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THE TRUMPET-MAJOR
JOHN LOVEDAY


A SOLDIER IN THE WAR WITH BUONAPARTE
AND
ROBERT HIS BROTHER
FIRST MATE IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE

A TALE

BY
THOMAS HARDY

WITH A MAP OF WESSEX

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1920

COPYRIGHT

_First Edition_ (3 _vols._) 1880.  _New Edition_ (1 _vol._) _and
reprints_ 1881-1893
_New Edition and reprints_ 1896-1900
_First published by Macmillan and Co._, _Crown_ 8_vo_, 1903.  _Reprinted_
1906, 1910, 1914
_Pocket Edition_ 1907.  _Reprinted_ 1909, 1912, 1915, 1917, 1919, 1920




PREFACE


The present tale is founded more largely on testimony--oral and
written--than any other in this series.  The external incidents which
direct its course are mostly an unexaggerated reproduction of the
recollections of old persons well known to the author in childhood, but
now long dead, who were eye-witnesses of those scenes.  If wholly
transcribed their recollections would have filled a volume thrice the
length of 'The Trumpet-Major.'

Down to the middle of this century, and later, there were not wanting, in
the neighbourhood of the places more or less clearly indicated herein,
casual relics of the circumstances amid which the action moves--our
preparations for defence against the threatened invasion of England by
Buonaparte.  An outhouse door riddled with bullet-holes, which had been
extemporized by a solitary man as a target for firelock practice when the
landing was hourly expected, a heap of bricks and clods on a beacon-hill,
which had formed the chimney and walls of the hut occupied by the beacon-
keeper, worm-eaten shafts and iron heads of pikes for the use of those
who had no better weapons, ridges on the down thrown up during the
encampment, fragments of volunteer uniform, and other such lingering
remains, brought to my imagination in early childhood the state of
affairs at the date of the war more vividly than volumes of history could
have done.

Those who have attempted to construct a coherent narrative of past times
from the fragmentary information furnished by survivors, are aware of the
difficulty of ascertaining the true sequence of events indiscriminately
recalled.  For this purpose the newspapers of the date were
indispensable.  Of other documents consulted I may mention, for the
satisfaction of those who love a true story, that the 'Address to all
Ranks and Descriptions of Englishmen' was transcribed from an original
copy in a local museum; that the hieroglyphic portrait of Napoleon
existed as a print down to the present day in an old woman's cottage near
'Overcombe;' that the particulars of the King's doings at his favourite
watering-place were augmented by details from records of the time.  The
drilling scene of the local militia received some additions from an
account given in so grave a work as Gifford's 'History of the Wars of the
French Revolution' (London, 1817).  But on reference to the History I
find I was mistaken in supposing the account to be advanced as authentic,
or to refer to rural England.  However, it does in a large degree accord
with the local traditions of such scenes that I have heard recounted,
times without number, and the system of drill was tested by reference to
the Army Regulations of 1801, and other military handbooks.  Almost the
whole narrative of the supposed landing of the French in the Bay is from
oral relation as aforesaid.  Other proofs of the veracity of this
chronicle have escaped my recollection.

T. H.

_October_ 1895.




I.  WHAT WAS SEEN FROM THE WINDOW OVERLOOKING THE DOWN


In the days of high-waisted and muslin-gowned women, when the vast amount
of soldiering going on in the country was a cause of much trembling to
the sex, there lived in a village near the Wessex coast two ladies of
good report, though unfortunately of limited means.  The elder was a Mrs.
Martha Garland, a landscape-painter's widow, and the other was her only
daughter Anne.

Anne was fair, very fair, in a poetical sense; but in complexion she was
of that particular tint between blonde and brunette which is
inconveniently left without a name.  Her eyes were honest and inquiring,
her mouth cleanly cut and yet not classical, the middle point of her
upper lip scarcely descending so far as it should have done by rights, so
that at the merest pleasant thought, not to mention a smile, portions of
two or three white teeth were uncovered whether she would or not.  Some
people said that this was very attractive.  She was graceful and slender,
and, though but little above five feet in height, could draw herself up
to look tall.  In her manner, in her comings and goings, in her 'I'll do
this,' or 'I'll do that,' she combined dignity with sweetness as no other
girl could do; and any impressionable stranger youths who passed by were
led to yearn for a windfall of speech from her, and to see at the same
time that they would not get it.  In short, beneath all that was charming
and simple in this young woman there lurked a real firmness, unperceived
at first, as the speck of colour lurks unperceived in the heart of the
palest parsley flower.

She wore a white handkerchief to cover her white neck, and a cap on her
head with a pink ribbon round it, tied in a bow at the front.  She had a
great variety of these cap-ribbons, the young men being fond of sending
them to her as presents until they fell definitely in love with a special
sweetheart elsewhere, when they left off doing so.  Between the border of
her cap and her forehead were ranged a row of round brown curls, like
swallows' nests under eaves.

She lived with her widowed mother in a portion of an ancient building
formerly a manor-house, but now a mill, which, being too large for his
own requirements, the miller had found it convenient to divide and
appropriate in part to these highly respectable tenants.  In this
dwelling Mrs. Garland's and Anne's ears were soothed morning, noon, and
night by the music of the mill, the wheels and cogs of which, being of
wood, produced notes that might have borne in their minds a remote
resemblance to the wooden tones of the stopped diapason in an organ.
Occasionally, when the miller was bolting, there was added to these
continuous sounds the cheerful clicking of the hopper, which did not
deprive them of rest except when it was kept going all night; and over
and above all this they had the pleasure of knowing that there crept in
through every crevice, door, and window of their dwelling, however
tightly closed, a subtle mist of superfine flour from the grinding room,
quite invisible, but making its presence known in the course of time by
giving a pallid and ghostly look to the best furniture.  The miller
frequently apologized to his tenants for the intrusion of this insidious
dry fog; but the widow was of a friendly and thankful nature, and she
said that she did not mind it at all, being as it was, not nasty dirt,
but the blessed staff of life.

By good-humour of this sort, and in other ways, Mrs. Garland acknowledged
her friendship for her neighbour, with whom Anne and herself associated
to an extent which she never could have anticipated when, tempted by the
lowness of the rent, they first removed thither after her husband's death
from a larger house at the other end of the village.  Those who have
lived in remote places where there is what is called no society will
comprehend the gradual levelling of distinctions that went on in this
case at some sacrifice of gentility on the part of one household.  The
widow was sometimes sorry to find with what readiness Anne caught up some
dialect-word or accent from the miller and his friends; but he was so
good and true-hearted a man, and she so easy-minded, unambitious a woman,
that she would not make life a solitude for fastidious reasons.  More
than all, she had good ground for thinking that the miller secretly
admired her, and this added a piquancy to the situation.

* * * * *

On a fine summer morning, when the leaves were warm under the sun, and
the more industrious bees abroad, diving into every blue and red cup that
could possibly be considered a flower, Anne was sitting at the back
window of her mother's portion of the house, measuring out lengths of
worsted for a fringed rug that she was making, which lay, about three-
quarters finished, beside her.  The work, though chromatically brilliant,
was tedious: a hearth-rug was a thing which nobody worked at from morning
to night; it was taken up and put down; it was in the chair, on the
floor, across the hand-rail, under the bed, kicked here, kicked there,
rolled away in the closet, brought out again, and so on more capriciously
perhaps than any other home-made article.  Nobody was expected to finish
a rug within a calculable period, and the wools of the beginning became
faded and historical before the end was reached.  A sense of this
inherent nature of worsted-work rather than idleness led Anne to look
rather frequently from the open casement.

Immediately before her was the large, smooth millpond, over-full, and
intruding into the hedge and into the road.  The water, with its flowing
leaves and spots of froth, was stealing away, like Time, under the dark
arch, to tumble over the great slimy wheel within.  On the other side of
the mill-pond was an open place called the Cross, because it was three-
quarters of one, two lanes and a cattle-drive meeting there.  It was the
general rendezvous and arena of the surrounding village.  Behind this a
steep slope rose high into the sky, merging in a wide and open down, now
littered with sheep newly shorn.  The upland by its height completely
sheltered the mill and village from north winds, making summers of
springs, reducing winters to autumn temperatures, and permitting myrtle
to flourish in the open air.

