After this, Anne would on no account walk in the direction of the hall
for fear of another encounter with young Derriman. In the course of a
few days it was told in the village that the old farmer had actually gone
for a week's holiday and change of air to the Royal watering-place near
at hand, at the instance of his nephew Festus. This was a wonderful
thing to hear of Uncle Benjy, who had not slept outside the walls of
Oxwell Hall for many a long year before; and Anne well imagined what
extraordinary pressure must have been put upon him to induce him to take
such a step. She pictured his unhappiness at the bustling
watering-place, and hoped no harm would come to him.
She spent much of her time indoors or in the garden, hearing little of
the camp movements beyond the periodical Ta-ta-ta-taa of the trumpeters
sounding their various ingenious calls for watch-setting, stables, feed,
boot-and-saddle, parade, and so on, which made her think how clever her
friend the trumpet-major must be to teach his pupils to play those pretty
little tunes so well.
On the third morning after Uncle Benjy's departure, she was disturbed as
usual while dressing by the tramp of the troops down the slope to the
mill-pond, and during the now familiar stamping and splashing which
followed there sounded upon the glass of the window a slight smack, which
might have been caused by a whip or switch. She listened more
particularly, and it was repeated.
As John Loveday was the only dragoon likely to be aware that she slept in
that particular apartment, she imagined the signal to come from him,
though wondering that he should venture upon such a freak of familiarity.
Wrapping herself up in a red cloak, she went to the window, gently drew
up a corner of the curtain, and peeped out, as she had done many times
before. Nobody who was not quite close beneath her window could see her
face; but as it happened, somebody was close. The soldiers whose
floundering Anne had heard were not Loveday's dragoons, but a troop of
the York Hussars, quite oblivious of her existence. They had passed on
out of the water, and instead of them there sat Festus Derriman alone on
his horse, and in plain clothes, the water reaching up to the animal's
belly, and Festus' heels elevated over the saddle to keep them out of the
stream, which threatened to wash rider and horse into the deep mill-head
just below. It was plainly he who had struck her lattice, for in a
moment he looked up, and their eyes met. Festus laughed loudly, and
slapped her window again; and just at that moment the dragoons began
prancing down the slope in review order. She could not but wait a minute
or two to see them pass. While doing so she was suddenly led to draw
back, drop the corner of the curtain, and blush privately in her room.
She had not only been seen by Festus Derriman, but by John Loveday, who,
riding along with his trumpet slung up behind him, had looked over his
shoulder at the phenomenon of Derriman beneath Anne's bedroom window and
seemed quite astounded at the sight.
She was quite vexed at the conjunction of incidents, and went no more to
the window till the dragoons had ridden far away and she had heard
Festus's horse laboriously wade on to dry land. When she looked out
there was nobody left but Miller Loveday, who usually stood in the garden
at this time of the morning to say a word or two to the soldiers, of whom
he already knew so many, and was in a fair way of knowing many more, from
the liberality with which he handed round mugs of cheering liquor
whenever parties of them walked that way.
In the afternoon of this day Anne walked to a christening party at a
neighbour's in the adjoining parish of Springham, intending to walk home
again before it got dark; but there was a slight fall of rain towards
evening, and she was pressed by the people of the house to stay over the
night. With some hesitation she accepted their hospitality; but at ten
o'clock, when they were thinking of going to bed, they were startled by a
smart rap at the door, and on it being unbolted a man's form was seen in
the shadows outside.
'Is Miss Garland here?' the visitor inquired, at which Anne suspended her
breath.
'Yes,' said Anne's entertainer, warily.
'Her mother is very anxious to know what's become of her. She promised
to come home.' To her great relief Anne recognized the voice as John
Loveday's, and not Festus Derriman's.
'Yes, I did, Mr. Loveday,' said she, coming forward; 'but it rained, and
I thought my mother would guess where I was.'
Loveday said with diffidence that it had not rained anything to speak of
at the camp, or at the mill, so that her mother was rather alarmed.
'And she asked you to come for me?' Anne inquired.
