doubt I’ll soon like ye better. ’Tisn’t in
nature as a lass same as you can be for ever thinkin’ of a chap as has
showed no more feelin’ nor your chap has. Ye must tak’ another soon or
late. Tak’ me--ye’ll not rue it.”
“I can’t settle to do such a thing all in a hurry,” cried Rebecca
petulantly. “I’ve never set eyes on you before.”
“Nor me on you,” returned Robert, “but I feel as if I could like ye
very well. Give me first chance--I don’t ax for nought else. Let’s walk
a bit an’ see how we get on; but you must give me your word not to take
up wi’ nobody else while I’m on trial.”
“Oh, I can do that,” said she, and suddenly began to laugh. The little
white teeth which had already called forth Robert’s admiration, showed
bewitchingly; a dimple peeped out near the lip, another in the chin.
Robert gazed at her rapturously. “I like ye very well. Eh, my word,
that I do! ’Tis a bargain--a proper bargain!”
He had possessed himself of one of her little sunburnt hands, and was
shaking it up and down; as she laughed on, he drew her to him suddenly;
but at that she started back, striking out at him like a little wild
cat.
“None of that,” she cried, “I’ll never ha’ nothin’ to say to ye, if you
do try to do things like that.”
“Eh, I ax your pardon,” faltered Robert, much abashed. “I didn’t mean
no harm, my dear--’tisn’t reckoned no harm at all up i’ th’ North when
folks begins coortin’. You did look so bonny--an’ I just reckoned
’twould give us a good start like.”
“I won’t have it then!” she broke out violently.
She stooped over her basket, packing away the remainder of the
tea-things with a certain amount of unnecessary clatter. Robert, whose
proffered help was curtly declined, stood by dejectedly till she had
concluded, when, snatching up the basket, she darted suddenly from
his side, and bending her head rushed into the track. He immediately
followed her, carrying her hat which she had left suspended on the
branch.
“You’re forgettin’ this,” he began diffidently. “Now then, lass, coom!
This didn’t ought to make no difference. Will ye gie me a straight
answer?”
Rebecca had deposited her basket on the ground and was putting on her
hat with trembling fingers.
“I’ll think of it,” she stammered. “You must be respectful though.”
A dark flush overspread Robert’s face.
“I didn’t mean nought but what was respectful,” he said, “and ye’ve no
need to think so much as that cooms to. It must be Yes or No. I could
never bear shilly-shally work. Yes or No--take me or leave me--on
trial of course. I only ax to be took on trial.”
“Well, then, I will,” she said in a low voice. “I d’ ’low you are a
good man, and as you do say I--I can’t always be so lonesome.”
She paused a moment with downcast eyes; then, taking up her basket
again, turned away.
Robert stood stock still, watching her receding figure as it flitted
away down the long alley. The sun had now set, and the woods were
enveloped in even deeper mystery than that which had possessed them
a little while ago; leafage and branch were inextricably mingled;
yonder tiny object in the path might either be a rabbit or a stump; but
Rebecca’s light dress defined her flying figure amid the gloom which
otherwise would have engulfed her. Her shape showed white at first,
then grey, as it receded farther, until at last it stood out for a
moment almost black against the still glowing peep of sky which showed
between the over-arching boughs at the farther end; then it vanished
altogether. Even then Robert remained gazing after her, and at length
he heaved a deep sigh.
“Yon chap,” he said, “him as was her sweetheart--I wonder if she was so
stand-off wi’ him.”
The query seemed to open up an unpleasant train of thought; he struck
at the sod with the heel of his heavy boot and frowned. “I’d ha’ summat
to say to him if ever I comed across him,” he muttered; and then turned
to continue on his beat.
“I never see a bonnier lass,” he said presently in a softer tone; “poor
lass--how pitiful she looked at me; I could do wi’ her very well--’tis
to be hoped as she’ll mak’ up her mind to do wi’ me.”
A bat twinkled round his head as he emerged into the open, a host of
rabbits scurried away at his heavy footfall.
“And all they dumb things love her,” meditated Robert. “’Tis along of
her bein’ so innocent-like! Eh, she’s a flower.”
Soon he, too, had left the woods behind, and was marching across the
solitary down, grey at this hour save on the upper slopes, where the
short grass still caught some faint remnant of the rosy after-glow.
