“I can see one tree,” he exclaimed, in a tone of relief.
“And what mid ye want with trees?” she inquired. “You won’t need to be
lookin’ out much when ye’ve a-had a proper good day’s work.”
And thereupon, informing him that it was time to “sarve pigs,” and
directing him as to the whereabouts of the meal-bucket, she descended
to her own long neglected wash-tub.
Alice, however, still lingered in the passage, and observed that, as
Adam took off his coat preparatory to setting to work, he paused, with
an odd little laugh to himself.
“I was near forgetting you,” said he, peering into one of its capacious
pockets and apparently addressing something inside.
“What have ye got there?” inquired Alice.
Adam carefully hung up the coat on a nail, thrust his hand into the
pocket aforesaid, and produced a very small rabbit--a little furry ball
with downy semi-transparent ears and bright beady eyes.
“I had to bring he along of I,” he explained, as he stroked the little
creature which sat quite contentedly in his brown palm.
“How did you make en so tame?” asked Alice.
“I’ve had en nigh upon a week now. ’Tis thanks to I he warn’t made
a stoat’s breakfast on. They stoats--they be terr’ble varmint. I be
always on the look-out for ’em. Well, this here little chap was bein’
dragged along by a big ’un when I chanced to spy the pair of ’em. I
made an end of Maister Stoat and I did take the little ’un home-along.
He couldn’t feed hisself, poor little thing, but we made shift, didn’t
us, little ’un? There, he can drink out of a teaspoon so sensible as a
Christian.”
“Do ’ee let I give en a drap o’ milk now,” cried Alice eagerly.
The little rabbit justified his owner’s proud assertion, and after
refreshing himself in the manner indicated, was comfortably stowed away
in a hay-lined basket.
“I were pure glad to bring he along of I,” said Adam, for the nonce
communicative; “he’ll mind me o’ the woods, d’ye see. And I’ve
a-brought these, too.”
Thrusting his hand inside his waistcoat he brought out a few young fir
shoots, green and tender, and deliciously aromatic as he bruised them
with his strong fingers.
“Smell!” he exclaimed, thrusting them suddenly under Alice’s pretty
little freckled nose.
She sniffed, and remarked without enthusiasm that it was a nice smell
enough.
“There’s n’ar another like it,” said Adam gruffly; and replacing them
in his bosom he strode away to attend to the wants of the pigs.
Decidedly the new man-of-all-work at the Three Choughs was a queer
fellow; all who came to the place agreed in this estimate of him. He
worked well, but yet, as Mrs. Cluett frequently averred, as if “he
didn’t have no heart in it”; he was steady, civil, and obliging enough,
but so silent, so unaccountably silent, that the regular visitors to
the little inn could make nothing of him.
The only person who could ever induce him to talk was Alice Cluett, and
then it was at rare moments, and upon odd, and, to her, uninteresting
topics.
One evening he called out to her excitedly as she was crossing the
little yard, declaring that he smelt the dew.
Alice paused beside him, inhaling the sweet air of the spring dusk with
inquiring nostrils.
“They’ve a-been mowin’ over t’ Rectory to-day,” said she, “I see’d
gardener gettin’ the machine out--’tis the first time this spring. ’Tis
the cut grass what you do smell I do ’low.”
“Nay,” cried Adam eagerly, “’tis the dew. Who’s to know it so well as
me, my maid? Haven’t I stood and smelt it time and again yonder in the
woods at Chudbury? ’Tis the dew on the young leaves and the noo grass.
I used to tramp it down, and then stan’ still to smell it. The Warren
must be lookin’ fine now.”
Even in the dusk she could see his eyes dilate, and that tell-tale
mouth of his curl upwards.
“And there’s scarce a tree to be seen here,” he sighed presently.
“Lard,” said practical Alice, “what a man you be, Adam! There’s plenty
o’ things more worth lookin’ at than trees, I d’ ’low. There’s fields
wi’ the crops comin’ on so nice, and the river, and the road wi’ all
the folks’ traps an’ carts and wagons, and there’s the gardens wi’
flowers and ’taters and everything, and there’s men and women, an’--an’
maids,” she added, tilting her chin saucily.
