CHAPTER III
A GIRL ON HORSEBACK--CONVERSATION
The sluggish day began to break. Even its position terrestrially isone of the elements of a new interest, and for no particular reasonsave that the incident of the night had occurred there Oak went againinto the plantation. Lingering and musing here, he heard the steps ofa horse at the foot of the hill, and soon there appeared in view anauburn pony with a girl on its back, ascending by the path leadingpast the cattle-shed. She was the young woman of the night before.Gabriel instantly thought of the hat she had mentioned as havinglost in the wind; possibly she had come to look for it. He hastilyscanned the ditch and after walking about ten yards along it foundthe hat among the leaves. Gabriel took it in his hand and returnedto his hut. Here he ensconced himself, and peeped through theloophole in the direction of the rider's approach.
She came up and looked around--then on the other side of the hedge.Gabriel was about to advance and restore the missing article whenan unexpected performance induced him to suspend the action forthe present. The path, after passing the cowshed, bisected theplantation. It was not a bridle-path--merely a pedestrian's track,and the boughs spread horizontally at a height not greater than sevenfeet above the ground, which made it impossible to ride erect beneaththem. The girl, who wore no riding-habit, looked around for amoment, as if to assure herself that all humanity was out of view,then dexterously dropped backwards flat upon the pony's back, herhead over its tail, her feet against its shoulders, and her eyes tothe sky. The rapidity of her glide into this position was that ofa kingfisher--its noiselessness that of a hawk. Gabriel's eyes hadscarcely been able to follow her. The tall lank pony seemed used tosuch doings, and ambled along unconcerned. Thus she passed under thelevel boughs.
The performer seemed quite at home anywhere between a horse's headand its tail, and the necessity for this abnormal attitude havingceased with the passage of the plantation, she began to adoptanother, even more obviously convenient than the first. She hadno side-saddle, and it was very apparent that a firm seat upon thesmooth leather beneath her was unattainable sideways. Springing toher accustomed perpendicular like a bowed sapling, and satisfyingherself that nobody was in sight, she seated herself in the mannerdemanded by the saddle, though hardly expected of the woman, andtrotted off in the direction of Tewnell Mill.
Oak was amused, perhaps a little astonished, and hanging up the hatin his hut, went again among his ewes. An hour passed, the girlreturned, properly seated now, with a bag of bran in front ofher. On nearing the cattle-shed she was met by a boy bringing amilking-pail, who held the reins of the pony whilst she slid off.The boy led away the horse, leaving the pail with the young woman.
Soon soft spirts alternating with loud spirts came in regularsuccession from within the shed, the obvious sounds of a personmilking a cow. Gabriel took the lost hat in his hand, and waitedbeside the path she would follow in leaving the hill.
She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against her knee. The leftarm was extended as a balance, enough of it being shown bare to makeOak wish that the event had happened in the summer, when the wholewould have been revealed. There was a bright air and manner abouther now, by which she seemed to imply that the desirability of herexistence could not be questioned; and this rather saucy assumptionfailed in being offensive because a beholder felt it to be, upon thewhole, true. Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a genius,that which would have made mediocrity ridiculous was an addition torecognised power. It was with some surprise that she saw Gabriel'sface rising like the moon behind the hedge.
The adjustment of the farmer's hazy conceptions of her charms to theportrait of herself she now presented him with was less a diminutionthan a difference. The starting-point selected by the judgment washer height. She seemed tall, but the pail was a small one, and thehedge diminutive; hence, making allowance for error by comparisonwith these, she could have been not above the height to be chosen bywomen as best. All features of consequence were severe and regular.It may have been observed by persons who go about the shires witheyes for beauty, that in Englishwoman a classically-formed face isseldom found to be united with a figure of the same pattern, thehighly-finished features being generally too large for the remainderof the frame; that a graceful and proportionate figure of eight headsusually goes off into random facial curves. Without throwing aNymphean tissue over a milkmaid, let it be said that here criticismchecked itself as out of place, and looked at her proportions with along consciousness of pleasure. From the contours of her figure inits upper part, she must have had a beautiful neck and shoulders; butsince her infancy nobody had ever seen them. Had she been put intoa low dress she would have run and thrust her head into a bush. Yetshe was not a shy girl by any means; it was merely her instinct todraw the line dividing the seen from the unseen higher than they doit in towns.
