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