The heaviness of noon pervaded the scene, and under its influence the
sheep had ceased to feed.  Nobody was standing at the Cross, the few
inhabitants being indoors at their dinner.  No human being was on the
down, and no human eye or interest but Anne's seemed to be concerned with
it.  The bees still worked on, and the butterflies did not rest from
roving, their smallness seeming to shield them from the stagnating effect
that this turning moment of day had on larger creatures.  Otherwise all
was still.

The girl glanced at the down and the sheep for no particular reason; the
steep margin of turf and daisies rising above the roofs, chimneys, apple-
trees, and church tower of the hamlet around her, bounded the view from
her position, and it was necessary to look somewhere when she raised her
head.  While thus engaged in working and stopping her attention was
attracted by the sudden rising and running away of the sheep squatted on
the down; and there succeeded sounds of a heavy tramping over the hard
sod which the sheep had quitted, the tramp being accompanied by a
metallic jingle.  Turning her eyes further she beheld two cavalry
soldiers on bulky grey chargers, armed and accoutred throughout,
ascending the down at a point to the left where the incline was
comparatively easy.  The burnished chains, buckles, and plates of their
trappings shone like little looking-glasses, and the blue, red, and white
about them was unsubdued by weather or wear.

The two troopers rode proudly on, as if nothing less than crowns and
empires ever concerned their magnificent minds.  They reached that part
of the down which lay just in front of her, where they came to a halt.  In
another minute there appeared behind them a group containing some half-
dozen more of the same sort.  These came on, halted, and dismounted
likewise.

Two of the soldiers then walked some distance onward together, when one
stood still, the other advancing further, and stretching a white line of
tape between them.  Two more of the men marched to another outlying
point, where they made marks in the ground.  Thus they walked about and
took distances, obviously according to some preconcerted scheme.

At the end of this systematic proceeding one solitary horseman--a
commissioned officer, if his uniform could be judged rightly at that
distance--rode up the down, went over the ground, looked at what the
others had done, and seemed to think that it was good.  And then the girl
heard yet louder tramps and clankings, and she beheld rising from where
the others had risen a whole column of cavalry in marching order.  At a
distance behind these came a cloud of dust enveloping more and more
troops, their arms and accoutrements reflecting the sun through the haze
in faint flashes, stars, and streaks of light.  The whole body approached
slowly towards the plateau at the top of the down.

Anne threw down her work, and letting her eyes remain on the nearing
masses of cavalry, the worsteds getting entangled as they would, said,
'Mother, mother; come here!  Here's such a fine sight!  What does it
mean?  What can they be going to do up there?'

The mother thus invoked ran upstairs and came forward to the window.  She
was a woman of sanguine mouth and eye, unheroic manner, and pleasant
general appearance; a little more tarnished as to surface, but not much
worse in contour than the girl herself.

Widow Garland's thoughts were those of the period. 'Can it be the
French,' she said, arranging herself for the extremest form of
consternation.  'Can that arch-enemy of mankind have landed at last?'  It
should be stated that at this time there were two arch-enemies of
mankind--Satan as usual, and Buonaparte, who had sprung up and eclipsed
his elder rival altogether.  Mrs. Garland alluded, of course, to the
junior gentleman.

'It cannot be he,' said Anne.  'Ah! there's Simon Burden, the man who
watches at the beacon.  He'll know!'

She waved her hand to an aged form of the same colour as the road, who
had just appeared beyond the mill-pond, and who, though active, was bowed
to that degree which almost reproaches a feeling observer for standing
upright.  The arrival of the soldiery had drawn him out from his drop of
drink at the 'Duke of York' as it had attracted Anne.  At her call he
crossed the mill-bridge, and came towards the window.

Anne inquired of him what it all meant; but Simon Burden, without
answering, continued to move on with parted gums, staring at the cavalry
on his own private account with a concern that people often show about
temporal phenomena when such matters can affect them but a short time
longer.  'You'll walk into the millpond!' said Anne.  'What are they
doing?  You were a soldier many years ago, and ought to know.'

'Don't ask me, Mis'ess Anne,' said the military relic, depositing his
body against the wall one limb at a time.  'I were only in the foot, ye
know, and never had a clear understanding of horses.  Ay, I be a old man,
and of no judgment now.'  Some additional pressure, however, caused him
to search further in his worm-eaten magazine of ideas, and he found that
he did know in a dim irresponsible way.  The soldiers must have come
there to camp: those men they had seen first were the markers: they had
come on before the rest to measure out the ground.  He who had
accompanied them was the quartermaster.  'And so you see they have got
all the lines marked out by the time the regiment have come up,' he
added.  'And then they will--well-a-deary! who'd ha' supposed that
Overcombe would see such a day as this!'

'And then they will--'

'Then-- Ah, it's gone from me again!' said Simon.  'O, and then they will
raise their tents, you know, and picket their horses.  That was it; so it
was.'

By this time the column of horse had ascended into full view, and they
formed a lively spectacle as they rode along the high ground in marching
order, backed by the pale blue sky, and lit by the southerly sun.  Their
uniform was bright and attractive; white buckskin pantaloons,
three-quarter boots, scarlet shakos set off with lace, mustachios waxed
to a needle point; and above all, those richly ornamented blue jackets
mantled with the historic pelisse--that fascination to women, and
encumbrance to the wearers themselves.

''Tis the York Hussars!' said Simon Burden, brightening like a dying
ember fanned.  'Foreigners to a man, and enrolled long since my time.  But
as good hearty comrades, they say, as you'll find in the King's service.'

'Here are more and different ones,' said Mrs. Garland.

Other troops had, during the last few minutes, been ascending the down at
a remoter point, and now drew near.  These were of different weight and
build from the others; lighter men, in helmet hats, with white plumes.

'I don't know which I like best,' said Anne.  'These, I think, after
all.'

Simon, who had been looking hard at the latter, now said that they were
the --th Dragoons.

'All Englishmen they,' said the old man.  'They lay at Budmouth barracks
a few years ago.'

'They did.  I remember it,' said Mrs. Garland.

'And lots of the chaps about here 'listed at the time,' said Simon.  'I
can call to mind that there was--ah, 'tis gone from me again!  However,
all that's of little account now.'

The dragoons passed in front of the lookers-on as the others had done,
and their gay plumes, which had hung lazily during the ascent, swung to
northward as they reached the top, showing that on the summit a fresh
breeze blew.  'But look across there,' said Anne.  There had entered upon
the down from another direction several battalions of foot, in white
kerseymere breeches and cloth gaiters.  They seemed to be weary from a
long march, the original black of their gaiters and boots being whity-
brown with dust.  Presently came regimental waggons, and the private
canteen carts which followed at the end of a convoy.

The space in front of the mill-pond was now occupied by nearly all the
inhabitants of the village, who had turned out in alarm, and remained for
pleasure, their eyes lighted up with interest in what they saw; for
trappings and regimentals, war horses and men, in towns an attraction,
were here almost a sublimity.

The troops filed to their lines, dismounted, and in quick time took off
their accoutrements, rolled up their sheep-skins, picketed and unbitted
their horses, and made ready to erect the tents as soon as they could be
taken from the waggons and brought forward.  When this was done, at a
given signal the canvases flew up from the sod; and thenceforth every man
had a place in which to lay his head.

Though nobody seemed to be looking on but the few at the window and in
the village street, there were, as a matter of fact, many eyes converging
upon that military arrival in its high and conspicuous position, not to
mention the glances of birds and other wild creatures.  Men in distant
gardens, women in orchards and at cottage-doors, shepherds on remote
hills, turnip-hoers in blue-green enclosures miles away, captains with
spy-glasses out at sea, were regarding the picture keenly.  Those three
or four thousand men of one machine-like movement, some of them
swashbucklers by nature; others, doubtless, of a quiet shop-keeping
disposition who had inadvertently got into uniform--all of them had
arrived from nobody knew where, and hence were matter of great curiosity.
They seemed to the mere eye to belong to a different order of beings from
those who inhabited the valleys below.  Apparently unconscious and
careless of what all the world was doing elsewhere, they remained
picturesquely engrossed in the business of making themselves a habitation
on the isolated spot which they had chosen.