This was a question which the trumpet-major had been dreading during the
whole of his walk thither. 'Well, she didn't exactly ask me,' he said
rather lamely, but still in a manner to show that Mrs. Garland had
indirectly signified such to be her wish. In reality Mrs. Garland had
not addressed him at all on the subject. She had merely spoken to his
father on finding that her daughter did not return, and received an
assurance from the miller that the precious girl was doubtless quite
safe. John heard of this inquiry, and, having a pass that evening,
resolved to relieve Mrs. Garland's mind on his own responsibility. Ever
since his morning view of Festus under her window he had been on thorns
of anxiety, and his thrilling hope now was that she would walk back with
him.
He shifted his foot nervously as he made the bold request. Anne felt at
once that she would go. There was nobody in the world whose care she
would more readily be under than the trumpet-major's in a case like the
present. He was their nearest neighbour's son, and she had liked his
single-minded ingenuousness from the first moment of his return home.
When they had started on their walk, Anne said in a practical way, to
show that there was no sentiment whatever in her acceptance of his
company, 'Mother was much alarmed about me, perhaps?'
'Yes; she was uneasy,' he said; and then was compelled by conscience to
make a clean breast of it. 'I know she was uneasy, because my father
said so. But I did not see her myself. The truth is, she doesn't know I
am come.'
Anne now saw how the matter stood; but she was not offended with him.
What woman could have been? They walked on in silence, the respectful
trumpet-major keeping a yard off on her right as precisely as if that
measure had been fixed between them. She had a great feeling of civility
toward him this evening, and spoke again. 'I often hear your trumpeters
blowing the calls. They do it beautifully, I think.'
'Pretty fair; they might do better,' said he, as one too well-mannered to
make much of an accomplishment in which he had a hand.
'And you taught them how to do it?'
'Yes, I taught them.'
'It must require wonderful practice to get them into the way of beginning
and finishing so exactly at one time. It is like one throat doing it
all. How came you to be a trumpeter, Mr. Loveday?'
'Well, I took to it naturally when I was a little boy,' said he, betrayed
into quite a gushing state by her delightful interest. 'I used to make
trumpets of paper, eldersticks, eltrot stems, and even stinging-nettle
stalks, you know. Then father set me to keep the birds off that little
barley-ground of his, and gave me an old horn to frighten 'em with. I
learnt to blow that horn so that you could hear me for miles and miles.
Then he bought me a clarionet, and when I could play that I borrowed a
serpent, and I learned to play a tolerable bass. So when I 'listed I was
picked out for training as trumpeter at once.'
'Of course you were.'
'Sometimes, however, I wish I had never joined the army. My father gave
me a very fair education, and your father showed me how to draw horses--on
a slate, I mean. Yes, I ought to have done more than I have.'
'What, did you know my father?' she asked with new interest.
'O yes, for years. You were a little mite of a thing then; and you used
to cry when we big boys looked at you, and made pig's eyes at you, which
we did sometimes. Many and many a time have I stood by your poor father
while he worked. Ah, you don't remember much about him; but I do!'
Anne remained thoughtful; and the moon broke from behind the clouds,
lighting up the wet foliage with a twinkling brightness, and lending to
each of the trumpet-major's buttons and spurs a little ray of its own.
They had come to Oxwell park gate, and he said, 'Do you like going
across, or round by the lane?'
'We may as well go by the nearest road,' said Anne.
They entered the park, following the half-obliterated drive till they
came almost opposite the hall, when they entered a footpath leading on to
the village. While hereabout they heard a shout, or chorus of
exclamation, apparently from within the walls of the dark buildings near
them.
'What was that?' said Anne.
'I don't know,' said her companion. 'I'll go and see.'
He went round the intervening swamp of watercress and brooklime which had
once been the fish-pond, crossed by a culvert the trickling brook that
still flowed that way, and advanced to the wall of the house. Boisterous
noises were resounding from within, and he was tempted to go round the
corner, where the low windows were, and look through a chink into the
room whence the sounds proceeded.
It was the room in which the owner dined--traditionally called the great
parlour--and within it sat about a dozen young men of the yeomanry
cavalry, one of them being Festus. They were drinking, laughing,
singing, thumping their fists on the tables, and enjoying themselves in
the very perfection of confusion. The candles, blown by the breeze from
the partly opened window, had guttered into coffin handles and shrouds,
and, choked by their long black wicks for want of snuffing, gave out a
smoky yellow light. One of the young men might possibly have been in a
maudlin state, for he had his arm round the neck of his next neighbour.