Night creatures were stirring in every thicket that he passed, and as
the dull thud of his step fell upon the resonant ground it caused a
flutter and commotion amid the drowsy children of the day, which had
taken shelter there, deeming themselves secure from disturbance. A
rustle of wings, a patter of tiny feet, a sleepy twitter, the shriek of
a blackbird, the heavy beat of a startled pigeon’s wings as it darted
blindly from its ambush--Robert held on his way without noticing any of
these things, and presently darkness and liberty reigned undisturbed in
the many-peopled waste.
For many subsequent evenings he visited Oakleigh Wood at the specified
time, but, though he patrolled it from end to end, and strained his
eyes in vain for a glimpse of Rebecca Masters, not so much as a flutter
of her skirts rewarded his patient gaze.
Then, one day he suddenly heard an unwonted noise proceed from a corner
of the copse. An owl was hooting intermittently; every now and then
there came a pause, and then the cry would be sent forth again. Now,
though the bats had been circling about for some time, it was as yet a
little early for an owl to be abroad; and, struck by a sudden thought,
Robert set off running in the direction whence the sound proceeded,
imitating the call to the best of his ability. As he expected, he
found Rebecca standing with her hands curved round her mouth, sending
forth the eerie cry. Her back was towards him, and it was not until
the ground vibrated beneath his rapid advance, that she perceived his
advent.
“Dear, to be sure, how you did frighten me!” she cried, turning round
with a little spring of terror.
“Did I?” said he. “You know you told me you often hooted to the owls
and they answered ye back. I thought _I’d_ answer ye--I thought I’d
coom.”
She did not speak, though he stood towering over her expectantly.
“Now I’m here must I bide?” he inquired.
“E-es, if you’ve a mind to.”
He thrust his hands into his pocket and drew out a cluster of
half-ripened nuts.
“Ye can bite into ’em,” he said; “they’ll not hurt your teeth.”
Then he dived into his other pocket and held something towards her
cautiously; curled up in his brown palm was a very small dormouse,
sound asleep.
“’Tis for you,” he remarked briefly, “I’ve been carrying it about three
days and more, knowin’ as you’d a likin’ for such things. ’Tis a mercy
I’ve lit on ye at last, else it ’ud maybe be dead.”
This was Robert Formby’s mode of courting. It appeared to be
successful, for Rebecca looked up at him with a bright smile.
“’Tis real good o’ ye,” she said. “There, I think it awful kind.”
“I’ve got some shells at home,” he went on, brightening up amazingly.
“Do ye like shells?”
“Sea-shells?” she inquired.
“Ah! little shells as lays upo’ the beach when tide goes down. I picked
up a two-three handfuls when I wer’ last at home.”
Rebecca looked up from the dormouse, which she had been breathing upon
to warm it, as it lay curled in her hand. “Is your home near the sea
then?”
“Aye--right among the sand-hills. I used to hear tide come roarin’ in
last thing o’ nights and first thing o’ morns when I were a lad. My
mother used to send me out to fetch in drift for our fire--there’s
always a lot o’ wood an’ chips an’ straw an’ stuff washed up upon the
shore, an’ I used to fill a basket in no time. Eh, in winter it used
to be nippin’ cold! Many a time I’d find my sticks all froze together.
’Tis pretty nigh always sharp up yonder; always a wind blowin’ fresh
and free and salty on your mouth.”
“Be it a nice place?”
“Well, I think it bonny--not same as this is bonny, though. There’s
sand-hills runnin’ all along the shore, some big and some little, wi’
star-grass growin’ over ’em. An’ t’other side o’ the hills there’s
the plain country--fields an’ that. Soil’s light, but crops does
wonderful well, an’ there’s woods, and little dykes an’ pits nigh to
the woods--eh, many’s the big snig I’ve catched!”--he paused, rubbing
his hands with retrospective relish--“but ’tisn’t not to say bonny same
as ’tis about here,” he concluded.
“There, it do seem strange as I’ve never so much as had a sight o’ the
sea,” said Rebecca. “They d’ say there’s a good view o’ Poole Harbour
from Bulbarrow, but I’ve never been there.”
“Happen I might take ye there some day,” suggested Robert. “Bulbarrow!
that’s not so far.”
A certain startled look in the girl’s eyes warned him that he was going
too fast and he hastily changed the subject, embarking on a somewhat
incoherent account of his childish adventures among the sand-hills. He
went on to describe the dunes themselves more minutely, and then the
river which ran along the shore so sluggishly that, however blue and
clear the distant sea might be, the waves that broke upon the beach
were always brown and muddy.
“That’s not nice,” said Rebecca.
