"Haven't heard nothing. But you ought to know."
"I've guessed it. Jerry's moonstruck and always looking that way."
"I hope it ain't true," said Enoch. "I don't much care for that maiden. She's spoiled, and she's shifty. She came to see us with her mother. Hard hearted."
"She's no more than a kitten yet, father."
"Yes; but the sort of kitten that grows into a cat devilish quick. I wouldn't wish it for Jerry's sake. He's a man likely to be under the thumb of his wife, so I'd hope a different sort for him."
"Jane's too young for Jerry," declared Melinda. "He's over thirty and she's but eighteen or so. Besides, when Dinah marries John and goes, then Jane will have to turn to and be more to her mother. She's terrible lazy."
Mr. Chaffe shook his head.
"They don't know what it will mean to that house when Dinah leaves it."
"Her step-father does," answered Enoch's daughter. "Dinah's the apple of his eye. But Mrs. Bamsey's looking forward to it on the quiet."
"It's natural in a way. She's always been a thought jealous of her husband's great love for Orphan Dinah. And so has Jane. She'll be glad enough when Dinah's away. And it's up to her, as you say, to fill the gap."
"Which she's not built to do," prophesied Mr. Withycombe.
"We must hope. With responsibility often comes the grace to undertake it."
They chatted a little longer and then, promising the new gate in a fortnight, Arthur Chaffe went on his way.
Though Lawrence Maynard was a man of intelligence far deeper than Thomas Palk, yet the latter began to arrive at a juster conclusion concerning his new life and his new master than did his fellow worker.
Nor was it experience of life that led the horseman to his judgment. Experience of life has little to do with duration of life; and as a gutter-snipe of eight will often know more about it and be quicker to read character than a rural boy of fifteen, so, with men, it is the native power to grind what life brings to the mill that makes the student. Maynard had both seen and felt far more than Palk, yet in the matter of their present environment, Thomas it was who divined the situation correctly. And this he did inspired by that most acute of prompters: self-interest; while precisely in this particular Lawrence Maynard was indifferent. His interests, for one with the greater part of his life still to live, were unusually limited. His own life, by the accident of circumstances, concerned him but little. Chance had altered the original plan and scope so largely that he was now become impassive and so emptied of his old former apprehension and appetite for living, that he did not at present trouble himself to use the good brains in his head. The very work he had chosen to do was not such work as he might have done. It was less than the work he once did; but it contented him now. Yet his activities of mind, while largely sharing an apathy from which it seemed unlikely the future would ever awaken him, were not wholly sunk to the level of his occupation. Sometimes he occupied himself with abstract speculations involving fate and conduct, but not implicating humanity and character.
So he took people at their own valuation, from indifference rather than goodwill, and in the case of his new master, found this attitude create a measure of satisfaction. He liked Mr. Stockman, appreciated his benevolence and took him as he found him, without any attempt to examine beneath the smiling and genial surface that Joe invariably presented. He had proved exceedingly kind and even considerate. He had, in fact, though he knew it not, wakened certain sentiments in the younger man's heart and, as a result of this, while their acquaintance was still of the shortest, moved by a very rare emotion, Maynard challenged his master's friendship by the channel of confidence. Nor did it appear that he had erred. The farmer proved exceedingly understanding. Indeed, he exhibited larger sympathies than he was in reality capable of feeling, for Mr. Stockman, among his other accomplishments, had a royal genius for suggesting that the individual who at any time approached him could count upon his entire and single-hearted attention—nay, his devotion. He appeared to concentrate on his neighbour's welfare as though that were the vital interest of his own life; and it was only the harder-headed and long-memoried men and women who were not deluded, but had presence of mind to wait for results and compare Joe's accomplishment with his assurance.
Thus, after a month at Falcon Farm, Lawrence Maynard honestly felt something like enthusiasm for the master, while Thomas Palk failed of such high emotion. Not that Thomas had anything to quarrel about actively; but weighing Joe's words against his deeds, he had slowly, almost solemnly, come to the conclusion that there was a disparity. He voiced his opinion on a day when he and Lawrence were working together on the great fern slopes under the Beacon. There, some weeks before, the bracken had been mown down with scythes, and now the harvest was dry and ready to be stacked for winter litter. They made bales of the fern and loaded up a haycart.
"The man tighteneth," said Palk. "I don't say it in no unkind spirit and I've nought to grumble at; but it ain't working out exactly same as he said it was going to. I wouldn't say he was trying to come it over me, or anything like that; but he's a masterpiece for getting every ounce out of you. If he worked a bit himself, he wouldn't have so much time to see what we was doing."
"Can't say he asks anything out of reason."
"No, no—more I do; but I warn you. He edges in the work that crafty—here a job and there a job—and such a scorn of regular hours. 'Tis all very well to say when our work's done we can stop, no matter what the hour is; but when is our work done? Never, till 'tis too dark to see it any longer."
Maynard laughed.
"We must suit ourselves. It's a free country. I find him a very understanding man, and friendly."
"So do I, so do I; but I mark the plan he goes on. 'Tis the same with the hosses. I won't say it's not a very good plan for a farmer. Feeds well and pays well and treats well; but, behind all that, will have a little more than his money's worth out of man and beast."
"Can't say I've found him grasping."
"Then I hope to God I'm wrong and 'tis my fancy. Time will show. I'm satisfied if you are; and if his daughter don't feel no call to be uneasy, why for should us?"
"For my part I like work," declared Lawrence. "I may not have been so keen once; but there's very little to my life but work. I've got used to looking at work as about the only thing in the world."
"The first thing, not the only thing," answered Thomas. "There's religion and, in the case of many people, there's their families and the rising generation. We'm bachelors and ban't troubled in that way; but I believe in regular hours myself, so far as you can have 'em in farming. I like to get away from work and just do nothing—with mind and body—for a good hour sometimes. 'Tis a restful state."
Palk started with a full cart presently, while Maynard began to collect fresh masses of the dry fern and bind it. He found himself well content at Falcon Farm. He was settling down and liked the place and the people. He did not observe, or attempt to observe, anything beneath the surface of his new neighbours; but they proved agreeable, easy, friendly; they satisfied him well. He liked John Bamsey; he liked Melinda Honeysett, and had visited her father and found a spirit who promised to throw light on some of his own problems.
Now he was to meet yet another from his new circle. He worked two hundred yards above the road that ran slantwise across the hillside to Buckland; and from below him now, whence the sound of a trotting horse's footfall ascended, he heard a sudden, harsh noise which spoke of an accident. Silence followed. The horse had ceased to trot and had evidently come down. Maynard dropped his hay fork, tightened his leather belt and descended swiftly to the hedge. Looking over into the deep lane below he saw a pony on the ground, the shaft of a light market-cart broken, and a girl with her hat crushed, her hair fallen and a bloody face, loosening the harness.
