Susannah feared very few things; but she had sharp sight, and the man
on the horse was Heber.
As the fact dawned on Charles his expression changed. He stood at the
road-side, thrusting his hands into his pockets and feeling as though
he would choke.
Heber had been too much occupied, hand and eye, to observe Susannah,
but, as he drew near, the other man thought he could see a look of
triumph on his face. The shepherd had induced the horse to be quiet
and the creature trotted collectedly, a fine, strong, short-legged bay
with a blaze and two white stockings. But Saunders had no eye for its
paces, for the wrath he felt at the sight of Heber overcame him,
business instincts and all. For any heed that Heber took of him he
might have been a signpost or a milestone. Moorhouse turned back about
fifty yards farther on and came by again at a canter. This time
Saunders imagined that he was smiling.
"Take him away! I don't want to see him again!" he roared after the
retreating man.
Heber turned in his saddle and looked back. Charles was sure of the
smile now.
"Go on! take him away, I tell you!" he yelled, waving his arm. He
could almost have pelted him from the nearest stone-heap. Heber rode
quietly on into the town.
The moment that he was out of sight, Susannah came from behind the
tree, her eyes shining.
"Come with me--now--this minute!" she cried. "There's no time to lose!
Another half hour and it'll be too late. He's sure to come to the
house as soon as his business is done. I'd no notion he was to be at
the fair."
"You might have guessed it," said Saunders roughly.
"He told me, no more nor the night he came with Catherine, that none
o' them were to be down from the farm."
They set out together without another word. The sight of the shepherd
had done more to make up Charles's mind than all Susannah's arguments
and persuasions. She had escaped so narrowly from being seen by Heber
in Charles's company that she now piloted her companion to the cottage
through the same quiet ways she had traversed in the morning with her
uncle.
She entered the house and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving
Saunders in the passage. He stood waiting there like a keeper who has
just put his ferret down a rabbit-hole in a warren. In concert with
Susannah's tones he could hear the gruff quaver of the old man, and he
listened impatiently for Catherine's voice. His agitation was great,
for might not the next footfall in the by-street outside be Heber's
tread? At last, getting no summons, he pushed in.
Susannah was facing him, silent. Old Moorhouse, sitting at the hearth,
took his pipe out of his mouth.
"Her be gone," said he; "her be'ant here. When I come from the fair
her were gone."
The spark of excitement in his face had developed, for a moment, some
latent likeness to his son. It struck Charles Saunders like a blow,
and he turned round, slamming the door, and went out into the street.
He never doubted that Heber had forestalled him again. It wanted but
this to put the crown on his injuries, the fool's cap on his pride!
With some vague, whirling idea of seeking the man who had played him
the same trick twice, he made through the unfamiliar outskirts for the
centre of the town, his head down, looking neither to right nor left;
and, because he did not know his way, he took the exact course by
which Susannah had brought him. Had he gone straight towards the
market-place he would have met Heber hurrying to his father's door.
Unexpectedly, and at a moment's notice, the shepherd had been sent to
the fair by his employer, and his native thoroughness had forbidden
him to seek Catherine before his business was despatched. He had been
asked as a favour to trot out the horse just as he was starting for
the cottage; and now, having delivered the beast again to the boy in
charge, he was making up for the delay with a zest that his meeting
with Saunders had done nothing to lessen. Charles had scarcely been
gone five minutes when Heber's hand was on the latch.
Susannah had persuaded her uncle to go upstairs and rest upon his bed;
she had not told him that Heber was in the town, and she had her own
reasons for hoping that father and son would not meet.
Heber entered and looked round.
"Where is she?" he asked blankly.
"Gone," said Susannah.
"_Gone?_" cried he.
The woman could scarcely hide the smile that touched her mouth.
"Charles Saunders was here," she said. "They're gone."
For one moment the shepherd stood dumb. Then he also turned and rushed
out of the house.
CHAPTER IV
ACTION
CHAPTER IV
ACTION
IT was almost noon on the day before Talgwynne fair when Catherine
Dennis opened her eyes; she tried to sit up, but her head ached so
unpleasantly that she sank back at once and lay still. Her body and
limbs were so stiff that it was a torment to move, and when Susannah
came in and offered her food she could scarcely eat, though she had
tasted nothing for the last eighteen hours. When her own resolve to
escape returned to her mind, she knew herself to be, for the time
being at least, quite incapable of carrying it out.
The milk, with a plate of bread, had been left on the floor beside her
mattress, and she forced herself to eat and drink, knowing that she
must collect what strength she could muster if her feet were to carry
her away from the cottage and out of Talgwynne. To go to-day was out
of the question, but she determined to take any chance she could get
of slipping off unnoticed on the morrow.
She had no plans beyond her settled desire to turn her back on her own
humiliation and on Susannah, who had brought it home to her. She would
hide herself wherever she could, or tramp the roads as a beggar sooner
than be obliged to accept the grudging hospitality of Heber's cousin.
The idea of waiting under those scornful eyes for the man who might
never come was worse than destitution--worse than the workhouse. As
the day wore on and she was able to get up and sit by the fireside at
old Moorhouse's invitation, she formed a vague scheme of crossing the
Wye and trying for shelter and employment in one of the villages over
the Radnorshire border. She could get no speech of the old man, for
Susannah was never out of the kitchen and would hear every word she
said to him, every question she put. There was a faded glimmer of
amusement in his look, too, as it rested on her--his son's dupe. She
was more and more certain of her own part. Her only wish was never
again to meet any one she had known; but the first problem of escape
was beset with such great difficulty that she could hardly see beyond
it. She knew that Susannah would let her go willingly, but she wished
nobody to know so much as the direction of her own road to oblivion.
Black Heber had forsaken her, but it was just possible that Saunders
might be upon her track. She had not a tear for Saunders, though even
now, amid the stress of mortified pain, her heart swelled as she
thought of the shepherd. Perhaps--perhaps he loved her yet, in spite
of all Susannah had said. Her eyes filled. But she could not risk it
and wait; her pride, once roused, had scourged her so cruelly that it
had terrified her into slavery.
From the talk of uncle and niece she learned that Talgwynne fair would
take place next day and that both were going to it. That should be her
chance. She would profess herself too tired to accompany them, should
they invite her to do so, and as soon as they should be safely gone
she would make her venture. She had never been in the little town, but
her country eye knew the points of the compass and the direction in
which the river Wye ran. She would trust to luck and to what sagacity
she had in finding her way. Talgwynne lay high, and if she followed
the fall of the ground, with her face towards the river, which she had
seen daily from Pencoed, she would find her bearings and be able, when
she reached the Brecon high road, to ask her way to the bridge at
Losbury village, over which she would get into Radnorshire. The day
passed slowly and she went early to her mattress in the little room.
That prison should not contain her much longer.
