The Woodlanders Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  In the room from which this cheerful blaze proceeded, he beheld a girlseated on a willow chair, and busily occupied by the light of the fire,which was ample and of wood. With a bill-hook in one hand and aleather glove, much too large for her, on the other, she was makingspars, such as are used by thatchers, with great rapidity. She wore aleather apron for this purpose, which was also much too large for herfigure. On her left hand lay a bundle of the straight, smooth stickscalled spar-gads--the raw material of her manufacture; on her right, aheap of chips and ends--the refuse--with which the fire was maintained;in front, a pile of the finished articles. To produce them she took upeach gad, looked critically at it from end to end, cut it to length,split it into four, and sharpened each of the quarters with dexterousblows, which brought it to a triangular point precisely resembling thatof a bayonet.

  Beside her, in case she might require more light, a brass candlestickstood on a little round table, curiously formed of an old coffin-stool,with a deal top nailed on, the white surface of the latter contrastingoddly with the black carved oak of the substructure. The socialposition of the household in the past was almost as definitively shownby the presence of this article as that of an esquire or nobleman byhis old helmets or shields. It had been customary for every well-to-dovillager, whose tenure was by copy of court-roll, or in any way morepermanent than that of the mere cotter, to keep a pair of these stoolsfor the use of his own dead; but for the last generation or two afeeling of cui bono had led to the discontinuance of the custom, andthe stools were frequently made use of in the manner described.

  The young woman laid down the bill-hook for a moment and examined thepalm of her right hand, which, unlike the other, was ungloved, andshowed little hardness or roughness about it. The palm was red andblistering, as if this present occupation were not frequent enough withher to subdue it to what it worked in. As with so many right handsborn to manual labor, there was nothing in its fundamental shape tobear out the physiological conventionalism that gradations of birth,gentle or mean, show themselves primarily in the form of this member.Nothing but a cast of the die of destiny had decided that the girlshould handle the tool; and the fingers which clasped the heavy ashhaft might have skilfully guided the pencil or swept the string, hadthey only been set to do it in good time.

  Her face had the usual fulness of expression which is developed by alife of solitude. Where the eyes of a multitude beat like waves upon acountenance they seem to wear away its individuality; but in the stillwater of privacy every tentacle of feeling and sentiment shoots out invisible luxuriance, to be interpreted as readily as a child's look byan intruder. In years she was no more than nineteen or twenty, but thenecessity of taking thought at a too early period of life had forcedthe provisional curves of her childhood's face to a premature finality.Thus she had but little pretension to beauty, save in one prominentparticular--her hair. Its abundance made it almost unmanageable; itscolor was, roughly speaking, and as seen here by firelight, brown, butcareful notice, or an observation by day, would have revealed that itstrue shade was a rare and beautiful approximation to chestnut.

  On this one bright gift of Time to the particular victim of his nowbefore us the new-comer's eyes were fixed; meanwhile the fingers of hisright hand mechanically played over something sticking up from hiswaistcoat-pocket--the bows of a pair of scissors, whose polish madethem feebly responsive to the light within. In her present beholder'smind the scene formed by the girlish spar-maker composed itself into apost-Raffaelite picture of extremest quality, wherein the girl's hairalone, as the focus of observation, was depicted with intensity anddistinctness, and her face, shoulders, hands, and figure in general,being a blurred mass of unimportant detail lost in haze and obscurity.

  He hesitated no longer, but tapped at the door and entered. The youngwoman turned at the crunch of his boots on the sanded floor, andexclaiming, "Oh, Mr. Percombe, how you frightened me!" quite lost hercolor for a moment.

  He replied, "You should shut your door--then you'd hear folk open it."

  "I can't," she said; "the chimney smokes so. Mr. Percombe, you look asunnatural out of your shop as a canary in a thorn-hedge. Surely youhave not come out here on my account--for--"

  "Yes--to have your answer about this." He touched her head with hiscane, and she winced. "Do you agree?" he continued. "It is necessarythat I should know at once, as the lady is soon going away, and ittakes time to make up."

  "Don't press me--it worries me. I was in hopes you had thought no moreof it. I can NOT part with it--so there!"

  "Now, look here, Marty," said the barber, sitting down on thecoffin-stool table. "How much do you get for making these spars?"

  "Hush--father's up-stairs awake, and he don't know that I am doing hiswork."

  "Well, now tell me," said the man, more softly. "How much do you get?"

  "Eighteenpence a thousand," she said, reluctantly.

  "Who are you making them for?"

  "Mr. Melbury, the timber-dealer, just below here."

  "And how many can you make in a day?"

  "In a day and half the night, three bundles--that's a thousand and ahalf."

  "Two and threepence." The barber paused. "Well, look here," hecontinued, with the remains of a calculation in his tone, whichcalculation had been the reduction to figures of the probable monetarymagnetism necessary to overpower the resistant force of her presentpurse and the woman's love of comeliness, "here's a sovereign--a goldsovereign, almost new." He held it out between his finger and thumb."That's as much as you'd earn in a week and a half at that rough man'swork, and it's yours for just letting me snip off what you've got toomuch of."

  The girl's bosom moved a very little. "Why can't the lady send to someother girl who don't value her hair--not to me?" she exclaimed.