She was a brown, young woman with a pair of dark grey eyes and a countenance that preserved a cheerful expression despite her troubles. She wore a tweed skirt and a white flannel bodice upon which the blood from her face had already dropped. She was kneeling and in some danger of the struggling pony's hoofs.
"Stand clear!" shouted Lawrence. Then he jumped the sheer eight feet of the wall, falling for his own comfort on the mass of beech leaves that filled the water-table below. The girl rose. She was filled with concern for the pony.
"Poor chap; he's been down before. How's his knees? All my fault. I got thinking and forgot the road was slippery."
"You're badly cut I'm thinking."
"It's nothing much. I fell on top of him when he came down. 'Twas a buckle done it I expect."
The man freed the pony and pulled back the trap. The animal had not hurt itself, but was frightened and in a mood to run away. The cart had a shaft broken short off, but was not otherwise injured.
Its driver directed Lawrence.
"Thank you I'm sure. That comes of wool-gathering when you ought to be minding your business. Serve me right. I'll take the pony—he knows me. D'you think you could pull the trap so far as Buckland, or shall I send for it? I can put it up there in a shed and send to Lower Town for a new shaft."
"I'll fetch it along. Is your face done bleeding?"
"Very near. You'll be Mr. Lawrence Maynard I suppose?"
"So I am then. How d'you know it?"
"Guessed it. I'm Dinah Waycott. I expect my young man has told you about me. 'Orphan Dinah' they call me. I'm tokened to John Bamsey, the water-keeper, my foster-father's son."
He nodded.
"I've heard tell about you. John Bamsey often drops in at Falcon Farm."
He pulled the trap along and she walked beside him leading the pony. She spoke kind words to the creature, apologised to it and told it to cheer up.
Maynard had leisure to observe her and quickly perceived the nature of her mind and that outspeaking quality that had occasioned argument. Ac their present meeting it took the form of a sort of familiarity that impressed Lawrence as strange from a woman to a man she had never met before.
"I was wishful to see you, because Johnny likes you. But he's not much of a hand at sizing up people. Perhaps if he was, he wouldn't be so silly fond of me."
This was no challenge, but merely the utterance of her honest opinion. Nothing of the coquette appeared in Dinah. She had received his succour with gratitude, but expressed no dismay at the poor figure she cut on their meeting.
"He's a good chap," he said, "and terrible fond of you, miss."
Thus unconsciously he fell into her own direct way of speech. He did not feel that he was talking to a stranger; and that not because he had already heard so much about her, but because Dinah created an atmosphere of directness between herself and all men and women. She recognised no barriers until the other side raised them. There was a frank goodwill about her that never hid itself. She was like a wild thing that has not yet fallen in with man, or learned to distrust him.
"Are you a chap with a pretty good judgment of your fellow creatures?" she asked. "You've got a thoughtful sort of face as if you might be."
He smiled and looked at her.
"Your fellow creatures make you thoughtful," he answered.
"Don't they? Never you said a truer word! Your life all depends upon the people in it seemingly."
"They make or mar it most times."
"Yes, they're the only difficult thing about it."
"If we could live it all to ourselves, it might be easy enough."
"So I think when I look at a squirrel. But I dare say, if he could talk, he'd tell us the other squirrels was a nuisance, and cadged his food and worried him."
"I dare say he would."
"I'm one of the lucky ones," she said.
"Ah!"
"Yes. If I could put my finger on a trouble, which I can't, I should find it was of my own making."
"Like to-day?"
"This don't amount to a trouble—just an accident with nobody the worse. Only a cranky mind would call this a trouble."
"You might have broke your neck, however."
"But I didn't, nor yet the pony's knees—my luck."
"You may have marked your cheek for life."
"And what does that matter? Suppose I'd knocked half my teeth down my throat: that would have been something to worrit about."
"You're the hopeful sort. Perhaps that's your best luck—that you're built to take a bright view, miss."
"Perhaps it is. Aren't you?"
"We may be built to one pattern and then life come along and unbuild us."
"I wouldn't let life unbuild me."
He did not answer, and presently she asked him a question.
"What d'you think of Johnny Bamsey, Mr. Maynard?"
"Hardly know him well enough to say."
"You know him as well as he knows you—better, because Johnny will be talking more than thinking, same as me. But you're not like that seemingly. In fact, though he's took to you and sees you've got a brain, he says you're rather glum for a young man."
"I expect I am to the eyes of my own generation."
"Why? People ain't glum for nought."
"Oh yes, they are—often for less than nought. It ain't life, it's nature makes many downcast. You see chaps, chin-deep in trouble, always ready to forget it and laugh with the loudest."
"So you do then."
"And others—prosperous men, with nothing to grizzle about—always care-foundered and fretty."
"You'd say you was glum by nature then?"
"I wouldn't say I was glum—you've only got John Bamsey's word for it. Miss Stockman wouldn't tell you I was glum."
"She likes you very much. She told me so when she was over to my home last week. Soosie-Toosie's a woman quick to welcome a bit of luck, because she don't get much, and she likes you, and Mr. Palk also."
"I'm glad she does."
"And what d'you think of Johnny?"
"A very good chap I'm sure. Rather excitable, perhaps."
"He is, you might say a thought unreasonable sometimes."
"Never where you are concerned I'm sure."
"He's got the loveliest hair ever I saw on a man."
"Fine curly hair, sure enough."
"I believe temper always goes with that fashioned hair. I've noticed it."
"I'm sure his temper is good most times."
"He's sulky if he's crossed."
"He's young. Perhaps he hasn't been crossed often."
"Never—never once in his life—until now. But he's a thought vexed because I won't name the day."
"Who shall blame him?"
"Nobody. I'm sure I don't."
"I expect you will name it pretty soon, miss?"
"I expect so. How d'you like Cousin Joe?"
"Mr. Stockman? Very much indeed. I feel a lot obliged to him—a kindly, understanding man. He looks at life in a very wise way, and he's got a thought to spare for other people."
"I'm glad you like him. He's cruel lazy; but what does that matter? It takes all sorts to make a world."
"Everybody tells me he's lazy. I shouldn't call him particular lazy for his time of life. He's done a deal of work in the past."
"Glad you're so well suited. Where d'you come from, if I may ask?"
"Somerset."
They had reached Buckland, and Dinah hitched her pony to the hedge, opened a gate and directed Lawrence to wheel the trap into a byre close at hand.
"I'll tell Mr. Budge what's happened and he'll let father's cart bide there for the minute. Then I'll take the pony and my parcels home."
"You're all right?"
"Never righter. And thank you, I'm sure—a proper good Samaritan. I won't forget it; and if ever I can do you a good turn, I will."
"I'm sure you will. Very pleased to meet you, miss. And you see doctor for that cut. 'Tis a pretty deep gash and did ought to be tended."