Mrs. Garland was of a festive and sanguine turn of mind, a woman soon set
up and soon set down, and the coming of the regiments quite excited her.
She thought there was reason for putting on her best cap, thought that
perhaps there was not; that she would hurry on the dinner and go out in
the afternoon; then that she would, after all, do nothing unusual, nor
show any silly excitements whatever, since they were unbecoming in a
mother and a widow.  Thus circumscribing her intentions till she was
toned down to an ordinary person of forty, Mrs. Garland accompanied her
daughter downstairs to dine, saying, 'Presently we will call on Miller
Loveday, and hear what he thinks of it all.'




II.  SOMEBODY KNOCKS AND COMES IN


Miller Loveday was the representative of an ancient family of
corn-grinders whose history is lost in the mists of antiquity.  His
ancestral line was contemporaneous with that of De Ros, Howard, and De La
Zouche; but, owing to some trifling deficiency in the possessions of the
house of Loveday, the individual names and intermarriages of its members
were not recorded during the Middle Ages, and thus their private lives in
any given century were uncertain.  But it was known that the family had
formed matrimonial alliances with farmers not so very small, and once
with a gentleman-tanner, who had for many years purchased after their
death the horses of the most aristocratic persons in the county--fiery
steeds that earlier in their career had been valued at many hundred
guineas.

It was also ascertained that Mr. Loveday's great-grandparents had been
eight in number, and his great-great-grandparents sixteen, every one of
whom reached to years of discretion: at every stage backwards his sires
and gammers thus doubled and doubled till they became a vast body of
Gothic ladies and gentlemen of the rank known as ceorls or villeins, full
of importance to the country at large, and ramifying throughout the
unwritten history of England.  His immediate father had greatly improved
the value of their residence by building a new chimney, and setting up an
additional pair of millstones.

Overcombe Mill presented at one end the appearance of a hard-worked house
slipping into the river, and at the other of an idle, genteel place, half-
cloaked with creepers at this time of the year, and having no visible
connexion with flour.  It had hips instead of gables, giving it a round-
shouldered look, four chimneys with no smoke coming out of them, two
zigzag cracks in the wall, several open windows, with a looking-glass
here and there inside, showing its warped back to the passer-by; snowy
dimity curtains waving in the draught; two mill doors, one above the
other, the upper enabling a person to step out upon nothing at a height
of ten feet from the ground; a gaping arch vomiting the river, and a
lean, long-nosed fellow looking out from the mill doorway, who was the
hired grinder, except when a bulging fifteen stone man occupied the same
place, namely, the miller himself.

Behind the mill door, and invisible to the mere wayfarer who did not
visit the family, were chalked addition and subtraction sums, many of
them originally done wrong, and the figures half rubbed out and
corrected, noughts being turned into nines, and ones into twos.  These
were the miller's private calculations.  There were also chalked in the
same place rows and rows of strokes like open palings, representing the
calculations of the grinder, who in his youthful ciphering studies had
not gone so far as Arabic figures.

In the court in front were two worn-out millstones, made useful again by
being let in level with the ground.  Here people stood to smoke and
consider things in muddy weather; and cats slept on the clean surfaces
when it was hot.  In the large stubbard-tree at the corner of the garden
was erected a pole of larch fir, which the miller had bought with others
at a sale of small timber in Damer's Wood one Christmas week.  It rose
from the upper boughs of the tree to about the height of a fisherman's
mast, and on the top was a vane in the form of a sailor with his arm
stretched out.  When the sun shone upon this figure it could be seen that
the greater part of his countenance was gone, and the paint washed from
his body so far as to reveal that he had been a soldier in red before he
became a sailor in blue.  The image had, in fact, been John, one of our
coming characters, and was then turned into Robert, another of them.  This
revolving piece of statuary could not, however, be relied on as a vane,
owing to the neighbouring hill, which formed variable currents in the
wind.

The leafy and quieter wing of the mill-house was the part occupied by
Mrs. Garland and her daughter, who made up in summer-time for the
narrowness of their quarters by overflowing into the garden on stools and
chairs.  The parlour or dining-room had a stone floor--a fact which the
widow sought to disguise by double carpeting, lest the standing of Anne
and herself should be lowered in the public eye.  Here now the mid-day
meal went lightly and mincingly on, as it does where there is no greedy
carnivorous man to keep the dishes about, and was hanging on the close
when somebody entered the passage as far as the chink of the parlour
door, and tapped.  This proceeding was probably adopted to kindly avoid
giving trouble to Susan, the neighbour's pink daughter, who helped at
Mrs. Garland's in the mornings, but was at that moment particularly
occupied in standing on the water-butt and gazing at the soldiers, with
an inhaling position of the mouth and circular eyes.

There was a flutter in the little dining-room--the sensitiveness of
habitual solitude makes hearts beat for preternaturally small reasons--and
a guessing as to who the visitor might be.  It was some military
gentleman from the camp perhaps?  No; that was impossible.  It was the
parson?  No; he would not come at dinner-time.  It was the well-informed
man who travelled with drapery and the best Birmingham earrings?  Not at
all; his time was not till Thursday at three.  Before they could think
further the visitor moved forward another step, and the diners got a
glimpse of him through the same friendly chink that had afforded him a
view of the Garland dinner-table.

'O!  It is only Loveday.'

This approximation to nobody was the miller above mentioned, a hale man
of fifty-five or sixty--hale all through, as many were in those days, and
not merely veneered with purple by exhilarating victuals and drinks,
though the latter were not at all despised by him.  His face was indeed
rather pale than otherwise, for he had just come from the mill.  It was
capable of immense changes of expression: mobility was its essence, a
roll of flesh forming a buttress to his nose on each side, and a deep
ravine lying between his lower lip and the tumulus represented by his
chin.  These fleshy lumps moved stealthily, as if of their own accord,
whenever his fancy was tickled.

His eyes having lighted on the table-cloth, plates, and viands, he found
himself in a position which had a sensible awkwardness for a modest man
who always liked to enter only at seasonable times the presence of a girl
of such pleasantly soft ways as Anne Garland, she who could make apples
seem like peaches, and throw over her shillings the glamour of guineas
when she paid him for flour.

'Dinner is over, neighbour Loveday; please come in,' said the widow,
seeing his case.  The miller said something about coming in presently;
but Anne pressed him to stay, with a tender motion of her lip as it
played on the verge of a solicitous smile without quite lapsing into
one--her habitual manner when speaking.

Loveday took off his low-crowned hat and advanced.  He had not come about
pigs or fowls this time.  'You have been looking out, like the rest o'
us, no doubt, Mrs. Garland, at the mampus of soldiers that have come upon
the down?  Well, one of the horse regiments is the --th Dragoons, my son
John's regiment, you know.'

The announcement, though it interested them, did not create such an
effect as the father of John had seemed to anticipate; but Anne, who
liked to say pleasant things, replied, 'The dragoons looked nicer than
the foot, or the German cavalry either.'

'They are a handsome body of men,' said the miller in a disinterested
voice.  'Faith! I didn't know they were coming, though it may be in the
newspaper all the time.  But old Derriman keeps it so long that we never
know things till they be in everybody's mouth.'

This Derriman was a squireen living near, who was chiefly distinguished
in the present warlike time by having a nephew in the yeomanry.

'We were told that the yeomanry went along the turnpike road yesterday,'
said Anne; 'and they say that they were a pretty sight, and quite
soldierly.'

'Ah! well--they be not regulars,' said Miller Loveday, keeping back
harsher criticism as uncalled for.  But inflamed by the arrival of the
dragoons, which had been the exciting cause of his call, his mind would
not go to yeomanry.  'John has not been home these five years,' he said.

'And what rank does he hold now?' said the widow.

'He's trumpet-major, ma'am; and a good musician.'  The miller, who was a
good father, went on to explain that John had seen some service, too.  He
had enlisted when the regiment was lying in this neighbourhood, more than
eleven years before, which put his father out of temper with him, as he
had wished him to follow on at the mill.  But as the lad had enlisted
seriously, and as he had often said that he would be a soldier, the
miller had thought that he would let Jack take his chance in the
profession of his choice.