The fair was in full swing next morning as she closed the door behind
her and hurried along the by-street. The whole world had been drawn as
one man to the centre of attraction, and she scarcely met a living
creature until she was far into the country. She knew her direction
well, once she was out of Talgwynne, for the Black Mountain was a
landmark by which it was easy to guide herself. She could see the
identical smooth stretch on which she had galloped with Heber
Moorhouse, and she was soon in a lane which she felt sure must bring
her down upon the high road. Stiff and weary as she still was, she
pressed on with no goal but Losbury bridge and nothing but chance as a
friend. Chance only stood between her and destitution.
She plodded on for some time, knowing that she could not long keep to
the beaten tracks and remain unseen; soon the dispersing fair would
pour men, women and animals along every road and lane. The sound of
some one following her on horseback made Catherine's heart jump into
her mouth. She rushed on and climbed over a gate, which was
fortunately only a few paces in front, and concealed herself behind
the hedge, crouching and peering between the leaves like some
frightened animal. She held her breath as Charles Saunders rode past
her hiding-place at the hurrying nondescript pace of one whose
prudence forbids him to trot downhill while his feelings will not
allow him to walk.
Saunders had lost his flushed appearance; he was pale now and his head
was perfectly clear. As he had not fallen in with Heber while on his
way from Moorhouse's cottage, he was firmly persuaded that the
shepherd had returned for Catherine before he reached it with
Susannah. Though the buying and selling had not abated, and the fair
would rage on for another couple of hours, he shook the dust of
Talgwynne off his feet, embittered by his own folly in listening to
the impudent woman who had made him forget what was due to himself and
led him into fresh ignominy and defeat. His enmity against the
shepherd was more keen than ever. His lips closed and unclosed as
though in speech with his rival.
As the sound of his going died away, the girl raised herself and
looked over the gate at his retreating figure. She felt as if she
never wished to see a man again. They were creatures moved by some
hidden spring that she could not divine nor understand--she, who stood
perplexed on the outskirts of life. Passion and jealousy and the deep
workings, set astir by womankind, of that primæval combat of male with
male were unlearned lessons.
She rose and pursued her way along the fields, afraid to return to the
lane, and resolving afresh, since she had seen Charles, not to venture
out upon the high-road till dusk. Then she reflected that her pocket
was empty and that when dusk came her prospects would be no better.
Her goal was Losbury bridge; but she would have to travel some way on
the other side of it before she reached the village she had in her
mind. There was a post office there, she knew, for she had once been
in it, and she meant to ask the post-mistress if there was anybody in
the place who needed a girl to do servant's work. It was a forlorn
hope, but Catherine had burned her boats; and, with the pathetic
trustfulness of youth, she did not believe that the world would let
her starve. For a coward, she had grown bold indeed.
The foregoing day had poured with rain, and the grass was wet and
heavy. She was so determined to keep far from all thoroughfares that
she was obliged to go many times out of the straight line. She pushed
her way through hedges and thickets and found herself, when the
afternoon was well advanced, in sight of the road. Her feet were
soaked, her boots coated with mud; and her skirts were soaked too, for
a smart shower had caught her in the open. The skies had become
overcast, and she shivered as she sat resting in the seclusion of a
hollow.
Tears began to roll down her cheeks; excitement and wounded pride and
the novelty of a definite object had kept her up; but at last these
guides and supporters were losing their hold and her heart was sinking
in the face of the cheerless outlook. Her teeth chattered and her head
felt like lead. When she got up she was shaking so much that she had
to lean against a tree. She dared not think of the miles between her
and that little village over Losbury bridge, and she could not afford
to await the falling of the light as she had meant to do before
trusting herself to the open road. Down below her was yet one more
pasture, and then she must emerge on the highway and take her chance
of meeting some wayfarer who might recognise her. She plodded on,
thinking less of that risk than of the increasing misery of dragging
herself forward. A climb down a steep hedge-grown bank would bring her
out not fifty yards from the whitewashed walls of a toll-house. Half a
mile east of it was Losbury bridge, spanning a reach of the river
above the flat, green meadows.
She looked up and down the road as she stood on the bank and bent back
the strong suckers in the gap she had chosen; there was not a human
creature within sight. A white milestone was on the hither side of the
white toll and the white gates which barred the way. The window stared
towards her up the vacant thoroughfare after the sleepless, vigilant
fashion of toll-house windows. She began to scramble down, clinging to
the tough whips of hazel; there was a cluster of nuts just by her
shoulder, and she paused to gather it. She was not hungry, but she
might be hungry yet and thankful for so much as a few filberts. As she
turned, stretching out her disengaged hand, her foot went from under
her. She was not the only person who had made a passage through that
gap, and the wet mud had been trodden into a slide by some one else's
heel. The springy bough flew upwards, tearing itself from her grasp as
she slipped and fell.
She lay at the roadside with one foot doubled beneath her. Movement
brought a feeling of such deathly sickness that she raised her head
only to drop it again on the moss of the bank. She felt sure that her
leg must be broken, and, not daring to stir, forgot all but the black,
imminent fear of pain; the moment's despair was enough for her without
the additional bewilderment of looking further.
She gathered her wits again to consider how long it might be before
some one passed, and she prayed for the sound of human approach as
earnestly as she dreaded it. But for the distant bark of a dog, the
encompassing rural life might have been extinct and she herself in the
desert of Sahara.
At last she was able to look up. Her leg could still move, she found,
and she got herself into a less cramped position. Timidly she touched
her ankle; it was already swollen, but, if it was not really broken,
she might try to get as far as the toll. With the help of the tangled
growth on the bank, she drew herself until she sat upright, and saw
that a short, broad figure was standing in front of the gate
contemplating her in an attitude suggesting interest, suspicion, and
the power to deal forcibly with anything. The woman--if woman it
were--stood, sharply outlined against the white bars, feet planted
wide apart, arms akimbo, and head at an attentive and purposeful
angle. Catherine raised herself on one arm and called as loudly as she
could, then, as a twinge of pain shot through her foot, she lay back
once more against the bank.
A minute afterwards she raised her eyes to a round, snub-nosed face
within a yard of her own. It was surmounted by a man's felt hat,
secured in its place by a piece of twine which was tied in a careful
bow under the chin. The loops of the bow were drawn to exact evenness
and the long ends hung down over a person shaped much like a beehive.
The notion that she had never seen any one wearing so many clothes
wandered across the girl's dazed brain.
"By Pharaoh! I thought ye was market-peart!" exclaimed a voice whose
depth, coming from a petticoated being, made Catherine start.
"Watchin' ye, I were, to see how soon ye'd plump down again, once ye
was up."
"I've hurt my foot," said the girl, with a catch in her breath--"maybe
it's broken."
"It's the 'edge that's broken," observed the other, looking up into
the gap. "Where d'ye come from?"
"Talgwynne," replied Catherine, the zealous caution of her day
forgotten.