"Foster-father'll put me right. And if you're in a mind to come over one day to Sunday dinner, I hope you will. He'll be wishful to thank you."
"No need at all. But I'll come some time, since you're so kind as to offer."
"Mind you do then. I want for you to."
They parted and Lawrence returned to his work in the fern. He came back as swiftly as he might, but the better part of an hour was past, during which he had been absent. He found Thomas Palk and his master. Joe had taken his coat off and placed it on a stone. He was handling Lawrence's fork and assisting Thomas to fill the haycart. As Maynard entered a gate beneath and ascended to the fern patch, Mr. Stockman laboriously lifted a mass of litter up to Thomas on the cart. Then he heaved a heavy sigh, dropped the fork and rubbed his side.
He spoke to Lawrence as he arrived.
"Here's the man! Well, Lawrence, you've been taking the air I see; but I can't help feeling, somehow, that it's a thought ill-convenient in the midst of a busy working morning, with the dry litter crying to be stored, that you should make holiday. I've filled the breach, of course, as my custom is. I've been doing your work as well as I was able—an old man, gone in the loins through over-work; but what d'you think? What d'you think about it, my son?"
"There was a good reason, master."
"Thank God! I'm glad of that. I told Palk I hoped there was; for, if I'd thought just for a thirst, or some wilful fancy to see a maid, or suchlike nonsense, you'd forgot your duty, I should have felt a lot cast down in my mind and wondered how I'd come to misread you. And what was the reason? Work while you tell me."
The young man explained, and Stockman was instantly mollified.
"Enough said as to you. You could do no less. A female in trouble is a very good excuse for leaving your duty. In fact you may say a female in trouble is everybody's duty."
The silent man in the cart made a note of this admirable sentiment, while Joe continued.
"To think that Orphan Dinah should let the pony down—such a very wide-awake young thing as her! Dreaming about Johnny no doubt. And hurt you say?"
"Miss had got a bad cut across her face; but she made nothing of it, for joy the pony wasn't scratched."
"A nice maid. Too large-minded for safety some might think; but she ain't. Hope she's not marked. Not that her face is her fortune by any means; her fortune's in her heart, for by the grace of God her heart is gold. But she's got a nice sort of face all the same. I like a bit hidden in a woman myself—for the pleasure of bringing it to light. But she's so frank as a young boy, and I dare say, to some minds, that would be more agreeable than tackling the secret sort."
"She says what she means, master."
"She does, and what's a lot rarer even than that, she knows what she means—so far as a human can. Many never do. Many in my experience find the mere fact of being alive such a puzzle to them that they ain't clear about anything—can't see clear and can't speak clear. They go through their days like a man who've had just one drop too much."
"Life be a drop too much for some people," said Lawrence.
"It is. Keep working, keep working. An hour lost is an hour lost, even though you'd knocked off to help the Queen of England. Oh, my poor side! There's a muscle carried away I'm fearing. Shouldn't wonder if I was in bed to-morrow. What a far-reaching thing a catastrophe may be! Orphan Dinah gets mooning and lets down her pony. Then you, as needs you must, go to the rescue, and drop your work and make a gap in the orderly scheme of things in general. Then I come along, to see how we'm prospering, and forgetting my age and infirmity, rush in to fill the gap. Then once more my rash spirit gets a reminder from the failing flesh, and I'm called to suffer in body as well as pocket. That's the way how things be always happening. Nobody to blame, you understand, but somebody to pay. Somebody's got to pay for every damn thing. Nature's worse than they blasted moneylenders."
"I'll put my part right."
"Yes, exactly so, Lawrence; and somebody always do offer to put their part right. Good men are always offering. But 'tis in the cranky nature of things that oftener than not the wronger ban't the righter. You can't call home sixty minutes of time, any more than you can order the sun to stay in his tracks. And you can't right my twisted thigh. So the harm's done for all eternity."
"The fern will be in to-night before milking."
"That's a brave speech, such as I should have spoken at your age," said Joe. "Now I must limp back afore I'm stiff, and see what my daughter can do for me. I dare say a valiant bout of elbow grease on her part may stave off the worst. If you use 'Nicholson's embrocation'—-the strength they make it for hosses—it will often save the situation. Many a day when I've been bone-tired after working from dawn till moon-up, I've refreshed the joints with 'Nicholson's'—hoss strength."
He left them, going slowly and relying much upon his stick. Then, when he was out of ear-shot, Thomas spoke.
"What d'you think of that?" he asked.
"Did he do much work?"
"Pitched three forks of fern, or it might be four—not a darned one more."
"He's a clever old man, however."
"I never said he weren't," answered Palk. "He's the cleverest old man ever I saw. I'm only telling you us may find out he's too clever."
"We'll get the fern in anyway."
Mr. Stockman had sat down two hundred yards from them by the grassy track to the farm.
"He's waiting for me to give him a lift home," said Thomas.
John Bamsey was a youth who had not yet felt the edge of life. His own good parts were in a measure responsible for this fortune, and the circumstances destined to make trial of his foundations and test what fortitude his character might command, were yet to come. He was quick minded and intelligent, and his success had made him vain. His temper was short, and in his business of water-keeper, he held it a virtue to preserve a very obstinate and implacable front, not only to declared evil-doers, but also against those who lay under his suspicion.
He was superior in his attitude to his own generation and therefore unpopular with it; but he set down a lack of friendship to natural envy at his good fortune and cheerful prospects. He liked his work and did it well. The fish were under his protection and no ruth obscured his fidelity to them. Into his life had come love, and since the course thereof ran smoothly, this experience had chimed with the rest and combined, by its easy issue, to retard any impact of reality and still leave John in a state of ignorance concerning those factors of opposition and tribulation which are a part of the most prosperous existence.
Dinah accepted him, after a lengthy period of consideration, and she was affectionate if not loverly. He never stayed to examine the foundation of her compact, nor could he be blamed, for he had no reason to suppose that she had said "yes" from mixed motives. A girl so direct, definite and clear-sighted as Dinah, seemed unlikely to be in two minds about anything, and John, knowing his own hearty passion and ardent emotions, doubted not that, modified only as became a maiden's heart, she echoed them. Yet there went more to the match than that, and others perceived it, though he did not. Dinah's position was peculiar, and in truth love for another than John had gone largely—more largely than she guessed herself—to decide her. There was little sex impulse in her—otherwise her congenital frankness with man and woman alike had been modified by it. But she could love, for a rare sense of gratitude belonged to her, and the height and depth of her vital affections belonged to her foster-father, Benjamin Bamsey. Him she did love, as dearly as child ever loved a parent, and it was the knowledge that such a match would much delight him, that had decided Dinah and put a term to her doubts. But she had become betrothed on grounds inadequate, and now was beginning, as yet but dimly, to perceive it. Her disquiets did not take any shape that John could quarrel with, for she had not revealed them. She was honestly fond of him, and if she did not respond to his ardour with such outward signs of affection as he might have desired, his own inexperience in that matter prevented any uneasy suspicion on his part. He judged that such reserve in love was becoming and natural to a maiden of Dinah's distinction, and knew not the truth of the matter, nor missed the outward signs that he might have reasonably expected.