Loveday had two sons, and the second was now brought into the
conversation by a remark of Anne's that neither of them seemed to care
for the miller's business.

'No,' said Loveday in a less buoyant tone.  'Robert, you see, must needs
go to sea.'

'He is much younger than his brother?' said Mrs. Garland.

About four years, the miller told her.  His soldier son was
two-and-thirty, and Bob was twenty-eight.  When Bob returned from his
present voyage, he was to be persuaded to stay and assist as grinder in
the mill, and go to sea no more.

'A sailor-miller!' said Anne.

'O, he knows as much about mill business as I do,' said Loveday; 'he was
intended for it, you know, like John.  But, bless me!' he continued, 'I
am before my story.  I'm come more particularly to ask you, ma'am, and
you, Anne my honey, if you will join me and a few friends at a leetle
homely supper that I shall gi'e to please the chap now he's come?  I can
do no less than have a bit of a randy, as the saying is, now that he's
here safe and sound.'

Mrs. Garland wanted to catch her daughter's eye; she was in some doubt
about her answer.  But Anne's eye was not to be caught, for she hated
hints, nods, and calculations of any kind in matters which should be
regulated by impulse; and the matron replied, 'If so be 'tis possible,
we'll be there.  You will tell us the day?'

He would, as soon as he had seen son John.  ''Twill be rather untidy, you
know, owing to my having no womenfolks in the house; and my man David is
a poor dunder-headed feller for getting up a feast.  Poor chap! his sight
is bad, that's true, and he's very good at making the beds, and oiling
the legs of the chairs and other furniture, or I should have got rid of
him years ago.'

'You should have a woman to attend to the house, Loveday,' said the
widow.

'Yes, I should, but--.  Well, 'tis a fine day, neighbours.  Hark!  I
fancy I hear the noise of pots and pans up at the camp, or my ears
deceive me.  Poor fellows, they must be hungry!  Good day t'ye, ma'am.'
And the miller went away.

All that afternoon Overcombe continued in a ferment of interest in the
military investment, which brought the excitement of an invasion without
the strife.  There were great discussions on the merits and appearance of
the soldiery.  The event opened up, to the girls unbounded possibilities
of adoring and being adored, and to the young men an embarrassment of
dashing acquaintances which quite superseded falling in love.  Thirteen
of these lads incontinently stated within the space of a quarter of an
hour that there was nothing in the world like going for a soldier.  The
young women stated little, but perhaps thought the more; though, in
justice, they glanced round towards the encampment from the corners of
their blue and brown eyes in the most demure and modest manner that could
be desired.

In the evening the village was lively with soldiers' wives; a tree full
of starlings would not have rivalled the chatter that was going on.  These
ladies were very brilliantly dressed, with more regard for colour than
for material.  Purple, red, and blue bonnets were numerous, with bunches
of cocks' feathers; and one had on an Arcadian hat of green sarcenet,
turned up in front to show her cap underneath.  It had once belonged to
an officer's lady, and was not so much stained, except where the
occasional storms of rain, incidental to a military life, had caused the
green to run and stagnate in curious watermarks like peninsulas and
islands.  Some of the prettiest of these butterfly wives had been
fortunate enough to get lodgings in the cottages, and were thus spared
the necessity of living in huts and tents on the down.  Those who had not
been so fortunate were not rendered more amiable by the success of their
sisters-in-arms, and called them names which brought forth retorts and
rejoinders; till the end of these alternative remarks seemed dependent
upon the close of the day.

One of these new arrivals, who had a rosy nose and a slight thickness of
voice, which, as Anne said, she couldn't help, poor thing, seemed to have
seen so much of the world, and to have been in so many campaigns, that
Anne would have liked to take her into their own house, so as to acquire
some of that practical knowledge of the history of England which the lady
possessed, and which could not be got from books.  But the narrowness of
Mrs. Garland's rooms absolutely forbade this, and the houseless treasury
of experience was obliged to look for quarters elsewhere.

That night Anne retired early to bed.  The events of the day, cheerful as
they were in themselves, had been unusual enough to give her a slight
headache.  Before getting into bed she went to the window, and lifted the
white curtains that hung across it.  The moon was shining, though not as
yet into the valley, but just peeping above the ridge of the down, where
the white cones of the encampment were softly touched by its light.  The
quarter-guard and foremost tents showed themselves prominently; but the
body of the camp, the officers' tents, kitchens, canteen, and
appurtenances in the rear were blotted out by the ground, because of its
height above her.  She could discern the forms of one or two sentries
moving to and fro across the disc of the moon at intervals.  She could
hear the frequent shuffling and tossing of the horses tied to the
pickets; and in the other direction the miles-long voice of the sea,
whispering a louder note at those points of its length where hampered in
its ebb and flow by some jutting promontory or group of boulders.  Louder
sounds suddenly broke this approach to silence; they came from the camp
of dragoons, were taken up further to the right by the camp of the
Hanoverians, and further on still by the body of infantry.  It was
tattoo.  Feeling no desire to sleep, she listened yet longer, looked at
Charles's Wain swinging over the church tower, and the moon ascending
higher and higher over the right-hand streets of tents, where, instead of
parade and bustle, there was nothing going on but snores and dreams, the
tired soldiers lying by this time under their proper canvases, radiating
like spokes from the pole of each tent.

At last Anne gave up thinking, and retired like the rest.  The night wore
on, and, except the occasional 'All's well' of the sentries, no voice was
heard in the camp or in the village below.




III.  THE MILL BECOMES AN IMPORTANT CENTRE OF OPERATIONS


The next morning Miss Garland awoke with an impression that something
more than usual was going on, and she recognized as soon as she could
clearly reason that the proceedings, whatever they might be, lay not far
away from her bedroom window.  The sounds were chiefly those of pickaxes
and shovels.  Anne got up, and, lifting the corner of the curtain about
an inch, peeped out.

A number of soldiers were busily engaged in making a zigzag path down the
incline from the camp to the river-head at the back of the house, and
judging from the quantity of work already got through they must have
begun very early.  Squads of men were working at several equidistant
points in the proposed pathway, and by the time that Anne had dressed
herself each section of the length had been connected with those above
and below it, so that a continuous and easy track was formed from the
crest of the down to the bottom of the steep.

The down rested on a bed of solid chalk, and the surface exposed by the
roadmakers formed a white ribbon, serpenting from top to bottom.

Then the relays of working soldiers all disappeared, and, not long after,
a troop of dragoons in watering order rode forward at the top and began
to wind down the new path.  They came lower and closer, and at last were
immediately beneath her window, gathering themselves up on the space by
the mill-pond.  A number of the horses entered it at the shallow part,
drinking and splashing and tossing about.  Perhaps as many as thirty,
half of them with riders on their backs, were in the water at one time;
the thirsty animals drank, stamped, flounced, and drank again, letting
the clear, cool water dribble luxuriously from their mouths.  Miller
Loveday was looking on from over his garden hedge, and many admiring
villagers were gathered around.

Gazing up higher, Anne saw other troops descending by the new road from
the camp, those which had already been to the pond making room for these
by withdrawing along the village lane and returning to the top by a
circuitous route.

Suddenly the miller exclaimed, as in fulfilment of expectation, 'Ah,
John, my boy; good morning!'  And the reply of 'Morning, father,' came
from a well-mounted soldier near him, who did not, however, form one of
the watering party.  Anne could not see his face very clearly, but she
had no doubt that this was John Loveday.

There were tones in the voice which reminded her of old times, those of
her very infancy, when Johnny Loveday had been top boy in the village
school, and had wanted to learn painting of her father.  The deeps and
shallows of the mill-pond being better known to him than to any other man
in the camp, he had apparently come down on that account, and was
cautioning some of the horsemen against riding too far in towards the
mill-head.

Since her childhood and his enlistment Anne had seen him only once, and
then but casually, when he was home on a short furlough.  His figure was
not much changed from what it had been; but the many sunrises and sunsets
which had passed since that day, developing her from a comparative child
to womanhood, had abstracted some of his angularities, reddened his skin,
and given him a foreign look.  It was interesting to see what years of
training and service had done for this man.  Few would have supposed that
the white and the blue coats of miller and soldier covered the forms of
father and son.