"Talgwynne?" shouted her companion. "There's a good many'll copy ye
comin' from Talgwynne! Elijah Jones o' the Bush went by in 'is cart
not an hour since, singin' like a bird, an' Mrs. Jones 'oldin' 'im so
as 'e couldn't be sprawlin' over the 'orse's tail. 'E'd been out three
times between this and the last turnin', so her told me. 'By Pharaoh'!
says I, '_I'd_ larrup 'im'! When 'e 'eard that 'e was nigh out o' the
cart an' over the dashboard again."
"But I'm afeared my ankle's broken," said Catherine irrelevantly.
Her face was so grey and pinched that the woman's suspicions changed
to concern; she put a stout arm under her and managed to raise her
till she stood upright.
"Try if ye can't 'obble," said she, as they stood clinging together.
The girl obeyed and found that by resting her whole weight on her
companion's shoulder she could move forward, and the two set off
towards the toll as best they could. It was painful work, but relief
at the discovery that her bones were whole gave Catherine courage, and
her white lips were taking a little colour as they neared the house.
Above the conspicuous window was a black board which displayed in
white lettering, '_Maria Cockshow_, _Tollkeeper_'; and as Catherine
saw it she remembered hearing that a tollkeeper's widow from
Herefordshire, of whose looks and dealings rumour had strange tales,
was in charge of one of the gates near Losbury. It was, presumably, on
the shoulder of this person that she now leaned.
At their approach a white, smooth-haired dog of dubious ancestry burst
from regions behind the toll, and with the indecent instinct of low
breeding for the disastrous and unusual, set about its aggravation by
a storm of high-pitched barks. Catherine almost fell as Mrs. Cockshow
ducked down without warning, and, snatching up a stone from the road,
sent it thundering against the dog's ribs.
"That'll 'elp ye 'ome!" said she, as the animal dived with a yell
under the lowest bar of the gate.
There was a shed behind the house, with a considerable patch of
garden; and the honest smell of the manure-heap proclaimed the
neighbourhood of live stock to instructed noses. The dog was waiting
for the two women at the door with his tail tucked in. His senseless
face and the horrid length of leg that raised his body high above the
ground did not suggest youth, and reminded the observer less of a
puppy than of a foolish person on stilts. He followed, unabashed, but
without raising his tail, as Catherine and Mrs. Cockshow entered. A
person skilful to notice could have gained some clue to the
toll-woman's character from his demeanour; for even this vulgar
creature might be supposed to know his world.
CHAPTER V
PENCOED
CHAPTER V
PENCOED
AS Heber's appearance at her door in search of Catherine convinced
Susannah that the girl had fled alone, she longed to rush after his
rival and tell him of her discovery. She had not doubted that
Catherine was with the shepherd. The moment she realised that there
was still a chance of bringing Saunders and the truant together, her
spirits, which had been dashed to the earth on finding the bird flown,
rose again, and she cast about for some means of communicating with
Charles. Her only anxiety was lest the two men should meet in the town
and the shepherd learn how she had deceived him. She could but trust
to chance to prevent that; and, had she known it, chance had proved
kind, for Charles went straight to the Hand of Friendship, and,
mounting his horse without a word to anybody, set his angry face
homewards. In the course of the harassed evening which followed,
Susannah made up her mind to write to him.
Most people thought it a curious thing that Susannah's destiny seemed
to have nothing better in store than attendance upon a half-crippled
old man. But most people scarcely realise as a truth that, to the
accomplishment of any end, no matter how obvious or how commonplace,
there is required a procession of acquiescent circumstances which
would make the observer giddy, could he see it. Any human being who
meets a stranger in the road has only to think of the chain of
chances--each of which has fulfilled itself--to be forged before that
meeting can be brought about, and of the one link whose lack would be
the undoing of the whole. We speak of 'the hour and the man' as though
they were the only ingredients of fate, and as if their simultaneous
appearance were all that was needed. But the hour may come and the man
with it, and some untoward arrangement of detail may triumph over
both.
Everything had gone smoothly with Susannah but the one detail of her
own temperament. She had grasped life with both hands, caring no whit
how much good others got out of it and thinking only of the passing
day. She could not remember the time when masculine eyes had not
followed her, and now, though her sun had passed its zenith, they
followed her still. It was nearly three years since she had arrived to
keep house for her uncle and so been thrown against her cousin Heber.
Though few men had come to close quarters with her disturbing
personality without feeling its influence, the shepherd, unlike others
in this as in most of his ways, had treated her with the plain
friendliness he might have shown to a man. Perhaps it was this that
made Susannah feel for him what she had never felt for the many who
had courted her and whom she had looked upon as mere pleasant
accessories of life.
She was not a woman given to recognising failure under any
circumstances; where a man was concerned, never. Heber had touched her
imagination--and she had more of it than is given to most women of her
class--and her heart too. She would bring him to her yet, she promised
herself. There was a power in her that hard work and a cramped life
had not been able to destroy. The consciousness of femininity in a
working woman, should it be alive when its necessary function of
attracting a mate and securing a home is accomplished, seldom survives
the birth of her first child. Susannah Moorhouse had neither mate nor
child; but it is possible that, had she gone through the ordeal of
acquiring both, that consciousness would have endured, damaged,
perhaps, but living still. There were some large qualities in her and
persistence was one of them, though its roots were in her settled
belief in herself. She meant to employ every means to attain her
desire. She sought no witch and brewed no potion, though superstition
still lurked in the crevices of the country and one or two aged people
professed themselves able to heal cattle and to deal with scalds,
unrequited affection and other human difficulties, by the mild charms
they practised.
But Susannah's trust was in none of these; she knew herself to stand,
by virtue of some indefinable quality, in a different relationship to
men from that of the women about her. She would draw the man of her
choice to her by that unnamed force which she knew herself to possess
and which she had put forth so often in idleness. It was no wonder
that her neighbours, shrewish spinsters and toiling mothers of
families, had not a good word for her; the gulf between them was so
great.
Though Heber's engagement to Catherine was a staggering blow to her,
its breaking came soon enough to give her courage again. Nay, there
was a fatalism in her that had, perhaps, preserved her from
superstition by taking superstition's place; and it suggested to her
mind, preoccupied as it was with one idea, that larger powers than her
own were playing into her hands. When she heard that Charles Saunders
was to marry the girl she had never seen, and was more than ever
curious to see, she resolved to possess her soul in patience. She
smiled, standing before the cheap square of looking-glass that hung on
her wall. There were lines in the face before her to which she would
fain have been blind, but there were other things too. And all comes
to him who waits. She meant to wait--not passively, but intelligently.
Then Black Heber had brought the girl he loved, and, with the
miraculous blindness of manhood, had given her into the charge of the
woman who loved him.
If Susannah's views of life were more enterprising than those of her
neighbours her education had not differed from theirs, so it was a
laborious business to her to write a letter. She went through a good
deal of mental exercise before she lost sight of it in the maw of the
local postman's bag.
"MISTER SAUNDERS, Sir," she had begun:
"I take the liberty of writing these few lines. Mister
Saunders you may spose Catherine Dennis is gone with Heber, but
not she. He nows no more nor you where shes gone. She run from
here for fere of him sir, if you look you will find her yet.