That the girl's thoughts hovered about her face and form as soon asshe caught Oak's eyes conning the same page was natural, and almostcertain. The self-consciousness shown would have been vanity ifa little more pronounced, dignity if a little less. Rays of malevision seem to have a tickling effect upon virgin faces in ruraldistricts; she brushed hers with her hand, as if Gabriel had beenirritating its pink surface by actual touch, and the free air of herprevious movements was reduced at the same time to a chastened phaseof itself. Yet it was the man who blushed, the maid not at all.
"I found a hat," said Oak.
"It is mine," said she, and, from a sense of proportion, kept down toa small smile an inclination to laugh distinctly: "it flew away lastnight."
"One o'clock this morning?"
"Well--it was." She was surprised. "How did you know?" she said.
"I was here."
"You are Farmer Oak, are you not?"
"That or thereabouts. I'm lately come to this place."
"A large farm?" she inquired, casting her eyes round, and swingingback her hair, which was black in the shaded hollows of its mass; butit being now an hour past sunrise the rays touched its prominentcurves with a colour of their own.
"No; not large. About a hundred." (In speaking of farms the word"acres" is omitted by the natives, by analogy to such old expressionsas "a stag of ten.")
"I wanted my hat this morning," she went on. "I had to ride toTewnell Mill."
"Yes you had."
"How do you know?"
"I saw you."
"Where?" she inquired, a misgiving bringing every muscle of herlineaments and frame to a standstill.
"Here--going through the plantation, and all down the hill," saidFarmer Oak, with an aspect excessively knowing with regard to somematter in his mind, as he gazed at a remote point in the directionnamed, and then turned back to meet his colloquist's eyes.
A perception caused him to withdraw his own eyes from hers assuddenly as if he had been caught in a theft. Recollection of thestrange antics she had indulged in when passing through the trees wassucceeded in the girl by a nettled palpitation, and that by a hotface. It was a time to see a woman redden who was not given toreddening as a rule; not a point in the milkmaid but was of thedeepest rose-colour. From the Maiden's Blush, through all varietiesof the Provence down to the Crimson Tuscany, the countenance of Oak'sacquaintance quickly graduated; whereupon he, in considerateness,turned away his head.
The sympathetic man still looked the other way, and wondered when shewould recover coolness sufficient to justify him in facing her again.He heard what seemed to be the flitting of a dead leaf upon thebreeze, and looked. She had gone away.
With an air between that of Tragedy and Comedy Gabriel returned tohis work.
Five mornings and evenings passed. The young woman came regularly tomilk the healthy cow or to attend to the sick one, but never allowedher vision to stray in the direction of Oak's person. His want oftact had deeply offended her--not by seeing what he could not help,but by letting her know that he had seen it. For, as without lawthere is no sin, without eyes there is no indecorum; and s
he appearedto feel that Gabriel's espial had made her an indecorous womanwithout her own connivance. It was food for great regret with him;it was also a _contretemps_ which touched into life a latent heat hehad experienced in that direction.
The acquaintanceship might, however, have ended in a slow forgetting,but for an incident which occurred at the end of the same week. Oneafternoon it began to freeze, and the frost increased with evening,which drew on like a stealthy tightening of bonds. It was a timewhen in cottages the breath of the sleepers freezes to the sheets;when round the drawing-room fire of a thick-walled mansion thesitters' backs are cold, even whilst their faces are all aglow. Manya small bird went to bed supperless that night among the bare boughs.
As the milking-hour drew near, Oak kept his usual watch upon thecowshed. At last he felt cold, and shaking an extra quantity ofbedding round the yearling ewes he entered the hut and heaped morefuel upon the stove. The wind came in at the bottom of the door,and to prevent it Oak laid a sack there and wheeled the cot round alittle more to the south. Then the wind spouted in at a ventilatinghole--of which there was one on each side of the hut.
Gabriel had always known that when the fire was lighted and the doorclosed one of these must be kept open--that chosen being always onthe side away from the wind. Closing the slide to windward, heturned to open the other; on second thoughts the farmer consideredthat he would first sit down leaving both closed for a minute or two,till the temperature of the hut was a little raised. He sat down.
His head began to ache in an unwonted manner, and, fancying himselfweary by reason of the broken rests of the preceding nights, Oakdecided to get up, open the slide, and then allow himself to fallasleep. He fell asleep, however, without having performed thenecessary preliminary.