  "Why, simpleton, because yours is the exact shade of her own, and 'tisa shade you can't match by dyeing. But you are not going to refuse menow I've come all the way from Sherton o' purpose?"

  "I say I won't sell it--to you or anybody."

  "Now listen," and he drew up a little closer beside her. "The lady isvery rich, and won't be particular to a few shillings; so I willadvance to this on my own responsibility--I'll make the one sovereigntwo, rather than go back empty-handed."

  "No, no, no!" she cried, beginning to be much agitated. "You area-tempting me, Mr. Percombe. You go on like the Devil to Dr. Faustusin the penny book. But I don't want your money, and won't agree. Whydid you come? I said when you got me into your shop and urged me somuch, that I didn't mean to sell my hair!" The speaker was hot andstern.

  "Marty, now hearken. The lady that wants it wants it badly. And,between you and me, you'd better let her have it. 'Twill be bad foryou if you don't."

  "Bad for me? Who is she, then?"

  The barber held his tongue, and the girl repeated the question.

  "I am not at liberty to tell you. And as she is going abroad soon itmakes no difference who she is at all."

  "She wants it to go abroad wi'?"

  Percombe assented by a nod. The girl regarded him reflectively."Barber Percombe," she said, "I know who 'tis. 'Tis she at theHouse--Mrs. Charmond!"

  "That's my secret. However, if you agree to let me have it, I'll tellyou in confidence."

  "I'll certainly not let you have it unless you tell me the truth. It isMrs. Charmond."

  The barber dropped his voice. "Well--it is. You sat in front of herin church the other day, and she noticed how exactly your hair matchedher own. Ever since then she's been hankering for it, and at lastdecided to get it. As she won't wear it till she goes off abroad, sheknows nobody will recognize the change. I'm commissioned to get it forher, and then it is to be made up. I shouldn't have vamped all thesemiles for any less important employer. Now, mind--'tis as much as mybusiness with her is worth if it should be known that I've let out hername; but honor between us two, Marty, and you'll say nothing thatwould injure me?"

  "I don't wish to
tell upon her," said Marty, coolly. "But my hair ismy own, and I'm going to keep it."

  "Now, that's not fair, after what I've told you," said the nettledbarber. "You see, Marty, as you are in the same parish, and in one ofher cottages, and your father is ill, and wouldn't like to turn out, itwould be as well to oblige her. I say that as a friend. But I won'tpress you to make up your mind to-night. You'll be coming to marketto-morrow, I dare say, and you can call then. If you think it overyou'll be inclined to bring what I want, I know."

  "I've nothing more to say," she answered.

  Her companion saw from her manner that it was useless to urge herfurther by speech. "As you are a trusty young woman," he said, "I'llput these sovereigns up here for ornament, that you may see howhandsome they are. Bring the hair to-morrow, or return thesovereigns." He stuck them edgewise into the frame of a small mantlelooking-glass. "I hope you'll bring it, for your sake and mine. Ishould have thought she could have suited herself elsewhere; but asit's her fancy it must be indulged if possible. If you cut it offyourself, mind how you do it so as to keep all the locks one way." Heshowed her how this was to be done.

  "But I sha'nt," she replied, with laconic indifference. "I value mylooks too much to spoil 'em. She wants my hair to get another loverwith; though if stories are true she's broke the heart of many a noblegentleman already."

  "Lord, it's wonderful how you guess things, Marty," said the barber."I've had it from them that know that there certainly is some foreigngentleman in her eye. However, mind what I ask."

  "She's not going to get him through me."

  Percombe had retired as far as the door; he came back, planted his caneon the coffin-stool, and looked her in the face. "Marty South," hesaid, with deliberate emphasis, "YOU'VE GOT A LOVER YOURSELF, andthat's why you won't let it go!"

  She reddened so intensely as to pass the mild blush that suffices toheighten beauty; she put the yellow leather glove on one hand, took upthe hook with the other, and sat down doggedly to her work withoutturning her face to him again. He regarded her head for a moment, wentto the door, and with one look back at her, departed on his wayhomeward.

  Marty pursued her occupation for a few minutes, then suddenly layingdown the bill-hook, she jumped up and went to the back of the room,where she opened a door which disclosed a staircase so whitely scrubbedthat the grain of the wood was wellnigh sodden away by such cleansing.At the top she gently approached a bedroom, and without entering, said,"Father, do you want anything?"

  A weak voice inside answered in the negative; adding, "I should be allright by to-morrow if it were not for the tree!"

  "The tree again--always the tree! Oh, father, don't worry so aboutthat. You know it can do you no harm."

  "Who have ye had talking to ye down-stairs?"

  "A Sherton man called--nothing to trouble about," she said, soothingly."Father," she went on, "can Mrs. Charmond turn us out of our house ifshe's minded to?"

  "Turn us out? No. Nobody can turn us out till my poor soul is turnedout of my body. 'Tis life-hold, like Ambrose Winterborne's. But whenmy life drops 'twill be hers--not till then." His words on this subjectso far had been rational and firm enough. But now he lapsed into hismoaning strain: "And the tree will do it--that tree will soon be thedeath of me."

  "Nonsense, you know better. How can it be?" She refrained from furtherspeech, and descended to the ground-floor again.

  "Thank Heaven, then," she said to herself, "what belongs to me I keep."