"No more from your welwisher,
"SUSANNAH MOORHOUSE."
Whether or no she expected an answer to this letter, she hoped for
one; and when some days passed and brought no sign from Charles, she
began to grow restless. Heber had not returned, though, hitherto, he
had always contrived to pay a weekly visit to his father, if but for
five minutes. He was the old man's favourite son and the only one of
four brothers who lived within reach.
The uncertainty as to what was going on began to prey upon Susannah's
nerves. Events which meant so much to her had run quickly enough of
late to make inaction doubly unbearable; and, if she could not see
Saunders, she must at least see her cousin. Pencoed Chapel was the
only place in which she was sure of meeting him, and she informed her
uncle that she meant to go there on the following Sunday.
The distance from Talgwynne put walking out of the question; but she
descended from the farm gig in which an acquaintance had driven her as
near to Pencoed as wheels could go, to make the rest of her way on
foot. She had been obliged to start early to reach the chapel in time
for the meeting, and as she neared it the sound of singing came to her
on the wind. She paused outside the door; looking stealthily in, and
seeing the tall figure of Black Heber, she slipped noiselessly into a
seat.
The little, box-like building was half full of men and women; elderly
people, for the most part, in dark-coloured clothes. The windows,
which were small, with diamond leaded panes set low in the walls, let
in an even light on their subdued homeliness.
Apart from them, at a table covered with faded red cloth, was the same
man who had baptized Catherine in the pool at Bethesda.
The hymn was a long one and the singers were well embarked on it; the
predominance of men in the gathering gave it a fulness and strength of
sound; and, as it was one immensely popular in the district, its
solemn rhythm and swaying time were marred by no uncertainties. Heber
stood in a line with Susannah, by the opposite wall, head and
shoulders above the other worshippers, his eyes fixed on his book. She
could hear his strong, melodious voice separately, fervent, and
steady; and she listened to it as a person by a river's side will
listen to the tune of one particular eddy in the full underlying rush
of water.
It was easy to see, here in the quietness of the chapel, how much more
of youth there was in the man than in the impression he gave to
others. He was little over thirty and the lines on his face were not
lines of care, but the marks traced by exposure and hard exercise. His
eyes were the narrowed eyes of men who look over long distances in
rigorous weathers, and if his thin beard hid jaw and chin, the outline
of his chest and shoulders was sharp and young. Now and again he would
look up, throwing back his head as he sent a note from his expanded
lungs into the swell of the hymn. The words that floated out round her
had neither interest nor meaning for Susannah; for her there was only
a single person, a single voice, under that roof. They had reached the
last lines:
"Ye men of God, lift up your souls,
Nor halt with failing breath;
Yet one more stream before us rolls,
The dark blue flood of death.
Across its waves our pathway lies,
The hosts go on before;
And Zion's city meets our eyes
Set on the other shore."
As the singing ceased, Heber shut his book and looked round like one
awakened, straight at Susannah. The act was so spontaneous that
neither he nor the woman, whose gaze was fixed on him, had time to
return from the widely separated regions in which their respective
souls roamed.
In that instant there was revealed to the shepherd the thing that he
had never suspected. Perhaps the feelings roused by the strenuous,
half-militant spirit of the hymn and the beat of its swinging music
had lighted the whole range of his imagination; perhaps the shock of
the contrast between that seen by his inner and his outer vision
quickened it; in any case, the passion in Susannah's face shot its
message across the chapel and he stood stock still while the rest of
the congregation sat down. Then he thought of his cousin and Catherine
as he had seen them that night in the kitchen at Talgwynne, and the
blood ran hot to his tanned face.
Black Heber was not vain; he had no time for vanity, had it been in
him; nevertheless, Susannah's look pierced to his inactive, remote
self-consciousness. He resumed his seat, feeling as if a rough hand
had taken him by the collar. When a man without vanity loves a woman
as much as he loved Catherine Dennis, the unasked favour of another is
only a gyve to be shaken off. Unreturned love must be worn either as a
fetter or as a decoration; and though there are many men whose pride
it is to go through life decked out in the cheap jewellery of the
affections, the shepherd was not one of them. Had he found time to
think of such things they would have irritated him. He did not care
for ornaments; he only cared for freedom and for getting what he
wanted. Though he believed himself to have lost Catherine for good and
all, his freedom remained; and he felt now as though Susannah menaced
it.
The religious emotion that had such a hold upon his character was gone
for the time being and during the rest of the meeting he followed what
was going on mechanically, his mind struggling with problems that took
him far from the place in which he sat and the sermon to which his
ears were deaf. He was nothing if not shrewd, and he was groping on
the edge of a new suspicion. He was perplexed and disturbed, for the
two facts of Susannah's love for him--almost incredible as he found
that love--and Catherine's flight from her house struck him as
pregnant ones when taken together. He remembered his cousin's odd want
of cordiality when she received the girl. He resolved to evade her, if
he could, when his neighbours dispersed.
Mrs. Job, who was in chapel, was occupied with his affairs too. It was
some time since she had seen the shepherd; and the last sign she had
had of him was the sound of his horse's tread on the night when he had
ridden from Pencoed with Catherine. Though she had no acquaintance
with Susannah, she knew her by sight and was one of the few who had
observed her stealing into the place of worship. It did not take her
long to make the discovery that the stranger had come neither to pray,
nor to listen, nor to sing.
From where she sat, Susannah's face was perfectly plain to her, and
when she saw how her eyes were set on her cousin, and how no movement
of his, no turn of the head, no tone of the voice, escaped her, the
devout Mrs. Job ignored her Bible and let her thoughts dwell,
unrebuked, upon the pair. What revealed itself to the shepherd
revealed itself with a thousandfold more conviction to her. She was
not accustomed to take much notice of love at any time; but her warm
affection for Heber made her acutely alive to everything that
concerned him. While she was assured that Catherine Dennis was not
good enough for him, Susannah's air brought revulsion to her Puritan
nature. She began to dislike her with all her strength.
Almost at the final words of the final prayer Heber rose from his
place and made for the door, and Susannah, who was on her knees with
the rest of the assembly, had not courage to follow; for she was
hemmed in by a woman and two men, who had entered later than herself,
and who knelt immovably by her side. The shepherd gained the doorstep
just as the minister's voice ceased, and one or two people looked up,
curious at his unusual haste. He was often the last to go.
He crossed the grass road hurriedly and went to the other side of Mrs.
Job's house. From an outsider's point of view the deed was
ignominious, but his plain intention was to avoid Susannah, and, as
usual, he took the most direct way of doing it. He had meant to spend
a little time with his friend, but he left her dwelling behind him and
hurried towards the nearest dingle. Beside his distaste for the
discovery he had made, the sight of his cousin brought back his
trouble afresh.
Susannah and Mrs. Job came out of the chapel at the same moment. The
former looked round in search of Heber. He was nowhere to be seen and
she wondered if he had gone into her companion's cottage; with that
probability in her mind, she bid her good-day, introducing herself as
a member of the shepherd's family.
