CHAPTER XIII.
The news was true. The life--the one fragile life--that had been usedas a measuring-tape of time by law, was in danger of being frayed away.It was the last of a group of lives which had served this purpose, atthe end of whose breathings the small homestead occupied by Southhimself, the larger one of Giles Winterborne, and half a dozen othersthat had been in the possession of various Hintock village families forthe previous hundred years, and were now Winterborne's, would fall inand become part of the encompassing estate.
Yet a short two months earlier Marty's father, aged fifty-five years,though something of a fidgety, anxious being, would have been looked onas a man whose existence was so far removed from hazardous as any inthe parish, and as bidding fair to be prolonged for another quarter ofa century.
Winterborne walked up and down his garden next day thinking of thecontingency. The sense that the paths he was pacing, thecabbage-plots, the apple-trees, his dwelling, cider-cellar,wring-house, stables, and weathercock, were all slipping away over hishead and beneath his feet, as if they were painted on a magic-lanternslide, was curious. In spite of John South's late indisposition he hadnot anticipated danger. To inquire concerning his health had been toshow less sympathy than to remain silent, considering the materialinterest he possessed in the woodman's life, and he had, accordingly,made a point of avoiding Marty's house.
While he was here in the garden somebody came to fetch him. It wasMarty herself, and she showed her distress by her unconsciousness of acropped poll.
"Father is still so much troubled in his mind about that tree," shesaid. "You know the tree I mean, Mr. Winterborne? the tall one infront of the house, that he thinks will blow down and kill us. Can youcome and see if you can persuade him out of his notion? I can donothing."
He accompanied her to the cottage, and she conducted him upstairs.John South was pillowed up in a chair between the bed and the windowexactly opposite the latter, towards which his face was turned.
"Ah, neighbor Winterborne," he said. "I wouldn't have minded if mylife had only been my own to lose; I don't vallie it in much of itself,and can let it go if 'tis required of me. But to think what 'tis worthto you, a young man rising in life, that do trouble me! It seems atrick of dishonesty towards ye to go off at fifty-five! I could bearup, I know I could, if it were not for the tree--yes, the tree, 'tisthat's killing me. There he stands, threatening my life every minutethat the wind do blow. He'll come down upon us and squat us dead; andwhat will ye do when the life on your property is taken away?"
"Never you mind me--that's of no consequence," said Giles. "Think ofyourself alone."
He looked out of the window in the direction of the woodman's gaze.The tree was a tall elm, familiar to him from childhood, which stood ata distance of two-thirds its own height from the front of South'sdwelling. Whenever the wind blew, as it did now, the tree rocked,naturally enough; and the sight of its motion and sound of its sighshad gradually bred the terrifying illusion in the woodman's mind thatit would descend and kill him. Thus he would sit all day, in spite ofpersuasion, watching its every sway, and listening to the melancholyGregorian melodies which the air wrung out of it. This fear itapparently was, rather than any organic disease which was eating awaythe health of John South.
As the tree waved, South waved his head, making it his flugel-man withabject obedience. "Ah, when it was quite a small tree," he said, "andI was a little boy, I thought one day of chopping it off with my hookto make a clothes-line prop with. But I put off doing it, and then Iagain thought that I would; but I forgot it, and didn't. And at lastit got too big, and now 'tis my enemy, and will be the death o' me.Little did I think, when I let that sapling stay, that a time wouldcome when it would torment me, and dash me into my grave."
"No, no," said Winterborne and Marty, soothingly. But they thought itpossible that it might hasten him into his grave, though in another waythan by falling.
"I tell you what," added Winterborne, "I'll climb up this afternoon andshroud off the lower boughs, and then it won't be so heavy, and thewind won't affect it so."
"She won't allow it--a strange woman come from nobody knows where--shewon't have it done."
"You mean Mrs. Charmond? Oh, she doesn't know there's such a tree onher estate. Besides, shrouding is not felling, and I'll risk thatmuch."
He went out, and when afternoon came he returned, took a billhook fromthe woodman's shed, and with a ladder climbed into the lower part ofthe tree, where he began lopping off--"shrouding," as they called it atHintock--the lowest boughs. Each of these quivered under his attack,bent, cracked, and fell into the hedge. Having cut away the lowesttier, he stepped off the ladder, climbed a few steps higher, andattacked those at the next level. Thus he ascended with the progressof his work far above the top of the ladder, cutting away his perchesas he went, and leaving nothing but a bare stem below him.
The work was troublesome, for the tree was large. The afternoon woreon, turning dark and misty about four o'clock. From time to time Gilescast his eyes across towards the bedroom window of South, where, by theflickering fire in the chamber, he could see the old man watching him,sitting motionless with a hand upon each arm of the chair. Beside himsat Marty, also straining her eyes towards the skyey field of hisoperations.
A curious question suddenly occurred to Winterborne, and he stopped hischopping. He was operating on another person's property to prolong theyears of a lease by whose termination that person would considerablybenefit. In that aspect of the case he doubted if he ought to go on.On the other hand he was working to save a man's life, and this seemedto empower him to adopt arbitrary measures.