Before the last troop of dragoons rode off they were welcomed in a body
by Miller Loveday, who still stood in his outer garden, this being a plot
lying below the mill-tail, and stretching to the water-side.  It was just
the time of year when cherries are ripe, and hang in clusters under their
dark leaves.  While the troopers loitered on their horses, and chatted to
the miller across the stream, he gathered bunches of the fruit, and held
them up over the garden hedge for the acceptance of anybody who would
have them; whereupon the soldiers rode into the water to where it had
washed holes in the garden bank, and, reining their horses there, caught
the cherries in their forage-caps, or received bunches of them on the
ends of their switches, with the dignified laugh that became martial men
when stooping to slightly boyish amusement.  It was a cheerful, careless,
unpremeditated half-hour, which returned like the scent of a flower to
the memories of some of those who enjoyed it, even at a distance of many
years after, when they lay wounded and weak in foreign lands.

Then dragoons and horses wheeled off as the others had done; and troops
of the German Legion next came down and entered in panoramic procession
the space below Anne's eyes, as if on purpose to gratify her.  These were
notable by their mustachios, and queues wound tightly with brown ribbon
to the level of their broad shoulder-blades.  They were charmed, as the
others had been, by the head and neck of Miss Garland in the little
square window overlooking the scene of operations, and saluted her with
devoted foreign civility, and in such overwhelming numbers that the
modest girl suddenly withdrew herself into the room, and had a private
blush between the chest of drawers and the washing-stand.

When she came downstairs her mother said, 'I have been thinking what I
ought to wear to Miller Loveday's to-night.'

'To Miller Loveday's?' said Anne.

'Yes.  The party is to-night.  He has been in here this morning to tell
me that he has seen his son, and they have fixed this evening.'

'Do you think we ought to go, mother?' said Anne slowly, and looking at
the smaller features of the window-flowers.

'Why not?' said Mrs. Garland.

'He will only have men there except ourselves, will he?  And shall we be
right to go alone among 'em?'

Anne had not recovered from the ardent gaze of the gallant York Hussars,
whose voices reached her even now in converse with Loveday.

'La, Anne, how proud you are!' said Widow Garland.  'Why, isn't he our
nearest neighbour and our landlord? and don't he always fetch our faggots
from the wood, and keep us in vegetables for next to nothing?'

'That's true,' said Anne.

'Well, we can't be distant with the man.  And if the enemy land next
autumn, as everybody says they will, we shall have quite to depend upon
the miller's waggon and horses.  He's our only friend.'

'Yes, so he is,' said Anne.  'And you had better go, mother; and I'll
stay at home.  They will be all men; and I don't like going.'

Mrs. Garland reflected.  'Well, if you don't want to go, I don't,' she
said.  'Perhaps, as you are growing up, it would be better to stay at
home this time.  Your father was a professional man, certainly.'  Having
spoken as a mother, she sighed as a woman.

'Why do you sigh, mother?'

'You are so prim and stiff about everything.'

'Very well--we'll go.'

'O no--I am not sure that we ought.  I did not promise, and there will be
no trouble in keeping away.'

Anne apparently did not feel certain of her own opinion, and, instead of
supporting or contradicting, looked thoughtfully down, and abstractedly
brought her hands together on her bosom, till her fingers met tip to tip.

As the day advanced the young woman and her mother became aware that
great preparations were in progress in the miller's wing of the house.
The partitioning between the Lovedays and the Garlands was not very
thorough, consisting in many cases of a simple screwing up of the doors
in the dividing walls; and thus when the mill began any new performances
they proclaimed themselves at once in the more private dwelling.  The
smell of Miller Loveday's pipe came down Mrs. Garland's chimney of an
evening with the greatest regularity.  Every time that he poked his fire
they knew from the vehemence or deliberateness of the blows the precise
state of his mind; and when he wound his clock on Sunday nights the whirr
of that monitor reminded the widow to wind hers.  This transit of noises
was most perfect where Loveday's lobby adjoined Mrs. Garland's pantry;
and Anne, who was occupied for some time in the latter apartment, enjoyed
the privilege of hearing the visitors arrive and of catching stray sounds
and words without the connecting phrases that made them entertaining, to
judge from the laughter they evoked.  The arrivals passed through the
house and went into the garden, where they had tea in a large
summer-house, an occasional blink of bright colour, through the foliage,
being all that was visible of the assembly from Mrs. Garland's windows.
When it grew dusk they all could be heard coming indoors to finish the
evening in the parlour.

Then there was an intensified continuation of the above-mentioned signs
of enjoyment, talkings and haw-haws, runnings upstairs and runnings down,
a slamming of doors and a clinking of cups and glasses; till the proudest
adjoining tenant without friends on his own side of the partition might
have been tempted to wish for entrance to that merry dwelling, if only to
know the cause of these fluctuations of hilarity, and to see if the
guests were really so numerous, and the observations so very amusing as
they seemed.

The stagnation of life on the Garland side of the party-wall began to
have a very gloomy effect by the contrast.  When, about half-past nine
o'clock, one of these tantalizing bursts of gaiety had resounded for a
longer time than usual, Anne said, 'I believe, mother, that you are
wishing you had gone.'

'I own to feeling that it would have been very cheerful if we had joined
in,' said Mrs. Garland, in a hankering tone.  'I was rather too nice in
listening to you and not going.  The parson never calls upon us except in
his spiritual capacity.  Old Derriman is hardly genteel; and there's
nobody left to speak to.  Lonely people must accept what company they can
get.'

'Or do without it altogether.'

'That's not natural, Anne; and I am surprised to hear a young woman like
you say such a thing.  Nature will not be stifled in that way. . . .'
(Song and powerful chorus heard through partition.)  'I declare the room
on the other side of the wall seems quite a paradise compared with this.'

'Mother, you are quite a girl,' said Anne in slightly superior accents.
'Go in and join them by all means.'

'O no--not now,' said her mother, resignedly shaking her head.  'It is
too late now.  We ought to have taken advantage of the invitation.  They
would look hard at me as a poor mortal who had no real business there,
and the miller would say, with his broad smile, "Ah, you be obliged to
come round."'

While the sociable and unaspiring Mrs. Garland continued thus to pass the
evening in two places, her body in her own house and her mind in the
miller's, somebody knocked at the door, and directly after the elder
Loveday himself was admitted to the room.  He was dressed in a suit
between grand and gay, which he used for such occasions as the present,
and his blue coat, yellow and red waistcoat with the three lower buttons
unfastened, steel-buckled shoes and speckled stockings, became him very
well in Mrs. Martha Garland's eyes.

'Your servant, ma'am,' said the miller, adopting as a matter of propriety
the raised standard of politeness required by his higher costume.  'Now,
begging your pardon, I can't hae this.  'Tis unnatural that you two
ladies should be biding here and we under the same roof making merry
without ye.  Your husband, poor man--lovely picters that a' would make to
be sure--would have been in with us long ago if he had been in your
place.  I can take no nay from ye, upon my honour.  You and maidy Anne
must come in, if it be only for half-an-hour.  John and his friends have
got passes till twelve o'clock to-night, and, saving a few of our own
village folk, the lowest visitor present is a very genteel German
corporal.  If you should hae any misgivings on the score of
respectability, ma'am, we'll pack off the underbred ones into the back
kitchen.'

Widow Garland and Anne looked yes at each other after this appeal.

'We'll follow you in a few minutes,' said the elder, smiling; and she
rose with Anne to go upstairs.

'No, I'll wait for ye,' said the miller doggedly; 'or perhaps you'll
alter your mind again.'

While the mother and daughter were upstairs dressing, and saying
laughingly to each other, 'Well, we must go now,' as if they hadn't
wished to go all the evening, other steps were heard in the passage; and
the miller cried from below, 'Your pardon, Mrs. Garland; but my son John
has come to help fetch ye.  Shall I ask him in till ye be ready?'