Mrs. Job replied shortly to her greeting and made no comment on the
information. They went across the grass, side by side, and when they
had reached the doorstep without any suggestion of hospitality passing
between them, the younger woman spoke again.
"Is Heber here?" she asked, nodding towards the walls.
"I'll see," said the other; and with that she entered, leaving her
companion outside.
Susannah's lips closed in an angry line; it was evident that she was
to get no encouragement. She was ignorant of the reason for this plain
hostility; but it only made her more certain that her suspicion was
correct and that the shepherd was not far off.
Mrs. Job reappeared, holding the door open to show a portion of her
face--no more.
"He be'ant here," she called.
But Susannah was not to be baffled so easily.
"Can ye give me a drink o' water?" she inquired. "It's dry work coming
up the hill."
The door was shut on her and she heard the pump working in the yard.
Apparently the latch was not to be lifted again, for when Mrs. Job
returned she came round the side of the house and handed her the
desired drink.
Susannah swallowed the water, feeling as if it would choke her.
"Thank ye," she said.
And, as the elder woman put out her hand to take the empty cup, she
dashed it on the ground at their feet. The china flew into shivers on
the step.
She went off along the track, leaving the other speechless, and when
she had gone a little way she sat down on the turf and looked back.
Mrs. Job had gone in and the chapel-goers were dispersing; black
figures scattered in retreating groups towards different quarters of
the landscape. Heber was with none of them and no one was going in her
own direction. It seemed as if they, with Mrs. Job and the shepherd,
were in the conspiracy against her. At last she rose and set out for
the place at which she was to find the gig. Her eyes were dry, because
she was too furious for tears.
About an hour afterwards Heber's perturbed wanderings came to an end:
he approached Pencoed again. It was not only Susannah's demeanour and
its suggestion that annoyed him, for, in his heart, he blamed her for
having let slip his regained treasure. It was an illogical feeling,
because he never doubted that Catherine had gone with Saunders, and
gone willingly, repenting the rash step she had taken. He did not
overlook the difference between himself and the richer man, though he
despised Charles. He had managed to convey news of what had happened
to Mrs. Job, and his heart was so sore that he longed for the sympathy
of the uncompromising and undemonstrative person whose partisanship
never failed him.
There was a grim explosiveness in Mrs. Job's manner as he entered the
house, though she listened patiently while he gave her the history of
Talgwynne fair-day. Her husband stole in, anxious for a pipe beside
the fire, but she motioned him out; her relentless predominance in the
household was a matter of course, and Job departed as humbly as he had
come.
"Maybe it's not Saunders as is at the bottom o' this," said she, when
the shepherd was silent. "Mind you, Heber, I've got eyes in my head,
an' ears too--not so long as some folks, but long enough to hear from
here to Talgwynne! Ah! That cousin o' yours be a bit o' stuff to burn
yer fingers wi', an' no mistake. I know that!"
Moorhouse frowned and his companion took his frown for a sign of
dissent. She raised her sharp nose higher.
"What's wrong wi' her?" he asked.
"Wrong wi' her? She've got her eye on you! An' I've got mine on _her_,
an' had in chapel, too. I can see a thing or two, b'lieve me!"
His brows drew still closer together.
"What made ye run out o' chapel like that?" demanded Mrs. Job, coming
closer. "It cost me a good chinay cup, that run o' yours did. She just
up wi' her hand an' down wi' the cup on the stones an' bruk it to
pieces--if it had been my head my lady would ha' been better pleased,
her would--askin' me for a drink. A drink indeed! Her wanted to get
into the house to see if ye was in it. But her didn't know _me!_"
She gave him no time for comment.
"_I_ saw her watchin' ye i' the chapel," she went on, "an' _I_ heard
o' her walkin' about Talgwynne fair wi' Saunders! Where was ye, Heber,
that day?"
"I wasn't no more'n an hour i' the town," said he, "an' I'd business
to do afore I could get to father's----"
"And Catherine was gone, sure enough, by then," broke in the other;
"an' if ye tell me that baggage didn't get rid o' her I won't believe
ye, that's all! Her may be wi' Saunders an' her mayn't."
If these new lights were dazzling the shepherd, they showed him his
vague suspicions in more definite shape. He stood staring at Mrs. Job
as if he could see into her brain. Mentally she travelled faster than
he did, but he was following.
"The sooner I get after Susannah the better," he said, as he turned
away.
"D'ye think _she'll_ tell ye the truth? Go home, ye foondy feller, an'
don't be wastin' shoe-leather!" she exclaimed loudly.
He said nothing but the obstinate determination on his face spoke
volumes.
After he passed the window a horrible fear shook her.
"You take up wi' that baggage at Talgwynne, an' I've done wi' you!"
she cried after him.
Black Heber never swore; it was against his particular assortment of
principles. But his lips moved as he passed out of earshot. He was on
the nearest way to Talgwynne, and he knew that he must overtake his
cousin if she were on foot; he knew also, from Mrs. Job's story of the
broken cup, that she had not started homewards at once. It was not
likely that she would tell him the truth, but he had a mad hope of
wresting it from her; how, he did not know. At any rate, he might
gather something from her bearing. He would be very cautious.
At last he saw her ahead of him. She did not hear his approach on the
turf until he was close to her.
Her heart beat tumultuously as they walked on together. She could not
understand why he had avoided her only to pursue her afterwards. The
silence by which each was seeking to compel the other's speech was
broken by the shepherd.
"You've had no chance to tell me anything, Susannah," he began.
"About Catherine? There's nothing to tell. I'm main sorry for ye,
that's all. They were gone when uncle and me got home from the fair."
"How d'ye know she be gone with Saunders? I went from the door like a
fool in my haste, but maybe I'm wiser now."
Susannah had provided herself with answers for all emergencies.
"She left a bit o' paper with writing on the kitchen table. '_Charles
Saunders is come_,' says she, '_an' I'm gone wi' him._' No more nor
that. Not a word of thanks to me, either."
"What did ye do with it?" exclaimed he, stopping short.
"Burnt it."
Heber made a smothered exclamation.
"But Saunders was at the fair till afternoon," said he, at the end of
a long pause, during which neither had looked at the other.
"I heard that. I s'pose he came back."
To the shepherd's practical mind there were discrepancies of time in
Susannah's account that he could not adjust. When he had reached
Talgwynne he had found the best part of the fair over; for noon saw
business ebb in the little hillside place. His tardy appearance had
been hailed with interest, and he was immediately secured to ride a
horse for the inspection of a man who, he was told, had been all day
in the town. The recollection of these facts sprang up to assort
itself very ill with his companion's words. He made up his mind to get
to Talgwynne on the first possible chance of absenting himself from
his work and to see what he could elicit from his father. He could not
tell how far the old man might be in Susannah's confidence. He did not
speak of his intention to her, and it struck him, when he turned to
take his way up the hill and they stood within sight of the waiting
gig, that she made no suggestion of his coming. It was the first time
in his recollection of her that she had seen him without pressing him
to come soon.