The wind had died down to a calm, and while he was weighing thecircumstances he saw coming along the road through the increasing mista figure which, indistinct as it was, he knew well. It was GraceMelbury, on her way out from the house, probably for a short eveningwalk before dark. He arranged himself for a greeting from her, sinceshe could hardly avoid passing immediately beneath the tree.
But Grace, though she looked up and saw him, was just at that time toofull of the words of her father to give him any encouragement. Theyears-long regard that she had had for him was not kindled by herreturn into a flame of sufficient brilliancy to make her rebellious.Thinking that she might not see him, he cried, "Miss Melbury, here Iam."
She looked up again. She was near enough to see the expression of hisface, and the nails in his soles, silver-bright with constant walking.But she did not reply; and dropping her glance again, went on.
Winterborne's face grew strange; he mused, and proceeded automaticallywith his work. Grace meanwhile had not gone far. She had reached agate, whereon she had leaned sadly, and whispered to herself, "Whatshall I do?"
A sudden fog came on, and she curtailed her walk, passing under thetree again on her return. Again he addressed her. "Grace," he said,when she was close to the trunk, "speak to me." She shook her headwithout stopping, and went on to a little distance, where she stoodobserving him from behind the hedge.
Her coldness had been kindly meant. If it was to be done, she had saidto herself, it should be begun at once. While she stood out ofobservation Giles seemed to recognize her meaning; with a sudden starthe worked on, climbing higher, and cutting himself off more and morefrom all intercourse with the sublunary world. At last he had workedhimself so high up the elm, and the mist had so thickened, that hecould only just be discerned as a dark-gray spot on the light-gray sky:he would have been altogether out of notice but for the stroke of hisbillhook and the flight of a bough downward, and its crash upon thehedge at intervals.
It was not to be done thus, after all: plainness and candor were best.She went back a third time; he did not see her now, and she lingeringlygazed up at his unconscious figure, loath to put an end to any kind ofhope that might live on in him still. "Giles-- Mr. Winterborne," shesaid.
He was so high amid the fog that he did not hear. "Mr. Winterborne!"she cried again, and this time he st
opped, looked down, and replied.
"My silence just now was not accident," she said, in an unequal voice."My father says it is best not to think too much of that--engagement,or understanding between us, that you know of. I, too, think that uponthe whole he is right. But we are friends, you know, Giles, and almostrelations."
"Very well," he answered, as if without surprise, in a voice whichbarely reached down the tree. "I have nothing to say in objection--Icannot say anything till I've thought a while."
She added, with emotion in her tone, "For myself, I would have marriedyou--some day--I think. But I give way, for I see it would be unwise."
He made no reply, but sat back upon a bough, placed his elbow in afork, and rested his head upon his hand. Thus he remained till the fogand the night had completely enclosed him from her view.
Grace heaved a divided sigh, with a tense pause between, and movedonward, her heart feeling uncomfortably big and heavy, and her eyeswet. Had Giles, instead of remaining still, immediately come down fromthe tree to her, would she have continued in that filial acquiescentframe of mind which she had announced to him as final? If it be true,as women themselves have declared, that one of their sex is never somuch inclined to throw in her lot with a man for good and all as fiveminutes after she has told him such a thing cannot be, theprobabilities are that something might have been done by the appearanceof Winterborne on the ground beside Grace. But he continued motionlessand silent in that gloomy Niflheim or fog-land which involved him, andshe proceeded on her way.
The spot seemed now to be quite deserted. The light from South'swindow made rays on the fog, but did not reach the tree. A quarter ofan hour passed, and all was blackness overhead. Giles had not yet comedown.
Then the tree seemed to shiver, then to heave a sigh; a movement wasaudible, and Winterborne dropped almost noiselessly to the ground. Hehad thought the matter out, and having returned the ladder and billhookto their places, pursued his way homeward. He would not allow thisincident to affect his outer conduct any more than the danger to hisleaseholds had done, and went to bed as usual. Two simultaneoustroubles do not always make a double trouble; and thus it came to passthat Giles's practical anxiety about his houses, which would have beenenough to keep him awake half the night at any other time, wasdisplaced and not reinforced by his sentimental trouble about GraceMelbury. This severance was in truth more like a burial of her than arupture with her; but he did not realize so much at present; even whenhe arose in the morning he felt quite moody and stern: as yet thesecond note in the gamut of such emotions, a tender regret for hisloss, had not made itself heard.
A load of oak timber was to be sent away that morning to a builderwhose works were in a town many miles off. The proud trunks were takenup from the silent spot which had known them through the buddings andsheddings of their growth for the foregoing hundred years; chained downlike slaves to a heavy timber carriage with enormous red wheels, andfour of the most powerful of Melbury's horses were harnessed in frontto draw them.