Adam brought back his eyes from the distant vision upon which they had
been feasting to another vision nearer at hand, and his face relaxed.
“Ah, there’s maids,” he agreed. “I never knowed any maid afore I knowed
you, Alice. There’s times when----”
He broke off suddenly.
“There’s times when--what?” she inquired with interest.
“I could a’most be glad sometimes that I did come away from the
Warren,” said he. “I’m glad to know ye, Alice.”
“Oh, and are ye?” rejoined she with a somewhat tremulous laugh.
“E-es,” returned Adam reflectively, “I’ve see’d maids now and then when
I did use to come down to buy a few little oddments in the town, but I
never took no notice of them--I never knowed any of them. I be glad to
know you, Alice.”
Alice made no answer. She picked a leaf from the hedge and chewed it.
Had it not been so dark Adam might have noticed the sudden rush of
colour that overspread her face.
“The chaps hereabouts do often seem to go out a-walkin’ wi’ maids,”
resumed Adam. “I were a-thinkin’--you and me mid go a-walkin’
sometimes.”
“We mid,” she agreed.
“Sunday, maybe?” suggested Adam, with a sudden note of exultation in
his voice. “If you could get off for a good long bit, Alice, we mid
step up to Oakleigh Woods. I haven’t been there yet, but they do tell I
they’re splendid.”
“They’re nice enough,” said Alice, somewhat dubiously. “We’ll have to
see what mother says,” she added.
“Do ye ax her then,” suggested Adam.
Alice moved away from him, and glanced back over her shoulder.
“Maybe I will,” said she.
Mrs. Cluett, on being consulted, was at first doubtful and inclined to
be irate.
“This do seem like coortin’,” she remarked severely.
Alice twisted the corner of her apron without replying. It certainly
did look rather like courting.
“Be you and that chap thinking o’ bein’ sweethearts?” resumed Mrs.
Cluett.
Alice raised defiant dark eyes: “’Twouldn’t be no such very great harm
if we was,” she returned. “He be a likely chap, Adam be; he’ve a-got
a few pounds laid by, and if him an’ me was to make a match of it you
wouldn’t need to pay en no wage.”
This was a practical aspect of the affair which had not hitherto struck
Mrs. Cluett; her countenance relaxed.
“But he haven’t axed I yet,” said Alice discreetly.
Mrs. Cluett drew a long breath.
“Well I haven’t got no objections to your walking out wi’ he on Sunday,
my dear,” she remarked condescendingly; and Alice dropped her apron and
went away smiling.
Sunday came, and the pair duly set forth, Mrs. Cluett watching their
departure from the kitchen window, not without some elation, for indeed
her maid was, as she said to herself, a fine piece, and Adam, as he
strode along by her side, was “so well set-up as a granadier”.
Alice chattered away gaily while they walked, tucking up her pretty
blue skirt to show her starched white petticoat, while her curly head,
under its rose-crowned hat, turned this way and that as they passed
friends and neighbours. Other heads turned to gaze after her, and
many jests and laughs were exchanged, and not a few sly innuendos as
to the possible outcome of events. Alice would laugh and blush then,
and glance surreptitiously at Adam; but the ex-warrener was more
taciturn even than usual that day, and though his face wore a contented
expression, he appeared to take little heed of his surroundings.
Presently the girl became silent, and by-and-by distinctly cross; she
lagged a little behind Adam; once or twice she stumbled, and once
paused, having tripped over a stone.
“What be to do?” inquired Adam, bringing down his eyes all at once from
the horizon, where the irregular parti-coloured lines of Oakleigh Wood
had hitherto held his gaze.
“You do walk so fast,” complained Alice, “and the road be so
rough--and--” in a still more aggrieved tone--“all the other boys and
maids what we do meet be a-walkin’ arm-in-crook.”
“Come,” said Adam diffidently, “us can do that too, I suppose.”
Alice curved her arm, and he, after a little practice, supported her
elbow in the recognised fashion prescribed for courting-folk. He looked
down at her with a softened expression as they advanced afresh.