“Nay,” acquiesced Robert unwillingly; “nay, I suppose not, but I liked
it well enough.”
“Better than this?” asked the girl quickly.
The man’s sea-blue eyes looked straight into her face.
“Not now,” he said.
Next day when he came to Oakleigh Wood at the usual hour he made
straight for the spot where he had heard the fictitious owl-hooting on
the previous evening; and his heart leaped high when a repetition of
the sound fell upon his ear. A few of his rapid strides brought him to
the spot: Rebecca was standing beneath the beech-tree, as before, but
so as to face the path, and as he approached she dropped her hand by
her side with a little laugh.
“I knowed it was you,” said Robert breathlessly.
“I did it a-purpose,” said she.
His face lit up with tender triumph. It was as though some timid
creature of the woods had been coaxed within reach of a friendly hand;
its shyness was vanishing, but dared he as yet take hold?
He asked himself this question many times during their subsequent
meetings; the girl would prattle to him confidently enough, and seemed
interested in all his doings, past and present, but an impenetrable
reserve took possession of her whenever he tried to speak about
herself, and once when he offered to accompany her home, she curtly
refused.
“Folks ’ud get talkin’,” she said.
Midway in September, Robert thought it time to put matters on a more
business-like footing. With every day that passed he had fallen more
deeply in love, and it seemed to him only right that their intercourse
should be recognised as courtship proper--the necessary preliminary to
matrimony.
He approached the trysting-place with a serious face therefore, and, as
was his way, came to the point at once.
“We’ve been walkin’ nigh upon seven week now,” he remarked. “Do ye
think ye can do wi’ me, lass?”
Rebecca turned sharply towards him with that frightened look in her
eyes which he had learned to accept as a warning. This time, however,
he was not to be deterred from his purpose, and went on, very gently
but steadily:--
“Ye took me on trial, ye know. Will I do, think you?”
“Do for what?” she faltered.
“For a husband, my dear. Ye’ve no need to be scared. I don’t want to
hurry ye, but I think ’tis time to put the question straight. I’ve been
coortin’ you reg’lar. Coom, will ye wed me?”
“Oh, no,” cried Rebecca, darting suddenly away from him, “no, no,
never! I don’t want to get married--I don’t--I never said I would.”
Robert followed her and took her gently by the shoulders.
“There! No need to be so scared, my wench. Nobody ’ull force ye--don’t
think it. I did but ax--but we’ll say no more about it--not for a bit,
till ye get more used to the notion. I’m content to bide as we are.
There now! Give over tremblin’. I’ll not hurt ye. See, you’re as free
as the birds.”
He removed his hands from her shoulders and smiled: this woodland thing
was only half-tamed after all; he must be patient with it still, but he
dreamed of the time when it would come at his call and nestle in his
breast.
Autumn advanced rapidly that year--a golden luxuriant autumn, ablaze
with colour and lavish with fruit. The thorn-trees upon the downs were
laden with berries, the bryony flung long graceful tendrils from side
to side of the thickets, chains of transparent gold, bearing here
a beryl, and there a topaz, and there a coral bead. The blackberry
brambles displayed their wealth in more wholesale fashion, for their
clusters were now entirely black and now red. The days were still hot
enough to cause Robert to throw open coat and shirt-collar when he
crossed the down, but the nights were cold; a thick dew coated the
grass, almost a white frost. In the secret recesses of the copse, where
the sun scarcely penetrated, lay silvery patches by day as well as by
night.
One afternoon Robert came gaily to the accustomed meeting-place, but
found no one there.
“I’m a bit early,” he said to himself; “I’ll have a look round and then
come back. I think she’ll wait--ah, I reckon she’d wait a bit for me
now. She’s gettin’ used to me. I reckon she’s gettin’ to take to me.”
Smiling to himself he left the wider track and turned aside into one of
the narrower alleys before described. The leaves were yellowing here
on either side; and the grass beneath his feet was covered with thick
rime. As he edged himself along it, lost in meditation, he suddenly
stopped short, gazing fixedly at the ground. Its hoary surface bore
traces of recent footsteps: a man’s footsteps--and a woman’s. They
stared up at Robert as it seemed to him, and all at once, though he
had been glowing with health and happiness a moment before, he fell
a-shivering.
He knew the little foot that made those tracks--only the week before
he had laughed admiringly as he had marked its impression in the dew.
A little foot--and a great one side by side with it. A man’s foot! How
close they must have walked there in the narrow path!