The horses wore their bells that day. There were sixteen to the team,carried on a frame above each animal's shoulders, and tuned to scale,so as to form two octaves, running from the highest note on the rightor off-side of the leader to the lowest on the left or near-side of theshaft-horse. Melbury was among the last to retain horse-bells in thatneighborhood; for, living at Little Hintock, where the lanes yetremained as narrow as before the days of turnpike roads, thesesound-signals were still as useful to him and his neighbors as they hadever been in former times. Much backing was saved in the course of ayear by the warning notes they cast ahead; moreover, the tones of allthe teams in the district being known to the carters of each, theycould tell a long way off on a dark night whether they were about toencounter friends or strangers.
The fog of the previous evening still lingered so heavily over thewoods that the morning could not penetrate the trees till long afterits time. The load being a ponderous one, the lane crooked, and theair so thick, Winterborne set out, as he often did, to accompany theteam as far as the corner, where it would turn into a wider road.
So they rumbled on, shaking the foundations of the roadside cottages bythe weight of their progress, the sixteen bells chiming harmoniouslyover all, till they had risen out of the valley and were descendingtowards the more open route, the sparks rising from their creaking skidand nearly setting fire to the dead leaves alongside.
Then occurred one of the very incidents against which the bells were anendeavor to guard. Suddenly there beamed into their eyes, quite closeto them, the two lamps of a carriage, shorn of rays by the fog. Itsapproach had been quite unheard, by reason of their own noise. Thecarriage was a covered one, while behind it could be discerned anothervehicle laden with luggage.
Winterborne went to the head of the team, and heard the coachmantelling the carter that he must turn back. The carter declared thatthis was impossible.
"You can turn if you unhitch your string-horses," said the coachman.
"It is much easier for you to turn than for us," said Winterborne."We've five tons of timber on these wheels if we've an ounce."
"But I've another carriage with luggage at my back."
Winterborne admitted the strength of the argument. "But even withthat," he said, "you can back better than we. And you ought to, foryou could hear our bells half a mile off."
"And you could see our lights."
"We couldn't, because of the fog."
"Well, our time's precious," said the coachman, haughtily. "You areonly going to some trumpery little village or other in theneighborhood, while we are going straight to Italy."
"Driving all the way, I suppose," said Winterborne, sarcastically.
The argument continued in these terms till a voice from the interior ofthe carriage inquired what was the matter. It was a lady's.
She was briefly informed of the timber people's obstinacy; and thenGiles could hear her telling the footman to direct the timber people toturn their horses' heads.
The message was brought, and Winterborne sent the bearer back to saythat he begged the lady's pardon, but that he could not do as sherequested; that though he would not assert it to be impossible, it wasimpossible by comparison with the slight difficulty to her party toback their light carriages. As fate would have it, the incident withGrace Melbury on the previous day made Giles less gentle than he mightotherwise have shown himself, his confidence in the sex being rudelyshaken.
In fine, nothing could move him, and the carriages were compelled toback till they reached one of the sidings or turnouts constructed inthe bank for the purpose. Then the team came on ponderously, and theclanging of its sixteen bells as it passed the discomfited carriages,tilted up against the bank, lent a particularly triumphant tone to theteam's progress--a tone which, in point of fact, did not at all attachto its conductor's feelings.
Giles walked behind the timber, and just as he had got past the yetstationary carriages he heard a soft voice say, "Who is that rude man?Not Melbury?" The sex of the speaker was so prominent in the voice thatWinterborne felt a pang of regret.
"No, ma'am. A younger man, in a smaller way of business in LittleHintock. Winterborne is his name."
Thus they parted company. "Why, Mr. Winterborne," said the wagoner,when they were out of hearing, "that was She--Mrs. Charmond! Who'd ha'thought it? What in the world can a woman that does nothing becock-watching out here at this time o' day for? Oh, going to Italy--yesto be sure, I heard she was going abroad, she can't endure the winterhere."
Winterborne was vexed at the incident; the more so that he knew Mr.Melbury, in his adoration of Hintock House, would be the first to blamehim if it became known. But saying no more, he accompanied the load tothe end of the lane, and then turned back with an intention to call atSouth's to learn the result of the experiment of the preceding evening.
It chanced that a few minutes before this time Grace Melbury, who nowrose soon enough to breakfast with her father, in spite of theunwonted
ness of the hour, had been commissioned by him to make the sameinquiry at South's. Marty had been standing at the door when MissMelbury arrived. Almost before the latter had spoken, Mrs. Charmond'scarriages, released from the obstruction up the lane, came bowlingalong, and the two girls turned to regard the spectacle.
Mrs. Charmond did not see them, but there was sufficient light for themto discern her outline between the carriage windows. A noticeablefeature in her tournure was a magnificent mass of braided locks.
"How well she looks this morning!" said Grace, forgetting Mrs.Charmond's slight in her generous admiration. "Her hair so becomes herworn that way. I have never seen any more beautiful!"
"Nor have I, miss," said Marty, dryly, unconsciously stroking her crown.
Grace watched the carriages with lingering regret till they were out ofsight. She then learned of Marty that South was no better. Before shehad come away Winterborne approached the house, but seeing that one ofthe two girls standing on the door-step was Grace, he suddenly turnedback again and sought the shelter of his own home till she should havegone away.