“Be enjoying of yourself, my maid?” he inquired.
“E-es,” returned Alice dubiously. “Be you?”
“Jist about!” said Adam, at which she brightened visibly.
They now turned off the dusty road that for the last half-mile had
climbed up almost perpendicularly, with the downs rolling away on one
side and a carefully enclosed fir plantation skirting it on the other.
A sheep-track that presently lost itself, wound away over the downs
between patches of grass and low-growing thorn and elder bushes to
where Oakleigh Wood spread its exquisite, undulating length invitingly
before them. Adam quickened his pace; his whole face lightened and
brightened in a manner of which it had not hitherto seemed capable;
presently he began to sing in a rich ringing joyous voice, and Alice,
clutching at his arm to stay his progress, exclaimed in amazement:--
“You do seem quite another man to-day!” she cried half petulantly.
“I d’ ’low I be another man,” answered he. “Let’s run, maidie, let’s
run. Let’s get there.”
He caught her by the hand, and the girl, infected by his excitement,
raced with him at her topmost speed. Off they flew over the springing
turf and only paused, laughing, when they reached the shelter of the
belt of firs which stood at the outskirts of the wood. The cool green
fragrance was refreshing after that breathless race in the fierce
sunshine; Alice’s eyes were dancing and her heart leaping, but Adam
had suddenly become grave again; when he spoke it was in a subdued
voice almost as if he were in church, the girl thought. Nevertheless he
looked very tenderly at her as he touched her lightly on the shoulder.
“Now, maidie,” said he, “I be goin’ to show ye such things as ye did
never see in your life--I be a-goin’ to let ye into a few of the
secrets o’ this place.”
“Ye’ve never been here yourself afore,” protested Alice.
“I know ’em all the same,” returned Adam. “I do know all about woods. A
squirrel, see! Look yon.”
“Where?” whispered Alice.
“On the big crooked branch there. Keep still, and he’ll come nigh us.”
As they stood motionless the little creature did indeed come frolicking
downwards from bough to bough, pausing to glance at them, leaping away
in feigned terror, returning for closer inspection, then, evidently
deciding that they were not, and could never have been, alive, and
were, in consequence, not dangerous, sitting up, chattering, a yard or
two above their heads. He was presently joined by a friend, or it might
be a rival; a lively discussion ensued, a mad scamper, a protracted
chase, the two finally disappearing in the inner depths of the wood.
“Let’s go,” said Alice.
She had been amused and interested, but felt nevertheless somewhat
disappointed. This was the strangest courting she had ever heard of:
it seemed hardly worth while to have walked three miles on a Sunday
afternoon merely to watch the antics of a couple of squirrels. But Adam
was perfectly happy; for the first time since he had left the Warren he
found himself in his element and at ease.
“If you do know how to treat ’em, birds and beasts is tame enough,” he
remarked. “There, the very varmint ’ull be friendly wi’ you. There was
a wold weasel yonder in the Warren what did use to have reg’lar games
wi’ me. He knowed I were arter him, d’ye see, and he were that cunnin’
he did lead I a dance for months and months. I do ’low the creature
’j’yed it. When I did take en out o’ the gin at last he did grin up
in my face as if he were a-sayin’ ‘ye be upsides wi’ me at last, wold
chap!’--I could a’most have found it in my heart to let him go, but I
dursn’t, along o’ my father. Hush, look!”
A green woodpecker was climbing up the tree near which they had halted;
the pair watched him until he took wing, and then pursued their way.
Alice’s heart was sinking more and more; she yawned once or twice in a
frank, undisguised way, and walked ever more slowly.
“Hark!” cried Adam jubilantly, “the cuckoo. ’Tis the first time I’ve
heard en--he be late to-year.”
“Have ye got any money about ye?” inquired Alice eagerly. “Turn it
round quick, if ye have.”
“What for?”
“Why, for luck, sure. Didn’t ye know that? You must turn your money
first time you do hear cuckoo cry so as you’ll have plenty more
to-year.”
Adam’s fingers dropped from the waistcoat pocket where they had been
vaguely fumbling.