The beginning of difficulty very gradually rose between them, and since they had never quarrelled in their lives, for all John's temper and Dinah's frankness, the difference now bred in a late autumn day gave both material for grave thought.
They met by appointment, strolled in the woods, then climbed through plantations of sweet-smelling spruce, till they reached great rocks piled on a little spur of the hillside under Buckland Beacon. Here the granite heaved in immense boulders that broke the sweep of the hill and formed a resting-place for the eye between the summit of the Beacon and the surface of the river winding in the lap of the Vale beneath.
Hazel Tor, as these masses of porphyry were called, now rose like a ridge of little mountainous islets from a sea of dead heath and fern. The glories of the fall were at an end, and on an afternoon when the wind was still and the sky grey and near, pressing down on the naked tree-tops, Dinah, sitting here with her sweetheart, chatted amiably enough. The cicatrix on her cheek was still red, but the wound had cleanly healed and promised to leave no scar.
Johnny, however, was doubtful.
"I won't say you won't be marked now."
"If kissing could make me safe, I should be."
"I wish you'd give me something to kiss you for; and that's the name of the day next Spring we're to wed."
"Isn't it enough if we say next Spring?"
"Quite enough, if you mean next Spring. But I don't know whether you do; and more do you know. And for that matter you never have said next Spring. If you say the word, then you'll keep your word; but you haven't, and patient though I am, I can't help wondering sometimes why you don't."
"You're not the only one that wonders for that matter."
"Of course I'm not. Cousin Joe wonders every time I see him, and father wonders, and mother does more than wonder. In fact it's getting to be a bit awkward and unreasonable."
"I know it is, Johnny. I never thought it would be so difficult when the time came."
"So you grant that the time has come—that's something."
"I do grant it. I dare say a man doesn't quite realise what a tremendous thing it is for a girl to lose her liberty like this."
He was irritable.
"Do chuck that! I'm fed up with it. If you think what you call liberty at the farm is better than living with me in your own house, you must be a fool, Dinah."
"No," she said. "I'm right. Marriage cuts into a woman's liberty a lot. It's bound to, and, of course, home along with foster-father must be a much freer sort of life than home along with you."
"You are a cold-blooded little devil sometimes," he said. "What's freedom, or slavery, or any other mortal thing got to do with a man and woman if they love one another? You don't hear me saying I shall lose my bachelor liberty."
"No, because you won't," answered Dinah. "I know you love me very dear, and I love you very dear; but marrying a woman don't turn a man's life upside down if he's a strong man and got his aims and objects and business. He goes on with his life, and the woman comes into it as an addition, and takes her place, and if all goes well, so much the better, and if all don't, then so much the worse for the woman—if the man's strong. A man's not going to let a woman bitch up his ways if he's strong. And you are strong, and no woman would spoil your show, because you wouldn't let her. But a woman's different. Marriage for her be the beginning of a new life. She can't take anything of the old life into it except her character and her religion. Marriage is being born again for a woman. I've thought of these things, Johnny."
"Well, what about it? If you know so much, you ought to know more. Granted it don't always pan out well, and granted I'm a sort of man that wouldn't be turned to the right or left, are you a sort of woman that would be like to try and turn me? Are you masterful, or cranky, or jealous of your fancied rights? If you'd been such a she as that, should I have falled in love with you, or would you have falled in love with me? People fall in love with character quite as much as looks. And as we've grown up side by side, our characters were laid bare to each other from the time we could notice such things."
She took him up eagerly.
"Now that's the very matter in my mind. I've been getting to wonder. There's a lot in it, John. Do we know one another so well as we think we do? And isn't the very fact that we're grown up under the same roof a reason why we don't know each other so well as we might?"
"You're always for turning a thing inside out, my words included. I say we must know each other as well as a man can know a girl, or a girl a man. We was little children together, when nothing was hidden between us, and grew up in perfect understanding which ripened at the appointed time into love—all natural and right and proper. Of course we know each other to the bottom of our natures; and so our marriage can't fail to be a good one. Any jolter-head would see that a man and a woman seldom come together on such a bed-rock of common sense and reason as us. And knowing all that, 'tis pure cussedness in you to argue different."
"You can be too near a thing to see it," she said. "I don't say we don't understand each other beautiful, John; but look at it without feeling—just as an interesting question, same as I do. Just ask yourself if we're all you say, how it comes about that, despite such a lot of reasons, I hang back from naming the date. You say you want to know why. Well, so do I. What makes me refuse to name it—an easy-going creature like me, always ready and willing to pleasure anybody if I can? It's interesting, and it's no good merely being cross about it. I don't want to fix the date. I don't feel no call to do it."
"Then you ought."
"That's what I'm saying."
"And since you're well used to doing what you ought, it's about time you let your duty master you."
"Granted. I allow all that. What I want to know is why I'm not so keen to name the day and get to the day as you are?"
"Along of this silly fooling about losing your liberty I suppose. As if a married woman wasn't a lot freer than a single one."
"Oh no, she isn't. The single ones was never so free as now. They can do scores of things no married woman would be suffered to do for a moment. That's because mothers and fathers care a lot less about what happens to their daughters than husbands care what happens to their wives. A daughter's good name be outside a parent's; but a wife's good name is her husband's. So the unmarried ones are a lot freer. There's few real parents nowadays be what your father is to me."
"If you think such a lot of him and feel you owe him such a lot, why don't you do what he wants you to do and fix the day?"
She did not answer, knowing well that old Mr. Bamsey, at the bottom of his heart, little liked to dwell on her departure. Indeed, she realised with growing intensity the reasons that had made her agree to marry John; and she knew more: she was aware that John's father himself had become a little doubtful. But the deed was done and Dinah appreciated the justice of her sweetheart's demands.
They talked and he pressed and she parried. Then he grew angry.
"Blessed if you know what love is despite all your fine talk. A little more of it, and I shall begin to think you're off the bargain and haven't the pluck to say so."
For answer she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
"It's all very well; but you leave me guessing too often: and I'm not the sort that care to be left guessing. From a man I always get a plain answer, and I never leave him till I have. I hang on like a dog, and turn or twist as they may, they know they've got to come to it. But you—it's rather late in the day to begin all over again and ask you if you really love me, or not. It's putting a pretty big slight upon me; and perhaps, if I wasn't a fool, I should see the answer in that, without asking for it. For you wouldn't slight me—not if you cared for me one quarter what I care for you."
He showed temper, and the girl made no very genuine attempt to turn away wrath. She was in a wilful and wayward mood—a thing uncommon with her; yet such a mood was capable of being provoked by Johnny oftener than most people.