They had reached a dip in the ground which hid the wayside cottage
where the gig with Susannah's friends was drawn up. She had looked for
the expression of greater resentment from him, but he had cursed
neither fate nor Saunders. He spoke of Catherine's desertion of him
almost as if it had happened to some one else. There was no excitement
in his manner, even little concern; and, for a man who had so few
scruples about strong measures when they suited him, he seemed to
accept his defeat with curious calmness. If he had flung away from his
father's door with every sign of uncalculating bitterness, he was
different now. She told herself with triumph that he had taken
Catherine's measure at last. Perhaps Susannah paid too little heed to
those inconsistencies in him which surprised others.
As they parted she held out her hand and looked up at him with
half-closed, half-mocking eyes.
"Ah--you'll forget her in time, Heber," she said, her fingers clinging
to his as he touched them. She raised her face till it was close to
his own.
He thrust her away with one short, frightfully definite word.
When she got into the gig a few minutes afterwards she was as white as
a sheet.
CHAPTER VI
CATHERINE OPENS THE GATE
CHAPTER VI
CATHERINE OPENS THE GATE
TEN days had passed since the sturdy widow led her guest across the
threshold, and Catherine, with the remains of a badly twisted ankle,
was still under her roof. She had been molested by nobody. One of her
two lovers supposed her to be with the other; Mrs. Job did not know
where she was; and Susannah, equally ignorant, was only interested in
knowing where she was not.
The attraction of opposites had done its work between Mrs. Cockshow
and her housemate, for the two women were excellent friends. The
human-heartedness of the elder one, and her permanent fancy for other
people's business, made her deaf when Catherine began to speak of
leaving the place. She was still very lame and the toll-woman was
right when she took Pharaoh to witness that to travel on foot would be
insanity. Besides which, where was she going to? The question was
unanswerable; and finally it was settled between them that the
cleaning of the house, the cooking, and the minding of that mob of
fowls which dwelt at the bottom of the garden should devolve upon
Catherine, indefinitely, in return for her keep.
In this arrangement of Mrs. Cockshow's, convenience and charity, like
righteousness and peace, kissed each other. Her whole interest was
found outside her own walls; the road was her passion, her world; and
those who went up and down on it her pictures, her newspapers, and,
very often, her victims. To bandy words with her was the act of a
fool; and so well was this understood that the ridicule which her
strange appearance evoked when she first came into residence by the
gate had died a natural but by no means lingering death, and gossip
had taken its place. This was for the best, because the latter was
satisfactory to all, while the former had only been satisfactory to
Mrs. Cockshow.
The thing that suited Catherine's patroness best in their arrangement
was that the girl could be left in charge of the gate while she went
to Llangarth market. She was a woman of some means, who did a small
trade in eggs and poultry, and the difficulty of leaving her post on
Thursdays had been a weekly annoyance; for a market day was a
foretaste of Paradise to her. She owned a stout, aged pony of her late
husband's which she occasionally hired out to her neighbours for odd
jobs, and she now looked forward to journeying in comfort to the very
fountain-head of gossip. Besides this, it was delightful to her to
have under her roof the heroine of an episode of which she had been
almost the first to hear. She had dragged Catherine's secret from her
in the early hours of their acquaintance, and thought a great deal
more of her companion when she learnt that she had eluded two of the
opposite sex.
Mrs. Cockshow did not believe in men. Her own husband had drunk
heavily and persistently; and she had had time to visit his sins upon
him before he escaped into the next world. She was well acquainted
with Charles Saunders, and slightly so with Black Heber, for both had
passed through her gate at various times.
"Take care ye don't let the sun go over the 'ill, all the same," she
had said to Catherine; for though a despiser of men, she was an
advocate of marriage. To her, matrimony, with the whip hand, was the
ideal life.
So far, she had kept her tongue quiet on the subject of her guest.
Perhaps it pleased her to hug to her heart the gratification of
knowing more than any one else; to pet her knowledge, so to speak,
before using it as a boast. Catherine had been kept a prisoner indoors
for several days by her ankle, and when she went outside the walls it
was only to tend the poultry or to hang out the washing in the garden.
Never had so much washing been seen on the toll-house hedges before,
though Mrs. Cockshow, to whom soap was not important, eyed the display
contemptuously. Her cleanings consisted generally of what the
country-side called "a lick and a promise." The toll-house hid
Catherine from prying eyes on the road as she went about her business
in the garden, and she began to feel secure in her very public
retreat.
Between herself and Bungo, the white cur dog, no great friendship
existed. The girl was fond of all animals; but her efforts to be on
easy terms with this one had been useless, for he persisted in looking
with imperishable distrust at her out of his blinking eyes and
galloping away whenever she spoke to him. He would follow her to the
garden at a servile distance; but the first words she threw him would
send him flying across the cabbage beds, from the safe side of which
he would stun her ears with his insane barking. In Mrs. Cockshow, who
had hurled enough stones at him to pave a yard, he had implicit trust;
but he took each movement of Catherine's hand for a menace.
She had just returned from her hens one morning, with Bungo sneaking
in her wake, when she heard Mrs. Cockshow in loud altercation on the
road. The shrill, high voice of an old man was contending with that of
the widow, and Catherine ran to the window in the upper storey,
attracted by the increasing noise. Judging by the part that the word
"fourpence" played in the storm, the dispute was about money, and the
girl knew the toll-woman well enough to be sure that there could be
but one issue to the combat. She smiled, hearing the baffled fury in
the old man's tone, as the gate swung open for the wheels that went
grinding through it.
"A pint o' fourpences would be no more account to me nor a pint o'
ditchwater!" he screamed. "I've _thousands_ to leave behind me when I
go, I have!"
"An', by Pharaoh, I've got more than that!" cried Mrs. Cockshow at the
pitch of her lungs. "I've the world to leave be'ind me when I go!"
Catherine, at her vantage point in the upper window, pulled the
curtain aside as the gate closed, only to jump back as though she had
been fired at; for Bungo, who had joined his owner and was at the
farther side of the road, fell into a frenzy of barking as he heard
her movement at the open casement and saw her figure. The eyes of all
went upward. The old man in the gig below was Saunders's uncle, and
Catherine was looking straight into the upturned face of Charles.
When the gig had rolled on without any action on his part, she
breathed again freely. Mrs. Cockshow standing in her favourite spot in
the middle of the road, watched the vehicle out of sight, and when a
bend hid it she came close under the toll-house walls.
"'E's 'ad enough o' you!" she called up, her broad face all one smile.
"Did ye see the bald 'eaded old mawkin sittin' up beside 'im? If the
young feller's no better nor 'im, ye did well to give 'im the slip.