'Certainly; I shall be down in a minute,' screamed Anne's mother in a
slanting voice towards the staircase.

When she descended, the outline of the trumpet-major appeared half-way
down the passage.  'This is John,' said the miller simply.  'John, you
can mind Mrs. Martha Garland very well?'

'Very well, indeed,' said the dragoon, coming in a little further.  'I
should have called to see her last time, but I was only home a week.  How
is your little girl, ma'am?'

Mrs. Garland said Anne was quite well.  'She is grown-up now.  She will
be down in a moment.'

There was a slight noise of military heels without the door, at which the
trumpet-major went and put his head outside, and said, 'All right--coming
in a minute,' when voices in the darkness replied, 'No hurry.'

'More friends?' said Mrs. Garland.

'O, it is only Buck and Jones come to fetch me,' said the soldier.  'Shall
I ask 'em in a minute, Mrs Garland, ma'am?'

'O yes,' said the lady; and the two interesting forms of Trumpeter Buck
and Saddler-sergeant Jones then came forward in the most friendly manner;
whereupon other steps were heard without, and it was discovered that
Sergeant-master-tailor Brett and Farrier-extraordinary Johnson were
outside, having come to fetch Messrs. Buck and Jones, as Buck and Jones
had come to fetch the trumpet-major.

As there seemed a possibility of Mrs. Garland's small passage being
choked up with human figures personally unknown to her, she was relieved
to hear Anne coming downstairs.

'Here's my little girl,' said Mrs. Garland, and the trumpet-major looked
with a sort of awe upon the muslin apparition who came forward, and stood
quite dumb before her.  Anne recognized him as the trooper she had seen
from her window, and welcomed him kindly.  There was something in his
honest face which made her feel instantly at home with him.

At this frankness of manner Loveday--who was not a ladies' man--blushed,
and made some alteration in his bodily posture, began a sentence which
had no end, and showed quite a boy's embarrassment.  Recovering himself,
he politely offered his arm, which Anne took with a very pretty grace.  He
conducted her through his comrades, who glued themselves perpendicularly
to the wall to let her pass, and then they went out of the door, her
mother following with the miller, and supported by the body of troopers,
the latter walking with the usual cavalry gait, as if their thighs were
rather too long for them.  Thus they crossed the threshold of the mill-
house and up the passage, the paving of which was worn into a gutter by
the ebb and flow of feet that had been going on there ever since Tudor
times.




IV.  WHO WERE PRESENT AT THE MILLER'S LITTLE ENTERTAINMENT


When the group entered the presence of the company a lull in the
conversation was caused by the sight of new visitors, and (of course) by
the charm of Anne's appearance; until the old men, who had daughters of
their own, perceiving that she was only a half-formed girl, resumed their
tales and toss-potting with unconcern.

Miller Loveday had fraternized with half the soldiers in the camp since
their arrival, and the effect of this upon his party was striking--both
chromatically and otherwise.  Those among the guests who first attracted
the eye were the sergeants and sergeant-majors of Loveday's regiment,
fine hearty men, who sat facing the candles, entirely resigned to
physical comfort.  Then there were other non-commissioned officers, a
German, two Hungarians, and a Swede, from the foreign hussars--young men
with a look of sadness on their faces, as if they did not much like
serving so far from home.  All of them spoke English fairly well.  Old
age was represented by Simon Burden the pensioner, and the shady side of
fifty by Corporal Tullidge, his friend and neighbour, who was hard of
hearing, and sat with his hat on over a red cotton handkerchief that was
wound several times round his head.  These two veterans were employed as
watchers at the neighbouring beacon, which had lately been erected by the
Lord-Lieutenant for firing whenever the descent on the coast should be
made.  They lived in a little hut on the hill, close by the heap of
faggots; but to-night they had found deputies to watch in their stead.

On a lower plane of experience and qualifications came neighbour James
Comfort, of the Volunteers, a soldier by courtesy, but a blacksmith by
rights; also William Tremlett and Anthony Cripplestraw, of the local
forces.  The two latter men of war were dressed merely as villagers, and
looked upon the regulars from a humble position in the background.  The
remainder of the party was made up of a neighbouring dairyman or two, and
their wives, invited by the miller, as Anne was glad to see, that she and
her mother should not be the only women there.

The elder Loveday apologized in a whisper to Mrs. Garland for the
presence of the inferior villagers.  'But as they are learning to be
brave defenders of their home and country, ma'am, as fast as they can
master the drill, and have worked for me off and on these many years,
I've asked 'em in, and thought you'd excuse it.'

'Certainly, Miller Loveday,' said the widow.

'And the same of old Burden and Tullidge.  They have served well and long
in the Foot, and even now have a hard time of it up at the beacon in wet
weather.  So after giving them a meal in the kitchen I just asked 'em in
to hear the singing.  They faithfully promise that as soon as ever the
gunboats appear in view, and they have fired the beacon, to run down here
first, in case we shouldn't see it.  'Tis worth while to be friendly with
'em, you see, though their tempers be queer.'

'Quite worth while, miller,' said she.

Anne was rather embarrassed by the presence of the regular military in
such force, and at first confined her words to the dairymen's wives she
was acquainted with, and to the two old soldiers of the parish.

'Why didn't ye speak to me afore, chiel?' said one of these, Corporal
Tullidge, the elderly man with the hat, while she was talking to old
Simon Burden.  'I met ye in the lane yesterday,' he added reproachfully,
'but ye didn't notice me at all.'

'I am very sorry for it,' she said; but, being afraid to shout in such a
company, the effect of her remark upon the corporal was as if she had not
spoken at all.

'You was coming along with yer head full of some high notions or other no
doubt,' continued the uncompromising corporal in the same loud voice.
'Ah, 'tis the young bucks that get all the notice nowadays, and old folks
are quite forgot!  I can mind well enough how young Bob Loveday used to
lie in wait for ye.'

Anne blushed deeply, and stopped his too excursive discourse by hastily
saying that she always respected old folks like him.  The corporal
thought she inquired why he always kept his hat on, and answered that it
was because his head was injured at Valenciennes, in July, Ninety-three.
'We were trying to bomb down the tower, and a piece of the shell struck
me.  I was no more nor less than a dead man for two days.  If it hadn't a
been for that and my smashed arm I should have come home none the worse
for my five-and-twenty years' service.'

'You have got a silver plate let into yer head, haven't ye, corpel?' said
Anthony Cripplestraw, who had drawn near.  'I have heard that the way
they morticed yer skull was a beautiful piece of workmanship.  Perhaps
the young woman would like to see the place?  'Tis a curious sight,
Mis'ess Anne; you don't see such a wownd every day.'

'No, thank you,' said Anne hurriedly, dreading, as did all the young
people of Overcombe, the spectacle of the corporal uncovered.  He had
never been seen in public without the hat and the handkerchief since his
return in Ninety-four; and strange stories were told of the ghastliness
of his appearance bare-headed, a little boy who had accidentally beheld
him going to bed in that state having been frightened into fits.

'Well, if the young woman don't want to see yer head, maybe she'd like to
hear yer arm?' continued Cripplestraw, earnest to please her.

'Hey?' said the corporal.

'Your arm hurt too?' cried Anne.

'Knocked to a pummy at the same time as my head,' said Tullidge
dispassionately.

'Rattle yer arm, corpel, and show her,' said Cripplestraw.

'Yes, sure,' said the corporal, raising the limb slowly, as if the glory
of exhibition had lost some of its novelty, though he was willing to
oblige.  Twisting it mercilessly about with his right hand he produced a
crunching among the bones at every motion, Cripplestraw seeming to derive
great satisfaction from the ghastly sound.

'How very shocking!' said Anne, painfully anxious for him to leave off.

'O, it don't hurt him, bless ye.  Do it, corpel?' said Cripplestraw.

'Not a bit,' said the corporal, still working his arm with great energy.

'There's no life in the bones at all.  No life in 'em, I tell her,
corpel!'

'None at all.'

'They be as loose as a bag of ninepins,' explained Cripplestraw in
continuation.  'You can feel 'em quite plain, Mis'ess Anne.  If ye would
like to, he'll undo his sleeve in a minute to oblege ye?'