"I love your hair," she said, stroking it.
He shook his head and put on his cap.
"You're not playing the game and, what's a lot more, you know you're not. It's outside your character to do this—weak—feeble—mischievous. You know I smart a bit under it, because—fault or not—I'm a proud man. How d'you think that's likely to pan out in my feelings to you? Does it occur to you that with my very keen sense of justice, Dinah, I might begin to ask myself questions about it?"
She changed her manner and, from being idle and playful, gave him her undivided attention. He had said something that rather pleased her when he hinted that his own feelings might grow modified; but she knew well enough that such a remark ought not to have pleased her and was certainly not uttered to do so.
"There's a screw loose somewhere, Johnny," she said.
"Where then? And whose fault—yours, or mine? God's my judge I didn't know there was a screw loose, and it's pretty ugly news, I can tell you. Perhaps you'll let in a little more light, while you're about it, and tell me what the screw is and why i'ts loose?"
"I wish I could. Oh Johnny, don't you feel it?"
"No, I do not. And if I don't, then it's up to you to explain, not me."
"I don't know enough yet," she answered. "I'm not going to flounder into it and make trouble that can never be unmade again. I'll wait till I see a bit clearer, John. It's no use talking till we've thought a thing out and got words for it. A row will often happen just for lack of words to say what anybody really means. There is something—something growing; but since you've not felt it, then it can only be on my side. You shall know if it's anything, or nothing, pretty soon. Feelings never stand still. They fade out, or else get bigger. I love you very dearly, and, so far as we stand at present, it's understood we are to be married in the Spring."
"Then why hang it up any longer? You love me and you'm tokened and there's no reason why we shouldn't be wed and a great many reasons why we should. But now a screw's loose, or so you say. But you won't give it a name. Don't you see that instead of being yourself, Dinah—famed for thinking straight and seeing clear and saying what you mean—you're behaving like any stupid giglet wench, with no wits and not worth her keep to anybody?"
"Yes; and that's why a screw's loose. If I can feel like I do, and act away from my general plan, and dally with a thing—don't you see there's something wrong with me?"
"Well, if you know it, get it right."
"I must do that for all our sakes. I must and will, John."
"You certainly must. And the sooner you put a name to it and let me know what that name is, the better pleased I'll be. If I was the fast and loose sort, or if I'd ever done anything since we hitched up to give you a shadow of distrust, or make you look back in doubt, then it would be different; but this I will swear, that no man ever loved a woman better than I love you, or have been a better or truer lover. I must say that for myself, Dinah, since you've given up saying it."
"I did say it and I do say it. You're all right, and you've every reason to be pleased with yourself, Johnny. You're a wonder. But it's me. I'll work at myself. I can't promise more. I'll thresh it out and try to find where I'm wrong; and if you can help me, I'll tell you. It's not a happy thing; but at the same time it's not an unhappy thing—not yet. I owe you a very great deal—only less than your father. I'd sooner make anybody on earth unhappy before you; but it's no good pretending, and I couldn't hide worry from you even if I wanted to."
"Leave it then," he said, "and get it off your mind so quick as you can."
They talked about other things, and for the most part chimed harmoniously enough; but they did not always agree in their estimate of other people, or in their views of action and conduct. Dinah never conceded anything, nor pretended to see with his eyes if she did not, yet sometimes she praised him if he put a point and changed her own view by enlarging her vision of the subject.
John was in a better temper when presently the dusk fell and the lovers, leaving Hazel Rocks, passed through a clearing, reached the road to Buckland and presently climbed again to Falcon Farm, where they were to drink tea with Susan and her father.
Soosie-Toosie had a heavy cold in her head and appeared more unsightly than usual. Her large frame shook with her sneezes, and Joe, while humorously concerned for her and anxious that she should take steps to get well, soon dropped the humour for a little genuine trouble on his own account.
"There's some people I catch cold from, and there's some I don't catch cold from," he said, "just like some fires you catch heat from and some you never can. But Soosie-Toosie's colds be of the catching order. 'Tis the violence of her sneezes no doubt—like a fowling-piece going off. And though a cold be nought to her and here to-day and gone to-morrow, if I get 'em they run down the tubes and give me brownkitis and lay me by for weeks."
"Never seen you look better, Cousin Joe," declared John. "You be always at your fighting best when the woodcock comes back, so father says."
"He will have his bit of fun. There's only one thing wrong about your dear, good father, Johnny; and that is he ain't a sportsman. For a man to live in the Vale and not be a sportsman is like for a man to live by the sea and not care to go fishing. With a place in his heart for a bit of sport, I do believe Ben Bamsey would have been a perfect human. But as that's contrary to nature, no doubt the sport had to be left out."
"He is perfect," said Dinah, "and I've often told him so."
"He'd never believe it if you did," said Susan; "he's much too good a man to think he's good."
"As to that, my dear," answered Joe, "it's only false modesty and silliness to pretend you'm not good, when you know perfectly well you are. If I said I wasn't a good man, for example, it would be merely fishing for compliments; and if Soosie-Toosie said she weren't as good as gold, who'd believe her?"
"'Tis easy to be good if you're so busy as Soosie-Toosie and Johnny and a few more," answered Dinah; "but how you can be so amazing good with nothing on your hands, Cousin Joe? I'm sure that's wonderful."
"Nothing on my hands? you bad girl! Little you know. And me the mainspring. You ax Susan if I've got nothing on my hands, or Thomas here."
Lawrence Maynard was absent, but Mr. Palk took tea with the rest. He had not so far spoken.
"You'm the head of the house," he said.
"And if my hand have lost its cunning, my head have not—eh, Thomas?"
"It have not," admitted Thomas.
"Father makes his head help his heels, don't you, father?" asked Soosie-Toosie, following her question with an explosion.
"I should hope so; and do, for God's love, go out in the scullery when you feel a sneeze coming, there's a dear! You be scattering the evil germs around us so thick as starlings."
"I'm just going," she said, "they'll be done their tea in a minute; then I'll gather the things and get away for the wash-up."
Dinah soon departed to help the sufferer; then Joe smoked and bade the others do the like.
"'Twill lay Soosie's germs," he said.
They discussed Maynard, who had gone to see some cows for a neighbour.
"What he don't know about 'em ain't worth knowing," said Mr. Stockman. "A tower of strength the man is going to be."
"Is he growing a bit more cheerful?"
"If he's not cheerful, there's a reason for it. But he's very sensible, with a head rather old for his shoulders—eh, Thomas?"
"Made of sense, I reckon."
"And what is his opinion of me, Thomas, if I may ask?"
Mr. Palk was always rendered cautious at the hint of personalities. He did not reply immediately, though there was no need to hesitate. But he never replied immediately to any question.
"He thinks a great lot of you, master. He holds you to be a very good man indeed."