Another was making an incoherent speech to which nobody was listening.
Some of their faces were red, some were sallow; some were sleepy, some
wide awake. The only one among them who appeared in his usual frame of
mind was Festus, whose huge, burly form rose at the head of the table,
enjoying with a serene and triumphant aspect the difference between his
own condition and that of his neighbours. While the trumpet-major
looked, a young woman, niece of Anthony Cripplestraw, and one of Uncle
Benjy's servants, was called in by one of the crew, and much against her
will a fiddle was placed in her hands, from which they made her produce
discordant screeches.
The absence of Uncle Benjy had, in fact, been contrived by young Derriman
that he might make use of the hall on his own account. Cripplestraw had
been left in charge, and Festus had found no difficulty in forcing from
that dependent the keys of whatever he required. John Loveday turned his
eyes from the scene to the neighbouring moonlit path, where Anne still
stood waiting. Then he looked into the room, then at Anne again. It was
an opportunity of advancing his own cause with her by exposing Festus,
for whom he began to entertain hostile feelings of no mean force.
'No; I can't do it,' he said. ''Tis underhand. Let things take their
chance.'
He moved away, and then perceived that Anne, tired of waiting, had
crossed the stream, and almost come up with him.
'What is the noise about?' she said.
'There's company in the house,' said Loveday.
'Company? Farmer Derriman is not at home,' said Anne, and went on to the
window whence the rays of light leaked out, the trumpet-major standing
where he was. He saw her face enter the beam of candlelight, stay there
for a moment, and quickly withdraw. She came back to him at once. 'Let
us go on,' she said.
Loveday imagined from her tone that she must have an interest in
Derriman, and said sadly, 'You blame me for going across to the window,
and leading you to follow me.'
'Not a bit,' said Anne, seeing his mistake as to the state of her heart,
and being rather angry with him for it. 'I think it was most natural,
considering the noise.'
Silence again. 'Derriman is sober as a judge,' said Loveday, as they
turned to go. 'It was only the others who were noisy.'
'Whether he is sober or not is nothing whatever to me,' said Anne.
'Of course not. I know it,' said the trumpet-major, in accents
expressing unhappiness at her somewhat curt tone, and some doubt of her
assurance.
Before they had emerged from the shadow of the hall some persons were
seen moving along the road. Loveday was for going on just the same; but
Anne, from a shy feeling that it was as well not to be seen walking alone
with a man who was not her lover, said--
'Mr. Loveday, let us wait here a minute till they have passed.'
On nearer view the group was seen to comprise a man on a piebald horse,
and another man walking beside him. When they were opposite the house
they halted, and the rider dismounted, whereupon a dispute between him
and the other man ensued, apparently on a question of money.
''Tis old Mr. Derriman come home!' said Anne. 'He has hired that horse
from the bathing-machine to bring him. Only fancy!'
Before they had gone many steps further the farmer and his companion had
ended their dispute, and the latter mounted the horse and cantered away,
Uncle Benjy coming on to the house at a nimble pace. As soon as he
observed Loveday and Anne, he fell into a feebler gait; when they came up
he recognized Anne.
'And you have torn yourself away from King George's Esplanade so soon,
Farmer Derriman?' said she.
'Yes, faith! I couldn't bide at such a ruination place,' said the
farmer. 'Your hand in your pocket every minute of the day. 'Tis a
shilling for this, half-a-crown for that; if you only eat one egg, or
even a poor windfall of an apple, you've got to pay; and a bunch o'
radishes is a halfpenny, and a quart o' cider a good tuppence
three-farthings at lowest reckoning. Nothing without paying! I couldn't
even get a ride homeward upon that screw without the man wanting a
shilling for it, when my weight didn't take a penny out of the beast.
I've saved a penn'orth or so of shoeleather to be sure; but the saddle
was so rough wi' patches that 'a took twopence out of the seat of my best
breeches. King George hev' ruined the town for other folks. More than
that, my nephew promised to come there to-morrow to see me, and if I had
stayed I must have treated en. Hey--what's that?'