How long he remained unconscious Gabriel never knew. During thefirst stages of his return to perception peculiar deeds seemed to bein course of enactment. His dog was howling, his head was achingfearfully--somebody was pulling him about, hands were loosening hisneckerchief.
On opening his eyes he found that evening had sunk to dusk ina strange manner of unexpectedness. The young girl with theremarkably pleasant lips and white teeth was beside him. More thanthis--astonishingly more--his head was upon her lap, his face andneck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were unbuttoning hiscollar.
"Whatever is the matter?" said Oak, vacantly.
She seemed to experience mirth, but of too insignificant a kind tostart enjoyment.
"Nothing now," she answered, "since you are not dead. It is a wonderyou were not suffocated in this hut of yours."
"Ah, the hut!" murmured Gabriel. "I gave ten pounds for that hut.But I'll sell it, and sit under thatched hurdles as they did in oldtimes, and curl up to sleep in a lock of straw! It played me nearlythe same trick the other day!" Gabriel, by way of emphasis, broughtdown his fist upon the floor.
"It was not exactly the fault of the hut," she observed in a tonewhich showed her to be that novelty among women--one who finished athought before beginning the sentence which was to convey it. "Youshould, I think, have considered, and not have been so foolish as toleave the slides closed."
"Yes I suppose I should," said Oak, absently. He was endeavouring tocatch and appreciate the sensation of being thus with her, his headupon her dress, before the event passed on into the heap of bygonethings. He wished she knew his impressions; but he would as soonhave thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to conveythe intangibilities of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language.So he remained silent.
She made him sit up, and then Oak began wiping his face and shakinghimself like a Samson. "How can I thank 'ee?" he said at last,gratefully, some of the natural rusty red having returned to hisface.
"Oh, never mind that," said the girl, smiling, and allowing her smileto hold good for Gabriel's next remark, whatever that might prove tobe.
"How did you find me?"
"I heard your dog howling and scratching at the door of the hut whenI came to the milking (it was so lucky, Daisy's milking is almostover for the season, and I shall not come here after this week or thenext). The dog saw me, and jumped over to me, and laid hold of myskirt. I came across and looked round the hut the very first thingto see if the slides were closed. My uncle has a hut like this one,and I have heard him tell his shepherd not to go to sleep withoutleaving a slide open. I opened the door, and there you were likedead. I threw the milk over you, as there was no water, forgettingit was warm, and no use."
"I wonder if I should have died?" Gabriel said, in a low voice, whichwas rather meant to travel back to himself than to her.
"Oh no!" the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragicprobability; to have saved a man from death involved talk that shouldharmonise with the dignity of such a deed--and she shunned it.
"I believe you saved my life, Miss--I don't know your name. I knowyour aunt's, but not yours."
"I would just as soon not tell it--rather not. There is no reasoneither why I should, as you probably will never have much to do withme."
"Still, I should like to know."
"You can inquire at my aunt's--she will tell you."
"My name is Gabriel Oak."
"And mine isn't. You seem fond of yours in speaking it sodecisively, Gabriel Oak."
"You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make themost of it."
"I always think mine sounds odd and disagreeable."
"I should think you might soon get a new one."
"Mercy!--how many opinions you keep about you concerning otherpeople, Gabriel Oak."
"Well, Miss--excuse the words--I thought you would like them. But Ican't match you, I know, in mapping out my mind upon my tongue. Inever was very clever in my inside. But I thank you. Come, give meyour hand."
She hesitated, somewhat disconcerted at Oak's old-fashioned earnestconclusion to a dialogue lightly carried on. "Very well," shesaid, and gave him her hand, compressing her lips to a demureimpassivity. He held it but an instant, and in his fear of being toodemonstrative, swerved to the opposite extreme, touching her fingerswith the lightness of a small-hearted person.
"I am sorry," he said the instant after.
"What for?"
"Letting your hand go so quick."
"You may have it again if you like; there it is." She gave him herhand again.
Oak held it longer this time--indeed, curiously long. "How soft itis--being winter time, too--not chapped or rough or anything!" hesaid.
"There--that's long enough," said she, though without pulling itaway. "But I suppose you are thinking you would like to kiss it? Youmay if you want to."
"I wasn't thinking of any such thing," said Gabriel, simply; "but Iwill--"
"That you won't!" She snatched back her hand.
Gabriel felt himself guilty of another want of tact.
"Now find out my name," she said, teasingly; and withdrew.