"Then I shall think higher of his opinion than ever," replied Joe; "and you may drop in his ear that I rate him high too, Thomas. All well within reason, of course—he ain't indispensable—nobody is, great or small. Still, I'm suited and I'm glad he is."
Thomas made no reply, but rose and went out. Then Joe addressed his kinsman.
"Have you got the date out of her?"
Johnny shook his head.
"She allows it must be in the Spring, but holds off naming the time any nearer."
"Not like her. We must all have a go at her. But if your father can't do it, who can?"
"If I can't, who can? That's the question, I should think."
They argued Dinah's delay and presently she returned.
"Susan did ought to go to bed," she said. "See me down the hill, Johnny; I must be off, else they'll wonder what's become of me."
To Dinah Waycott there came an experience familiar enough, yet fraught with shock and grief to any man and woman of good will who is forced to suffer it. By gradual stages the truth had overtaken her, and now she knew that what in all honesty she believed was love—the emotion that had made her accept John Bamsey and promise to marry him—was nothing more than such affection and regard as a sister might feel for a favourite brother. Their relations had in fact been upon that basis all their lives. She remembered Johnny as long as she remembered anything, for she had been but two years old when he was born, and they had grown up together. And now, being possessed of a mind that faced life pretty fearlessly, and blessed with clear reasoning powers, Orphan Dinah knew the truth.
First she considered how such an unhappy thing could have happened. She was young and without experience. She had never heard of a similar case. And what most puzzled her was why the light had been thrown at all, and what had happened to convince her that she had erred. When she accepted her lover, most fully and firmly she believed that her heart prompted. It did not beat quicker at his proposition, and for a time she could not feel sure; but before she accepted him she did feel sure and emphatically believed it was love that inspired her promise. But now she knew that it was not love; and yet she could not tell why she knew it.
For the usual experience in such cases had not proved the touchstone. There was none else who had come into her life, awakened passion and thus revealed the nature of her error with respect to John. No blinding light of this sort had shone upon the situation. But gradually, remorselessly, the truth crept into Dinah's brain, and she saw now that what she had taken for love was really an emotion inspired by various circumstances. Her step-father had desired the match and expressed his delight at the thought; and since he was by far the most real and precious thing in the girl's life, his opinion unconsciously influenced her. Then, for private reasons, she desired to be away from Benjamin Bamsey's home—that also for love of him. The situation was complicated for Dinah by the fact that Jane Bamsey, John's sister, did not like her and suffered jealousy under her father's affection for his foster-daughter. Dinah was some years older than Jane and far more attractive to Mr. Bamsey, by virtue of her spirit and disposition, than Jane could ever be. Ben himself hardly knew this, but his wife very clearly perceived it. She was a fair woman and never agitated on the subject, though often tempted to do so. But she was human, and that her husband should set so much greater store upon Dinah than Jane caused her to feel resentment, though little surprise. Astonishment she could not feel, for, though the mother of Jane, she admitted that the elder girl displayed higher qualities, a mind more loyal, a heart more generous. But Jane was beautiful, and she could be very attractive when life ran to her own pattern. Jane was not a bad daughter. She loved her mother and worshipped her brother. She might have tolerated Dinah too, but for the ever present fact that her father put Dinah first. This had been a baneful circumstance for the younger's character; and it had served to lessen her affection for her father. The fact he recognised, without perceiving the reason. On the contrary, he held Dinah a very precious influence for Jane, and wished his own child more like the other. Friction from this situation was inevitable; and now Dinah, considering the various causes that had landed her in her present plight, perceived that not the least had been a subconscious impulse that urged her, for everybody's sake, to leave Lower Town and the home of her childhood. Thus she had deluded herself as well as others, and declared herself in love with a man, while yet her heart was innocent of love. For a long time she had been conscious of something wrong. She had surprised herself painfully three months after her engagement by discovering that her forthright mind was seeing things in Johnny that she wished were different. This startled her, and instinct told her that she ought not to be so aware of these defects. Before they were engaged such things never clouded her affection; but in the light of altered relations they did. She grew to hate the lover's kiss, while the brother's kiss of old had been agreeable to her. Her kiss had not changed; but his had. She detected all manner of trifles, vanities, complacencies, tendencies to judge neighbours too hardly. These things did not make Dinah miserable, because her nature was proof against misery, and the emotion excited in her by ill fortune could never be so described. Indeed, under no circumstances did she display the phenomena of misery. But she was deeply perturbed and she knew, far better than Johnny could tell her, that serious reasons existed for her present evasion and procrastination. She also knew, as he did, that she was taking a line foreign to her character; but he did not guess the tremendous discovery that, for the moment, caused his sweetheart to falter and delay action.
He was in love, heart and soul, and Dinah understood that well enough. No hope of any revelation existed for him. He poured all his energy and quality into his plans for her future happiness. If he could be unselfish, it was with her; if he could be modest, it was with her. She awoke the best of him and influenced him as no other power on earth was able to do. He saw her pleasant face beautiful; he heard her pleasant voice as music; he held her laugh sweeter than a blackbird's song. She knew his adoration and it increased the threatening difficulties. But he was changing now, and the recent evidence of his irritation on Hazel Tor, Dinah recognised as perfectly natural and reasonable.
Still she hesitated before the melancholy conviction that she could not marry John, and the vision of the family when they heard it. She was waiting now in rare indecision; but she knew that such inaction could only be a matter of a very short time. The problem touched many, and she was aware that her change of mind would bring hard words to her ears from various quarters. She began to be sorry, but not for herself. She was concerned, first for John, and then for her foster-father. She was also in a lesser degree regretful for Mrs. Bamsey, and even for Jane; but she judged that their tribulation would be allayed by two things: first, in the conviction that John was well out of it; secondly, at the knowledge that Dinah herself would leave Green Hayes, Ben Bamsey's farm. She could not stop after the events now foreshadowed, and she felt tolerably certain that none would desire her to do so. Thus she hung on the verge, but had not taken the inevitable step upon a Sunday when Lawrence Maynard visited Lower Town according to his promise and came to tea.
Green Hayes was "a welcoming sort of place," as the owner always declared, though at first glance it did not seem so. The farmhouse was built of granite and faced with slate, which caused it to look sulky, but made it snug. A wide farmyard extended before the face of the dwelling, and pigeons and poultry lent liveliness and movement to it. A great barn, with a weathered roof of slate, extended on one side of the yard, and orchards and large kitchen gardens arose behind it; for fruit and vegetables were a feature of Mr. Bamsey's production. He better loved planting trees than rearing stock. Indeed, his neighbours denied him title to be farmer at all. But he did great things with pigs and poultry, and he grew plenty of corn in Dart Vale a mile below his home.
Maynard was welcomed and found that Dinah had made more of his past succour than seemed necessary. He discovered also whence the young woman had derived her directness of speech and clear vision, for Mr. Bamsey displayed these qualities, though in a measure tempered by age and experience. On the subject of himself he could be specially clear. He did not mind who knew his failings.