“What’s money to me?” he muttered, as, with head thrown back and brows
frowning with eagerness, he followed the course of certain black specks
which at that moment were flying high over the wood.
“Wild duck!” he remarked presently.
Alice turned on him in desperation.
“Well, I be a-goin’ for to sit down,” she remarked. “I’ve a-brought a
bit o’ summat to eat wi’ me.”
She produced from the little basket which she had carried sundry slices
of cake which she offered to Baverstock.
“I did bring seed-cake a-purpose because you did say you liked it
best,” she observed in an expectant tone. But Adam’s dark eyes
continued to rove even while he ate, and his only response was
inconsequent enough:--
“Don’t it taste good out o’ door?”
Alice edged away from him and munched in silence, and presently tears
of mortification welled into her eyes. Adam, returning on tiptoe from a
cautious expedition to inspect a nuthatch’s nest in the bole of a tree,
suddenly took note of her woeful expression, and paused aghast.
“What be cryin’ for, maidie?” he asked in so kind a tone, that the
tears rolled down upon her cheeks, and a little unexpected sob burst
forth.
“I don’t know,” she murmured; then, petulantly: “I wish I hadn’t come!”
Adam’s face fell.
“Don’t ’ee like being here? I thought ye’d be so pleased.”
The sense of injury now overcame maidenly reserve.
“You do never say a word to I. You don’t so much as look at I. I mid be
a stock or a stone,” she added passionately.
Adam surveyed her with dawning comprehension; during the silence that
intervened the rustling of the leaves could be heard, the distant notes
of a lark circling upwards from the downs beyond the woods, the chirp
of nestlings, the irrepressible laughter of a gleeful squirrel. Perhaps
all this cheerful bustle of the sunshiny spring awoke in the man’s
breast certain hitherto dormant instincts. He, too, was young, and love
and springtime go hand-in-hand. He stooped, laid a tentative forefinger
gently under Alice’s round chin, tilted it slightly, and gazed down
into the tearful eyes.
“Ye mustn’t cry, my maid,” said he, and then he kissed her.
They came out of the wood as the sun was sinking, hand-in-hand as
before, but walking sedately now, and with a glow upon their faces
other than the glow which was dyeing the fir-boles crimson, and making
the gorse flame.
Alice was in the seventh heaven, and as for Adam, perhaps he too had
learnt a new secret in the greenwood, the existence of which had been
hitherto unguessed.
“Well?” said Mrs. Cluett as the couple parted by the yard door.
“Well,” returned Alice, with a conscious laugh.
“You do seem to be gettin’ along,” pursued the mother.
“E-es, we be gettin’ along,” conceded Alice, but no more would she say.
She was subsequently forced to own to herself, however, that they did
not get on very fast. Adam was incomprehensible to her, and frequently
exasperating; and more than once he seemed puzzled and irritated by
things that Alice said and did. Mrs. Cluett, for her part, blamed them
both with equal impartiality. Now she would aver that Alice was a
simpleton, now that Adam was a fool. Was the thing to be or was it not
to be? she wanted to know; even if it was to be Mrs. Cluett was not
sure that she cared so very much about it; but if it was not to be,
there was no manner of use in Alice wasting her time.
Meanwhile the couple walked together frequently, talked little, and
quarrelled more than once. On that warm June night, for instance,
when Adam, rolling himself in his blanket, stretched himself in the
orchard to sleep under the stars, Alice’s indignation was to the full
as great as her mother’s; while the day the girl refused Adam’s offer
of pine-cones for her fire, on the ground that they popped like pistols
and smelt of turpentine, her lover’s resentment had flashed forth in
words fierce and strong.
“You do never seem to care for the things what I like,” he summed up.
To each the other was an unknown quantity; the mutual attraction was
almost counterbalanced by a shyness begotten of the knowledge of being
misunderstood.