I've seen the old devil drivin' 'is cattle along this road many a
time. A proud look and a 'igh stomach 'e 'as, too; but that don't keep
'im from bastin' their ribs wi' a common stick cut out o' the
'edge--can't spare so much as would buy a decent bit o' ash plant. 'E
don't 'ave no cattle-man neither, an' 'im screechin' about 'is
thousands! They do say 'e starved 'is wife too. I know them that's
seen 'er----"
At this point the widow discovered herself to be shouting up into an
empty room; for Catherine had come out and was standing behind her,
with a scared face.
Mrs. Cockshow turned on her.
"Silly wench that ye be!" she exclaimed. "It's better to be sure than
sorry. I tell ye 'e 'ates the very sight of ye now, an' no wonder too.
Go an' get the dinner. It's nigh upon twelve, and Bungo 'asn't 'ad a
bite to-day. Come in, ye whelp!"
The last sentence was addressed, in a murderous tone, to the white
dog, who wagged his tail. He took it for a caress.
Mrs. Cockshow arose next morning in her most jovial humour. It was
Thursday; and now, for the first time for months, she was dispensing
with the services of that neighbour who called to take her eggs to
market and was looking forward to carrying them there herself.
Catherine also was happy; for the two Saunderses had driven by last
evening on their return journey, without so much as a look at the
toll-house windows, and she was sure the widow was right in saying
that Charles now hated the sight of her.
She was not afraid that Heber would pass, though she knew that he went
on Thursdays to Llangarth; for his way thither from the hill farm
joined the highroad some way east of the toll. She sighed. Could she
see him, while remaining invisible herself, she knew that she would
secretly be glad. But, admitting that, she put him from her thoughts
with a heightened colour. Since Susannah's plain speaking, she had
never let her mind dwell on the shepherd; yet she had learned of late
that if her pride had been cruelly handled, her heart had fared little
better. She could not think, looking back, how she had ever liked or
tolerated Saunders. She was bitter against Black Heber, as well she
might be; but she hated him and loved him at the same moment. For the
first time, the simple girl was in a terribly complicated state of
mind.
Mrs. Cockshow had tied on her late husband's hat with a new piece of
twine and loaded her person yet more completely with clothes. Before
she climbed into the antiquated side-saddle on her pony's back, she
went to the roadside and began to fill the most accessible of her
pockets with stones. While so engaged, she directed Catherine, who
looked on with astonishment, to shut the gate and tie the animal to
it. The girl obeyed, and when the widow approached, bulging more
strangely than usual, she helped her to mount. Mrs. Cockshow used the
toll bars as a horse-block. Then the egg basket was handed up to her,
a switch cut from the hedge, and Catherine was bidden to attend to the
needs of passers and to suffer no one to shirk payment. Before the
rider was out of sight, Bungo burst with a yell from the toll-house
and began to follow, raising a trail of dust as he went.
In one moment Mrs. Cockshow had turned and the air was one hail of
flying stones, while, through the cloud sent up by the sudden facing
about of the pony, her arm could be seen whirling above her head like
the arm of a mounted drummer through the smoke of battle; and as, in
the blinding hurricane of hard metal and abuse, Bungo flew homewards
like the greyhound which had evidently been too intimate with his
grandmother, Catherine realised as she had never realised before, the
infinite forethought of her protectress. She shut the dog into the
house and sat down to await her first summons from the public.
Mrs. Cockshow gained Llangarth without further inconvenience. Many
looks followed her as she rode up the street; but though there was a
smile on most faces, no one addressed her with levity. Having disposed
of the pony, she disappeared with her basket into the market-place.
The market had drawn more than one of the actors in our story to
Llangarth; for Charles and his uncle were among those inspecting
cattle in the street, and Heber, who had come on horseback to take
some sheep to the railway station, was in the town too.
Instead of answering Susannah's letter Saunders had put it into the
fire, for he was resolved that the episode of his acquaintance with
Catherine Dennis should be closed for good and all. He was ashamed of
it now, and felt that he had deserved all he got for meddling with a
woman so far beneath him in every possible way. There was some comfort
in assuring himself that he was well out of it and that he would take
care never to get into such a position again. He felt little
resentment against her; not because he was broad-minded or forgiving,
but because his rancour was so completely concentrated on Heber that
it put everything else out of his head. He would never forgive the
smile he had seen on the shepherd's face as he looked back at him from
the saddle on the Talgwynne road. It was constantly in his mind, and
he was thinking of it as he came out of the post-office door when his
business with the cattle was over. He turned down the street and saw
his enemy, who was on his way from the station, coming to meet him.
Heber looked grim and weary as he approached. Since Sunday, when he
had parted from Susannah, he had had no chance of leaving his work
either to question his father at Talgwynne or to make any other
attempt at discovering where Catherine had hidden herself. He did not
know what to believe; his doubt of his cousin's truthfulness was
strong and his opinion of Mrs. Job's wisdom great. Yet, as he looked
back in cold blood at their ride in the dark and at his own roughness,
he could not help seeing some likelihood in the girl's return to his
rival. He was not accustomed to considering himself from the
outside--few primitive men are; but he had thought a good deal as he
went about his business in the solitudes of the mountains; and failure
will open new vistas to those who are not eaten up by vanity. Though
not given to succumbing to circumstances, Heber was tried by the
enforced patience and inaction of the last week and his heart was
heavy in him.
If Susannah's letter had produced no effect on Charles, it had given
him the keen pleasure of knowing that Heber was made a fool of as well
as himself. The whole look of the man as he came to meet him sent the
warmth of satisfaction through Saunders, because it suggested to him
that he was out of spirits with the world. As the distance lessened
between them his own expression proclaimed the feeling; and back again
to his mind came the vision of their last meeting and Heber's smile.
It was his turn to smile now. He stopped.
"Well, have ye found her yet?" he asked.
The shepherd made no pretence of misunderstanding him; his methods
were too direct for that, and even the engrafted genteelness of
Charles's points of view could not blind him to a certain nobility in
the coarsely clad, weather-beaten fellow, which struck him at that
moment as an additional outrage on himself.
"I know where I won't find her, and that's wi' you," said Heber, at a
venture.
Charles was sharp enough to see where a vulnerable point would lie,
and the overmastering longing to wound Heber inspired his tongue.
"And that's where you're wrong," said he. "I've got her safe enough,
and I'll keep her too--for a bit."
The pupils of the shepherd's eyes seemed to be contracting as Saunders
watched his face with an ecstatic sense of the success of his own
words.
"If I follow ye till midnight," Heber said, at last, "I'll see whether
ye speak truth."
He spoke with a slow, cold emphasis.
Charles was a little disconcerted. Were the other to keep his word he
would be likely to prove the falseness of his statement; were he to
precede him to his house he would certainly do so. He suspected that
Heber knew where he lived.
"You'll have some way to go, then," said he. "A decent man doesn't
keep his wench under other folks' noses. If you've a mind to see
Catherine, I'll not stop you. I'm going out to see her myself, an'
perhaps the sight of the pair of us'll please her."