He was a man of moderate height, grey bearded and grey headed. His nose had been flattened by an accident in youth, but his face was genial and his eyes, behind spectacles, of a pleasant expression. He enjoyed humour, and a joke against himself always won his heartiest laugh. His wife was larger than himself—a ponderous woman, credited with the gift of second sight. She had been beautiful and was still handsome, with regular features, a clear skin, and large, cow-like eyes. Jane Bamsey, her daughter, a girl of eighteen, rejoiced in more than the beauty of youth. She was lovely, but she had a disposition that already made her beautiful mouth pout oftener than it laughed. She was jealous of Dinah, though the elder girl entertained no unfriendly emotion towards Jane. She admired her exceedingly and loved to look at her for the satisfaction of her fine curves, round, black eyebrows, lustrous, misty blue eyes and delicate, dainty nose. It was not her fault that she pleased Benjamin Bamsey better than his own child. Jane was spiteful, and Dinah's direct methods, which often defeated the younger in argument, never convinced her, but increased a general, vague feeling of resentment, the more painful to Jane, because she was no fool, and knew, at the bottom of her heart, that honest grounds of complaint against Dinah did not exist. The real grievance lay in the fact of her father's preference; but when, in a moment of passion, she had flung this truth at Dinah, the elder disarmed her by admitting it and also explaining it.
"If you thought for foster-father like I do, and loved him half as well as what I do, you'd have nothing to grumble about, and he'd love you so well as he loves me," said Dinah; "but you don't."
"I'd do all you do for him, and more, if you wasn't here," declared Jane, and met an uncompromising answer.
"No, you wouldn't, or anything like what I do; and well you know it, you pretty dear."
Mr. Bamsey thanked Lawrence heartily for his good offices in the past on Dinah's behalf, and Faith Bamsey, his wife, echoed him.
"The blessing is she ain't marked," said Ben. "I much feared she would be, for 'twas an evil cut, but such is the health of her blood that she healed instanter, and now, you see nought but a red mark that grows fainter every day."
The visitor regarded Dinah's face and admitted it was so.
"Wonderful," he said. "I never should have thought that ugly gash would have cleared up so well."
"Nature's on the side of the young," replied Benjamin. "She spoils 'em you may say. Not that anything could spoil Dinah."
"You can, and you do," she said.
"Oh, no. 'Tis the other way round. You'd keep me in cotton wool if you could. I'm feared of my life for Johnny that you'll make him soft."
"And tell him he's not to go out and fight the poachers by night, and silly things like that," added Jane.
"More likely offer to go out and help him fight 'em," said Maynard, and Ben applauded.
"That's right! You know her better than Jane do seemingly. Dinah won't stand between John and his duty—that's certain sure."
"No woman will ever come between my son and his duty," said Faith. "There's some young men be born with a sense of duty, and some gets it by their training and some, of course, never do. But John was doing his duty when he was five year old—came natural to him."
"And what's the duty of a five year old, ma'am?" asked Lawrence. He found himself easy and comfortable with the Bamseys.
"To obey his parents and trust in 'em first and last and always," answered Faith. "He was blessed with a very fine nature from his birth, and nothing ever happened to make him depart from it."
"One of the lucky ones, that finds it easier to be good than anything else."
"No, Mr. Maynard; you mustn't say that," answered Johnny's father. "You may be as good as gold, but you can't escape the old Adam. God Almighty don't make us angels, though he gives us the chance to imitate them."
"In fact, nobody can get high virtues by nature," summed up Mrs. Bamsey. "They've got to be worked for. And another thing—you can't win to goodness and then sit down and say, 'I've got the Lord, so now I'm out of the wood and safe for ever more.' That's not life. Nobody's ever out of the wood, and them that think they stand be often most like to fall. Things be sent to try our faith in God, and He sends 'em Himself."
Dinah, with proleptic instinct, looked ahead at her own affairs and wondered. Mrs. Bamsey, from whom moral principles flowed easily at a touch, proceeded awhile and Maynard's spirits began to fall. He was not religious and his own standards of conduct, upon which his past had been directed, had resulted from innate qualities of mind, rather than along the directions of dogma and creed. He perceived that Mrs. Bamsey's ideas ran in fixed channels and felt glad when Benjamin, upon some opinion of his wife, took up the conversation. She had been saying, with regard to her son, that while he owed certain qualities to herself, his father was also apparent in him. Dinah supported her, but Benjamin was not so sure.
"No," he said. "I can't flatter myself that John has to thank me for much. His mother stares out of him you may say, and all the best is hers. But there's a very wicked side of me that John haven't got, I'm glad to say. Leastways if he have, he's never let on about it."
Dinah laughed.
"Now I know what's coming," she said.
"And what might your wicked side be, Mr. Bamsey, if it ain't a secret?" inquired Lawrence.
"No secret at all. I've got no secrets. Hate 'em. It's just a queer bit of human nature."
"He's invented it," said Dinah. "It ain't true. He dreams it."
"It's very true indeed, and shows a weak spot where one didn't ought to be," confessed Ben. "If you'll believe it, Maynard, I often wake up of a night, somewhere about two o'clock, a changed man! Yes, I do; and then the whole face of nature looks different, and I find myself in a proper awful frame of mind against my fellow creatures. I mistrust 'em, and take dark views against 'em, setting out their wrongs and wickedness. At such times I'll even plan to sack a harmless chap, and lash myself up into a proper fury, and think the fearfullest things against man, woman and child. I'll go so far as to cuss the cat, because she haven't caught a mouse for a week! If the folk were to see me at such a moment, I dare say they wouldn't know me."
"What d'you say, ma'am?" asked Maynard.
"I say nothing, because I'm always asleep," answered Mrs. Bamsey.
"Do it pass off pretty quick, master?"
"It do. I slumber again after a bit, and come daylight, you may say butter wouldn't melt in my mouth. I don't write none of they rude letters I've invented, and I don't sack nobody—not even the cat. I wake up calm and patient with the neighbours and quite ready to forgive 'em, as I hope to be forgiven. After such a night I'm mild as old cider and only a bit tired."
"'Tis a sort of safety-valve I expect," suggested Lawrence.
"That's just what it is; and sometimes I've seen the like happen in daylight with other people. If you can send your neighbours to hell without them knowing it, it don't hurt them and comforts your nerves wonderful sometimes."
"A very shameful thought, Ben," declared his wife, "and you oughtn't to say such things."
"I know it's shameful. But I only tell the man these facts to open his eyes and show him how much better Johnny be than his father."
"May he never have nothing to cuss about," hoped Lawrence.
"I don't see how he ever can, when he's got Dinah."
"Yes—when," said Jane Bamsey. "He's got to wait Dinah's pleasure till the stroke of Doom seemingly."