'O no, no, please not!  I quite understand,' said the young woman.

'Do she want to hear or see any more, or don't she?' the corporal
inquired, with a sense that his time was getting wasted.

Anne explained that she did not on any account; and managed to escape
from the corner.




V.  THE SONG AND THE STRANGER


The trumpet-major now contrived to place himself near her, Anne's
presence having evidently been a great pleasure to him since the moment
of his first seeing her.  She was quite at her ease with him, and asked
him if he thought that Buonaparte would really come during the summer,
and many other questions which the gallant dragoon could not answer, but
which he nevertheless liked to be asked.  William Tremlett, who had not
enjoyed a sound night's rest since the First Consul's menace had become
known, pricked up his ears at sound of this subject, and inquired if
anybody had seen the terrible flat-bottomed boats that the enemy were to
cross in.

'My brother Robert saw several of them paddling about the shore the last
time he passed the Straits of Dover,' said the trumpet-major; and he
further startled the company by informing them that there were supposed
to be more than fifteen hundred of these boats, and that they would carry
a hundred men apiece.  So that a descent of one hundred and fifty
thousand men might be expected any day as soon as Boney had brought his
plans to bear.

'Lord ha' mercy upon us!' said William Tremlett.

'The night-time is when they will try it, if they try it at all,' said
old Tullidge, in the tone of one whose watch at the beacon must, in the
nature of things, have given him comprehensive views of the situation.
'It is my belief that the point they will choose for making the shore is
just over there,' and he nodded with indifference towards a section of
the coast at a hideous nearness to the house in which they were
assembled, whereupon Fencible Tremlett, and Cripplestraw of the Locals,
tried to show no signs of trepidation.

'When d'ye think 'twill be?' said Volunteer Comfort, the blacksmith.

'I can't answer to a day,' said the corporal, 'but it will certainly be
in a down-channel tide; and instead of pulling hard against it, he'll let
his boats drift, and that will bring 'em right into Budmouth Bay.  'Twill
be a beautiful stroke of war, if so be 'tis quietly done!'

'Beautiful,' said Cripplestraw, moving inside his clothes.  'But how if
we should be all abed, corpel?  You can't expect a man to be brave in his
shirt, especially we Locals, that have only got so far as shoulder fire-
locks.'

'He's not coming this summer.  He'll never come at all,' said a tall
sergeant-major decisively.

Loveday the soldier was too much engaged in attending upon Anne and her
mother to join in these surmises, bestirring himself to get the ladies
some of the best liquor the house afforded, which had, as a matter of
fact, crossed the Channel as privately as Buonaparte wished his army to
do, and had been landed on a dark night over the cliff.  After this he
asked Anne to sing, but though she had a very pretty voice in private
performances of that nature, she declined to oblige him; turning the
subject by making a hesitating inquiry about his brother Robert, whom he
had mentioned just before.

'Robert is as well as ever, thank you, Miss Garland,' he said.  'He is
now mate of the brig Pewit--rather young for such a command; but the
owner puts great trust in him.'  The trumpet-major added, deepening his
thoughts to a profounder view of the person discussed, 'Bob is in love.'

Anne looked conscious, and listened attentively; but Loveday did not go
on.

'Much?' she asked.

'I can't exactly say.  And the strange part of it is that he never tells
us who the woman is.  Nobody knows at all.'

'He will tell, of course?' said Anne, in the remote tone of a person with
whose sex such matters had no connexion whatever.

Loveday shook his head, and the tete-a-tete was put an end to by a burst
of singing from one of the sergeants, who was followed at the end of his
song by others, each giving a ditty in his turn; the singer standing up
in front of the table, stretching his chin well into the air, as though
to abstract every possible wrinkle from his throat, and then plunging
into the melody.  When this was over one of the foreign hussars--the
genteel German of Miller Loveday's description, who called himself a
Hungarian, and in reality belonged to no definite country--performed at
Trumpet-major Loveday's request the series of wild motions that he
denominated his national dance, that Anne might see what it was like.
Miss Garland was the flower of the whole company; the soldiers one and
all, foreign and English, seemed to be quite charmed by her presence, as
indeed they well might be, considering how seldom they came into the
society of such as she.

Anne and her mother were just thinking of retiring to their own dwelling
when Sergeant Stanner of the --th Foot, who was recruiting at Budmouth,
began a satirical song:--

   When law'-yers strive' to heal' a breach',
   And par-sons prac'-tise what' they preach';
   Then lit'-tle Bo-ney he'll pounce down',
   And march' his men' on Lon'-don town'!

   Chorus.--Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lo'-rum,
         Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lay.

   When jus'-ti-ces' hold e'qual scales',
   And rogues' are on'-ly found' in jails';
   Then lit'tle Bo'-ney he'll pounce down',
   And march' his men' on Lon'-don town'!

   Chorus.--Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lo'-rum,
        Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lay.

   When rich' men find' their wealth' a curse',
   And fill' there-with' the poor' man's purse';
   Then lit'-tle Bo'-ney he'll pounce down',
   And march' his men' on Lon'-don town'!

   Chorus.--Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lo'-rum,
        Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lay.

Poor Stanner! In spite of his satire, he fell at the bloody battle of
Albuera a few years after this pleasantly spent summer at the Georgian
watering-place, being mortally wounded and trampled down by a French
hussar when the brigade was deploying into line under Beresford.

While Miller Loveday was saying 'Well done, Mr. Stanner!' at the close of
the thirteenth stanza, which seemed to be the last, and Mr. Stanner was
modestly expressing his regret that he could do no better, a stentorian
voice was heard outside the window shutter repeating,

   Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lo'-rum,
   Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lay.

The company was silent in a moment at this reinforcement, and only the
military tried not to look surprised.  While all wondered who the singer
could be somebody entered the porch; the door opened, and in came a young
man, about the size and weight of the Farnese Hercules, in the uniform of
the yeomanry cavalry.

''Tis young Squire Derriman, old Mr. Derriman's nephew,' murmured voices
in the background.

Without waiting to address anybody, or apparently seeing who were
gathered there, the colossal man waved his cap above his head and went on
in tones that shook the window-panes:--

   When hus'-bands with' their wives' agree'.
   And maids' won't wed' from mod'-es-ty',
   Then lit'-tle Bo'-ney he'll pounce down',
   And march' his men' on Lon'-don town'!

   Chorus.--Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lo'-rum,
         Rol'-li-cum ro'-rum, tol'-lol-lay.

It was a verse which had been omitted by the gallant Stanner, out of
respect to the ladies.

The new-comer was red-haired and of florid complexion, and seemed full of
a conviction that his whim of entering must be their pleasure, which for
the moment it was.

'No ceremony, good men all,' he said; 'I was passing by, and my ear was
caught by the singing.  I like singing; 'tis warming and cheering, and
shall not be put down.  I should like to hear anybody say otherwise.'

'Welcome, Master Derriman,' said the miller, filling a glass and handing
it to the yeoman.  'Come all the way from quarters, then?  I hardly
knowed ye in your soldier's clothes.  You'd look more natural with a spud
in your hand, sir.  I shouldn't ha' known ye at all if I hadn't heard
that you were called out.'

'More natural with a spud!--have a care, miller,' said the young giant,
the fire of his complexion increasing to scarlet.  'I don't mean anger,
but--but--a soldier's honour, you know!'

The military in the background laughed a little, and the yeoman then for
the first time discovered that there were more regulars present than one.
He looked momentarily disconcerted, but expanded again to full assurance.

'Right, right, Master Derriman, no offence--'twas only my joke,' said the
genial miller.  'Everybody's a soldier nowadays.  Drink a drap o' this
cordial, and don't mind words.'

The young man drank without the least reluctance, and said, 'Yes, miller,
I am called out.  'Tis ticklish times for us soldiers now; we hold our
lives in our hands--What are those fellows grinning at behind the
table?--I say, we do!'

'Staying with your uncle at the farm for a day or two, Mr. Derriman?'

'No, no; as I told you, six mile off.  Billeted at Casterbridge.  But I
have to call and see the old, old--'

'Gentleman?'