As he spoke, Saunders's eyes twinkled, for he was due at a village out
in the neighbourhood and was going to start almost immediately in the
gig. If Moorhouse chose to annoy him by following him, he would let
him have the wild-goose chase he deserved for his pains; and as he
left the shepherd standing in the street he could hardly keep himself
from bursting out laughing. He looked over his shoulder. Heber was a
few paces behind.
When Charles entered his house he saw that the shepherd was going to
carry out his threat, for he was standing on the pavement watching him
from the other side of the way; and as he emerged again to go into the
stable behind the dwelling to fetch his gig, he was a little
disappointed at finding that Heber had disappeared. But when he had
harnessed the cob and was driving out of the yard his cheerfulness
returned, for Heber had apparently only gone to get his horse--the
same which had carried him and Catherine to Talgwynne--and was waiting
for him at the end of the street. Just as Charles was starting, his
uncle called after him to stop, as he meant to accompany him; and
little as he desired the old man's company at the present juncture, he
had no choice but to accept it. He drove out of the town and on to the
Brecon road, with the trotting hoofs of the shepherd's horse following
steadily with a rhythmic beat that kept exact pace behind the gig,
neither increasing nor slackening.
It was only when they had left Llangarth behind that it occurred to
Charles what an egregious fool he had been. When he lured Heber after
him he had forgotten that, in order to reach his destination, he would
have to pass through Mrs. Cockshow's tollgate.
How he had perpetrated such an imbecility was beyond his
understanding. On ordinary occasions he reached the village he was
bound for by turning off the highway into a lane on the near side of
the gate; but he remembered now that this was under repair and barred,
and that he could only proceed by a cart track half a mile beyond the
tollhouse. There was nothing for him to do but to put the best face he
could on the business and to go forward. It was impossible to turn
back because of his uncle's presence beside him; for the old man was
not in his confidence, and Catherine's face at the window yesterday
had conveyed nothing to him. He did not know her by sight. He was
aware of the trick that his nephew's intended bride had played him,
and, because he had never favoured the marriage, he had made some very
sour jokes on the subject. As they neared the toll Charles prayed that
he might not have the chance of making more.
Still the tireless hoofs beat on behind them. Once he glanced back.
Heber was rising and falling mechanically in his stirrups with the
swing of the big horse's trot, apparently less interested in him and
his gig than in the fields on either side. They went by the mouth of
the closed lane. The bars were up and workmen were laying a seemingly
interminable drain-pipe along the very middle of it.
As the little white house came in sight Saunders stared earnestly
before him for Mrs. Cockshow and felt in his waistcoat pocket for the
gate-money. The widow was usually in the road, but to-day there was no
sign of her familiar and unforgettable shape. He drew a sharp breath
of annoyance. There would be shouting and waiting and all sorts of
untoward delays; possibly a fresh battle between Mrs. Cockshow and his
uncle. The latter was muttering already and beginning to look, as he
did when excited, like a crazy hen.
Heber sat, immovable and unconcerned, on his horse when they pulled
up, and Saunders raised his voice in the customary manner of
travellers. The shepherd's money was in his fingers, but when
Catherine came out of the tollhouse he almost dropped it into the
dust.
For an instant the suspicion that Charles's hateful insinuations were
true came to him like a cold blast. The girl hesitated, and then, with
a glance at the occupants of the gig, approached him first, holding
out her hand for the toll money. He leaned down towards her.
"What be you doing here, Catherine? How be you come here?"
She shrank back. There was suppressed vehemence in his tone.
"Don't be afeared o' me," he exclaimed, "I won't hurt ye, my girl."
"I live wi' Mrs. Cockshow," she faltered. "She's at the market."
"Come on, come on, ye slut!" screamed Saunders's uncle. "Am I to wait
here all day for you to be sweetheartin' wi' every vagabond feller on
the road?"
Heber had dismounted, and as Catherine, bewildered, was about to obey
the cattle-breeder, he held her back. He took no notice of the
outburst, but he led her up to the side of the gig on which Charles
sat.
"Tell me the truth, Catherine," he said, "be you livin' wi' this man
or be you not?"
"_Livin_' with him--with _him?_" she exclaimed.
"Yes, you be hussy enough for anything, I'll be bound!" cried the old
man's shrill voice. "Let me go on, I tell 'e; open the gate! Who cares
a damn who ye be livin' with?"
"He told me, not an hour back, that he was keepin' you," continued
Black Heber, unmoved, pointing at Charles. "Be that true? Answer me,
girl."
"It's a lie," cried Catherine, in a shaking voice. "So help me God,
it's a lie!"
He loosed his hold on her.
"Open the gate, Catherine," said he quietly. Then he took Charles's
cob by the head and looked up at its driver.
"Will ye drive on, like the lyin' cur ye are, or will ye come down now
and have it out wi' me?"
"Let my horse go!" screamed the cattle-breeder. "Who be you, ye thief,
stopping me an' my nephew in the road?"
Charles bent forward and cut at Heber with his whip.
"Go on, then, if you be afeared," said the shepherd, taking his hand
from the bit. "It's the wisest choice that you've made. And every time
ye see me, ye can remember that I know the coward ye are."
"He's forgotten to pay," said Catherine blankly to the shepherd as
they watched the gig disappear. "Oh! what'll Mrs. Cockshow say?"
Black Heber made no suggestion. There was only one question just then
which interested him, and he could read its answer in Catherine's
face.
"I'll tie up the horse and come in wi' you," said he. "Maybe I'd best
wait and explain it to her."
__________
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
Transcriber's Note
This transcription is based on a set of images digitized by Google
from a copy made available by the New York Public Library and posted
by Google at:
https://books.google.com/books?id=MqUiAAAAMAAJ
The same set of images are also posted by the HathiTrust Digital
Library at:
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008665603
The cover image is courtesy of the National Library of Scotland.
The following changes were made to the printed text:
-- p. 26: speaking to the newly baptzied persons--Changed "baptzied"
to "baptized".
-- p. 30: as the sense of justice in in the weak so often is--Deleted
the second "in".
-- p. 83: and maybe I'll give it you for nothin.'--Moved the
apostrophe before the period.
-- p. 86: on the pavement towards the western entrance to the
town--Added a period at the end of the sentence.
-- p. 88: The night afore the wedding Heber brought her to our house
'an knocked me out o' my bed--Changed "'an" (for "and") to "an'".
-- p. 114: an' Mrs. Jones oldin' 'im so as 'e couldn't be sprawlin'
over the 'orse's tail.--Added an apostrophe at the beginning of
"oldin'".
-- p. 160: she knew that he went on Thursdays to Langarth--Changed
"Langarth" to "Llangarth".
-- p. 172: "I live wi' Mrs. Cockshow," she faltered. She's at the
market."--Added an opening double quotation mark before "She's".
-- p. 172: he held her back, He took no notice of the
outburst--Changed the comma after "back" to a period.
Alternate spellings within the text, such as "by-lane"/"bylane" and
"toll-house"/"tollhouse," have been preserved.