Robert’s shivering fit ended as suddenly as it had begun, and the blood
coursed madly through his veins--hot enough now--boiling hot. His
fingers closed tightly round his gun and he rushed forward, brushing
aside the close-growing branches, on, on, never stopping, yet keeping
his eyes fixed all the time upon those tell-tale tracks. Now they
were lost in one another, now they were interlaced, now quite distinct
and separate, side by side. He stopped short when he came to the
junction of the path with the wider one in which it merged, a path
which traversed the wood from end to end. Robert cast a hasty glance to
left and to right and stood transfixed. Yonder where the green roadway
abutted on the down he saw two figures standing out dark against the
lambent evening sky--a tall and slender woman, a taller man. As he
gazed transfixed he saw the man stoop and gather the woman in his arms;
and then the two parted, the man walking away across the grass, the
woman turning to the right and disappearing into the wood.
“She’s comin’ to our beech-tree,” said Robert to himself; “she’s comin’
to meet me.”
And for the moment he saw the world red.
He too turned and began to stride fiercely towards the trysting-place.
As he entered the wider track he stopped and looked to his gun. But
one barrel was loaded. He twisted round his cartridge bag, and with
impatient, trembling fingers found the cartridge for the other barrel.
He reached the beech-tree first and stood gripping his gun tight and
glaring up the path, still through that red haze.
All at once he saw her coming, very slowly, with her head bent.
Half-hidden by the tree-trunk he waited, motionless as a statue, for
her to give the accustomed signal; at the first sound of it he would
shoot her through the heart.
She came quite near, raised her head, and sighed.
Then the keeper made a step towards her; his grip on the gun relaxed.
“You here already?” she asked, and turning towards him laid her little
hands upon his breast. It was the first time she had ever voluntarily
touched him, and the man started and flushed.
“Robert,” she said falteringly. “I--I--want to tell ’ee summat.”
Then his great chest heaved and the gun dropped from his hand.
“Eh, bless you for that word, my lass!” he cried brokenly. “I reckoned
you meant to cheat me.”
“Then you do guess?” stammered Rebecca. “Oh, Robert--’tis Jim. He be
come back--he only went away to get work after all.”
Robert’s heart leaped up with an odd mixture of anguish and joy. It was
her sweetheart--“the only man in the world”. Who could blame the lass?
“Ah,” he said unsteadily, “coom back, is he? It’s right then. You be in
the right to stick to him if he’ll stick to you.”
“Oh, e-es,” returned the girl quickly, “he’ve a-come back for that--he
do want us to get married at once.”
A spasm crossed Robert’s face. “You’re not afeard now, I see,” he said.
“Oh, I can’t help it, I can’t help it,” she cried. “I love him best--I
did al’ays love him best, but I--I--oh, Robert, I be so sorry!”
He drew down her hands and gently shook them; then he let them drop.
“It’s right,” he said, “ye’ve no need to fret yoursel’, my lass--you’re
a good lass--I give ye j’y.”
He stooped and picked up his gun, half-absently unloading it, and
dropping the cartridges into his pocket. Then he turned towards Rebecca
again.
“I’ll say good afternoon,” he said.
Rebecca extended her hand with a sob, and he shook it once more.
“Good afternoon,” he repeated, and left her.
The sun had not yet quite set as he crossed the open space that lay
between the woods proper and the outlying grove of fir-trees; its
level shafts struck the ruddy trunks of these and ran along the lower
branches, turning the very needles into fire; the aromatic scent gushed
forth, strong and sweet. Yonder the downs were all ablaze in the same
transitory glow; the distant hills were sapphire and amethyst, the
nearer woods a very glory of autumn tints and sunset fires. Robert
stood still as he emerged into the open; his heart was swelling to
suffocation, his eyes smarting with unshed tears. They are children of
nature, these burly Northmen, and he would have been fain to weep now,
though he had not wept since that far-away day when, as a little lad,
he had seen them lay his mother in the grave. A great loathing of the
beauty and the radiance and the sweetness which had encompassed his
dead dream, came upon him; in his actual physical oppression he thought
with a sick longing of the pure tart air blowing over the dunes at
home; the tall bleak dunes, all sober grey and green; the brown waves
leaping in upon the tawny shore.
“I reckon I’ll shift,” said Robert.
And early on the following morning, when the yellowing leaves of
Oakleigh Wood were catching the first rays of the sun, Robert Formby
took to the road, with his face turned northwards.