Maynard had been admiring the younger girl. But he noticed that her beauty was clouded by discontent. There chimed also a note in her voice that carried with it slight, indefinite protest. His own voice embraced the identical note; but he was not aware of that.
"No politics, Jane," said Mrs. Bamsey. "You never did ought to strike into family affairs before a stranger."
"Mr. Maynard's not a stranger," argued Jane. "We're heard tell lots about him from Johnny, and Dinah too."
"That's right," said Lawrence.
Benjamin Bamsey nursed an old Skye terrier and scratched its back with a bunch of keys—a process the animal loved. He talked of dogs and cattle awhile; then they all went to tea. Faith Bamsey asked after Susan.
"She's quite recovered, ma'am. She was in a mind to come over herself to-day, being wishful to see you; but her father wanted her help. He's very busy with his figures this afternoon."
Faith shook her head.
"Just like him—to put off his duty all the week, then do it on the Lord's Day, when he didn't ought."
"He went to worship in the morning, however, as he generally does."
"That's to the good then."
"Soosie-Toosie's one of the best women on this earth," said Dinah, "only she's too much of a doormat. So cruel busy that she's never got time to think what she owes herself."
This struck the visitor as very true, but he had never been greatly interested in Susan. She was very unobtrusive and unchallenging in every way.
"She likes it," said Jane. "She likes being driven about and never getting even with her work."
"If work is prayer, her life is a prayer," said Mr. Bamsey.
"It's a prayer that never gets answered, then," replied Jane. "A dog's life really, only Susan don't see it, more than any other dog would, I suppose."
"Don't talk so free, Jane," urged her mother.
"She'll work herself to the bone and die afore her time I expect," continued Mrs. Bamsey's daughter. "Then very like you'll see her ghost, mother."
This gave Lawrence an opportunity to inquire concerning Faith Bamsey's famous gift.
"Is it true, as they tell, that you be a ghost-seer, ma'am?" he asked.
"I am," she replied placidly. "It runs in my family and I take no credit for it."
"Never afeared?"
"Never. They come and they go. 'Tis just something in my nature that lets my eyes see more than other people. There's animals have the gift also, so it's naught to brag about. I'll see the spectrums any time—just the ghostes of dead folk, that flicker about where they used to live sometimes; and if I be that way by chance when they be there, then I see 'em."
"And do they see you, ma'am?"
"I can't say as to that. I've never had no speech with them and they don't take no notice of me. Sometimes I recognise the creatures as people that lived in my time and memory; sometimes I do not. Only last week I see old Noah Parsons hanging over New Bridge, just as he did in life times without count, looking down over to see if there was any fish moving. An old poacher he was—till he got too feeble to do anything but right."
"And mother seed Lazarus Coomstock in Holne Wood not a month after he was teeled*—didn't you, mother?" asked Jane.
*Teeled—buried.
"I did," answered Mrs. Bamsey. "I saw him outside his own house on the day of the sale, with live neighbours at his elbows—for all the world as though he'd come with the rest to bid for the things."
"A terrible queer gift," said Maynard. "Have you handed it on to Miss Jane here, I wonder?"
"No," declared Jane. "I've never seen a ghost ana never want to."
"You be young yet. Perhaps when you get up to years of discretion you'll see 'em."
"When Jane gets up to years of discretion, I'll give a party," laughed Ben; but Jane did not laugh.
"You always think I'm a fool, father; and you'll always be wrong," she snapped. Then she got up and left the room.
"You didn't ought to poke fun at her," said Faith. "You know she don't like being thought a child—least of all by you."
"If you make jokes, you must take 'em," said Ben. "Jane's got a very sharp tongue for her age and nobody doubts her wits; but if a father can't make a laugh at the expense of his child—no, no—we mustn't truckle under to Jane. Mayhap a good ghostey will teach her sense some day."
"She's that wishful to please you always," murmured Jane's mother.
"Well, well, she can do most things she sets her mind to. I ban't a man very difficult to please."
Lawrence struck in again. He had ignored these passages, and was still considering Mrs. Bamsey's alleged second sight.
"Would you say that John has got your gift, ma'am?" he asked
"Time will show," replied Faith. "He's a godly, plain-dealer is John, but I've never heard him say he's seen one."
"I hope he won't," said Dinah. "Because, in his business as water-keeper, and looking out against trespassers and such-like, it might confuse him and waste his time a lot, if he was to see shadow people about by the river and think them poaching."
Her foster-father exploded at the absurdity of the idea; but neither Lawrence nor Faith Bamsey saw anything amusing in it. Then Ben grew serious and set down his old dog, which had returned to his lap after tea was ended.
"There's church bell," he said, "and us be going. Have you worshipped at our church yet, Maynard?"
The thin tinkle of bell music fell from the wooded height above Green Hayes.
"No," said Lawrence. "I have not. I don't go to church."
Ben shrank, and his wife started and tightened her lips.
"Ban't you a Christian then?"
"Couldn't say as to that, ma'am; but I don't find church-going help me, so I don't go."
"Dear, dear—that's bad," said Mr. Bamsey, while his wife put further searching questions.
"Do you say your prayers, or do you not, if I may ask?"
"I say my prayers—yes."
She looked at him very suspiciously.
"We're bid to go," she said; "and you didn't ought to feel any doubt as to whether you're a Christian or not, did he, Ben?"
"Certainly he did not," answered her husband. Then he brightened and made a suggestion.
"You come along of us to-night. Won't hurt you, and you'll very like catch a grain that'll sprout. That's the beauty of church-going: 'tis like rough shooting—you never know what you're going to flush. And our parson's a man that abounds in plain truths. So like as not he'll get one home on you."
"Come, Mr. Maynard," said Dinah.
"Certainly I will if I may," he replied. "I've no feeling for, or against."
"If us can throw a light for your soul, you won't have come to tea in vain," suggested Mrs. Bamsey.
"And have got supper by it in the bargain," added Ben, "for you'll have to bide after."
"No, no—no occasion at all."
"Yes, you must," said Dinah. "They'll have finished at Falcon Farm long afore you can get back."
Therefore Lawrence Maynard joined the party at evensong and sat between Jane and Dinah. Jane was indifferent, but Dinah shared her hymn-book with him. He did not sing, however, though it gave him pleasure to hear her do so. She was devout and attentive; Jane was not. He praised the sermon afterwards and told Mr. Bamsey that it was full of sense. When supper had ended, he thanked them very earnestly for their great kindness to a lonely man, and Benjamin trusted that he would come again. Dinah also pressed him, and Jane, who was now in a very fascinating and gracious mood, ordered him to do so.
"If you don't, we shall think you don't like us," she said.
He was grateful, and left them in an amiable spirit.
They discussed him after he had gone, and Dinah praised him, but Mrs. Bamsey felt dubious.
"He's rather a secret sort of man in my opinion," she said.