The crisis came one summer’s night--a night long remembered in the
village, for there broke such a storm over the land as had not been
known, the old folks said, since the days of their childhood. A
brooding and oppressive stillness reigned at first, and then came
lightning that seemed to split the heavens, and thunder that roared
like a thousand menacing cannons. Alice sat crouched in a corner with a
face as white as a sheet and her fingers in her ears; and Mrs. Cluett
hurried round the house, closing doors and windows, and fastening
shutters. As she was about to shut the door leading to the yard, a
sudden flash revealed to her a motionless figure standing without, a
few paces away.
“Dear heart alive! ’Tis never you, Adam.”
She had seen his face transfigured in the momentary gleam, the eyes
exultant, the lips parted in rapture.
“Isn’t it grand?” came Adam’s voice, tremulous with excitement, as the
darkness enfolded him once more, and the mystic artillery crashed over
their heads.
“The chap’s daft!” exclaimed Mrs. Cluett. “Come in this minute. You’ll
be struck dead afore me eyes. We don’t want no carpses in the house, do
us, Alice?”
But Alice made no response.
“Lard save us!” ejaculated Mrs. Cluett, as a new flash lit up all the
surrounding country, revealing the cattle huddled together in the
adjacent fields, the hedges, the trees, Adam’s face, eager, enraptured,
as before. She darted out and seized him by the arm.
“Come in, I tell ’ee,” she cried. “I’ll not have ye standing there no
more.”
As he turned towards her half-dazed, she dragged him in, and had shut
and bolted the door before he recovered his wits. The air was stifling
inside the house; the paraffin lamp reeked; the gusts of storm-wind
which arose every now and then puffed volumes of acrid wood smoke down
the chimney.
“A man mid choke here,” growled Adam.
“To bed wi’ ye then!” cried Mrs. Cluett indignantly. “Us be a-goin’
too--’tis late enough.”
She took up the lamp as she spoke, and roused Alice by a jerk of the
sleeve. Adam went creaking upstairs, and threw himself dressed upon
his bed. The atmosphere of his little attic-room, sun-baked as it had
been through all that breathless day, was like that of a furnace; he
felt his brain reel and was oppressed almost to suffocation. The storm
continued, flash after flash playing on his narrow window; he could see
the tip of his one fir-tree, now motionless, transfixed as it were, now
swaying in a puff of wind that died away as suddenly as it came.
The house was very silent now, and permeated by the odour of Mrs.
Cluett’s recently extinguished lamp. Adam sat up gasping. He thought
of the Warren--of the close-growing trees stretching away about the
free and happy man who dwelt beneath them. Once he, too, had stood with
the woods wrapping him round, and the stars of heaven over his head.
Tewley must look grand to-night. As he thought of it the dark shadowy
forms of the trees seemed to press upon him; he could hear their deep
breathing, and share their expectancy.
Ha! there was a flash. How it would light up the beeches and play
among the pines. Now the thunder! it would roar and reverberate among
those billowing trees. The rain would come soon. First there would be
a rush of wind, and ash and oak and beech would rustle and shiver, and
the larches sway down all their slender length. And then, while the
trees were bending and rocking, the rain would come--the cold, heavy,
glorious rain. Adam caught his breath as he thought of it--how it would
come down, hissing among the leaves, splashing on the hot ground! How
good the wet earth would smell, every strand of moss and fibre of grass
adding its own spicy fragrance.
He leaped from his bed and almost at the same moment the tree outside
his window was caught by a whirling wind and snapped. Then something
seemed to snap, too, in Adam’s brain and he laughed aloud. What was
he doing there, in that suffocating room, when he was free to go that
moment, if he chose, to Tewley Woods? What should hold him back--what
should keep him? If he made haste he might yet reach the Warren in time
for the rain.
In another moment he was out of the house, and when the next flash of
lightning came it revealed a flying figure scudding along the whiteness
of the road.
* * * * *
Alice cried bitterly over the defection of her wild man of the woods,
but she consoled herself in time, and took a mate more to her mind,
a practical person who sowed cabbages in the flower-border, and
considered the view of the new brewery the finest in the neighbourhood.
But Adam Baverstock had passed for ever out of her life; as silently as
he had come from the shadow of the trees into the spring sunshine, so
had he vanished in the summer storm.