'Gentleman!--no, skinflint.  He lives upon the sweepings of the barton;
ha, ha!'  And the speaker's regular white teeth showed themselves like
snow in a Dutch cabbage.  'Well, well, the profession of arms makes a man
proof against all that.  I take things as I find 'em.'

'Quite right, Master Derriman.  Another drop?'

'No, no.  I'll take no more than is good for me--no man should; so don't
tempt me.'

The yeoman then saw Anne, and by an unconscious gravitation went towards
her and the other women, flinging a remark to John Loveday in passing.
'Ah, Loveday!  I heard you were come; in short, I come o' purpose to see
you.  Glad to see you enjoying yourself at home again.'

The trumpet-major replied civilly, though not without grimness, for he
seemed hardly to like Derriman's motion towards Anne.

'Widow Garland's daughter!--yes, 'tis! surely.  You remember me?  I have
been here before.  Festus Derriman, Yeomanry Cavalry.'

Anne gave a little curtsey.  'I know your name is Festus--that's all.'

'Yes, 'tis well known--especially latterly.'  He dropped his voice to
confidence pitch.  'I suppose your friends here are disturbed by my
coming in, as they don't seem to talk much?  I don't mean to interrupt
the party; but I often find that people are put out by my coming among
'em, especially when I've got my regimentals on.'

'La! and are they?'

'Yes; 'tis the way I have.'  He further lowered his tone, as if they had
been old friends, though in reality he had only seen her three or four
times.  'And how did you come to be here?  Dash my wig, I don't like to
see a nice young lady like you in this company.  You should come to some
of our yeomanry sprees in Casterbridge or Shottsford-Forum.  O, but the
girls do come!  The yeomanry are respected men, men of good substantial
families, many farming their own land; and every one among us rides his
own charger, which is more than these cussed fellows do.'  He nodded
towards the dragoons.

'Hush, hush!  Why, these are friends and neighbours of Miller Loveday,
and he is a great friend of ours--our best friend,' said Anne with great
emphasis, and reddening at the sense of injustice to their host.  'What
are you thinking of, talking like that?  It is ungenerous in you.'

'Ha, ha!  I've affronted you.  Isn't that it, fair angel, fair--what do
you call it?--fair vestal?  Ah, well! would you was safe in my own house!
But honour must be minded now, not courting.  Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-
lorum.  Pardon me, my sweet, I like ye!  It may be a come down for me,
owning land; but I do like ye.'

'Sir, please be quiet,' said Anne, distressed.

'I will, I will.  Well, Corporal Tullidge, how's your head?' he said,
going towards the other end of the room, and leaving Anne to herself.

The company had again recovered its liveliness, and it was a long time
before the bouncing Rufus who had joined them could find heart to tear
himself away from their society and good liquors, although he had had
quite enough of the latter before he entered.  The natives received him
at his own valuation, and the soldiers of the camp, who sat beyond the
table, smiled behind their pipes at his remarks, with a pleasant twinkle
of the eye which approached the satirical, John Loveday being not the
least conspicuous in this bearing.  But he and his friends were too
courteous on such an occasion as the present to challenge the young man's
large remarks, and readily permitted him to set them right on the details
of camping and other military routine, about which the troopers seemed
willing to let persons hold any opinion whatever, provided that they
themselves were not obliged to give attention to it; showing, strangely
enough, that if there was one subject more than another which never
interested their minds, it was the art of war.  To them the art of
enjoying good company in Overcombe Mill, the details of the miller's
household, the swarming of his bees, the number of his chickens, and the
fatness of his pigs, were matters of infinitely greater concern.

The present writer, to whom this party has been described times out of
number by members of the Loveday family and other aged people now passed
away, can never enter the old living-room of Overcombe Mill without
beholding the genial scene through the mists of the seventy or eighty
years that intervene between then and now.  First and brightest to the
eye are the dozen candles, scattered about regardless of expense, and
kept well snuffed by the miller, who walks round the room at intervals of
five minutes, snuffers in hand, and nips each wick with great precision,
and with something of an executioner's grim look upon his face as he
closes the snuffers upon the neck of the candle.  Next to the
candle-light show the red and blue coats and white breeches of the
soldiers--nearly twenty of them in all besides the ponderous Derriman--the
head of the latter, and, indeed, the heads of all who are standing up,
being in dangerous proximity to the black beams of the ceiling.  There is
not one among them who would attach any meaning to 'Vittoria,' or gather
from the syllables 'Waterloo' the remotest idea of his own glory or
death.  Next appears the correct and innocent Anne, little thinking what
things Time has in store for her at no great distance off.  She looks at
Derriman with a half-uneasy smile as he clanks hither and thither, and
hopes he will not single her out again to hold a private dialogue
with--which, however, he does, irresistibly attracted by the white muslin
figure.  She must, of course, look a little gracious again now, lest his
mood should turn from sentimental to quarrelsome--no impossible
contingency with the yeoman-soldier, as her quick perception had noted.

'Well, well; this idling won't do for me, folks,' he at last said, to
Anne's relief.  'I ought not to have come in, by rights; but I heard you
enjoying yourselves, and thought it might be worth while to see what you
were up to; I have several miles to go before bedtime;' and stretching
his arms, lifting his chin, and shaking his head, to eradicate any
unseemly curve or wrinkle from his person, the yeoman wished them an off-
hand good-night, and departed.

'You should have teased him a little more, father,' said the
trumpet-major drily.  'You could soon have made him as crabbed as a
bear.'

'I didn't want to provoke the chap--'twasn't worth while.  He came in
friendly enough,' said the gentle miller without looking up.

'I don't think he was overmuch friendly,' said John.

''Tis as well to be neighbourly with folks, if they be not quite
onbearable,' his father genially replied, as he took off his coat to go
and draw more ale--this periodical stripping to the shirt-sleeves being
necessitated by the narrowness of the cellar and the smeary effect of its
numerous cobwebs upon best clothes.

Some of the guests then spoke of Fess Derriman as not such a bad young
man if you took him right and humoured him; others said that he was
nobody's enemy but his own; and the elder ladies mentioned in a tone of
interest that he was likely to come into a deal of money at his uncle's
death.  The person who did not praise was the one who knew him best, who
had known him as a boy years ago, when he had lived nearer to Overcombe
than he did at present.  This unappreciative person was the
trumpet-major.




VI.  OLD MR. DERRIMAN OF OXWELL HALL


At this time in the history of Overcombe one solitary newspaper
occasionally found its way into the village.  It was lent by the
postmaster at Budmouth (who, in some mysterious way, got it for nothing
through his connexion with the mail) to Mr. Derriman at the Hall, by whom
it was handed on to Mrs. Garland when it was not more than a fortnight
old.  Whoever remembers anything about the old farmer-squire will, of
course, know well enough that this delightful privilege of reading
history in long columns was not accorded to the Widow Garland for
nothing.  It was by such ingenuous means that he paid her for her
daughter's occasional services in reading aloud to him and making out his
accounts, in which matters the farmer, whose guineas were reported to
touch five figures--some said more--was not expert.

Mrs. Martha Garland, as a respectable widow, occupied a twilight rank
between the benighted villagers and the well-informed gentry, and kindly
made herself useful to the former as letter-writer and reader, and
general translator from the printing tongue.  It was not without
satisfaction that she stood at her door of an evening, newspaper in hand,
with three or four cottagers standing round, and poured down their open
throats any paragraph that she might choose to select from the stirring
ones of the period.  When she had done with the sheet Mrs. Garland passed
it on to the miller, the miller to the grinder, and the grinder to the
grinder's boy, in whose hands it became subdivided into half pages,
quarter pages, and irregular triangles, and ended its career as a paper
cap, a flagon bung, or a wrapper for his bread and cheese.

Notwithstanding his compact with Mrs. Garland, old Mr. Derriman kept the
paper so long, and was so chary of wasting his man's time on a merely
intellectual errand, that unless she sent for the journal it seldom
reached her hands.  Anne was always her messenger.  The arrival of the
soldiers led Mrs. Garland to despatch her daughter for it the day after
the party; and away she went in her hat and pelisse, in a direction at
right angles to that of the encampment on the hill.

Walking across the fields for the distance of a mile or two, she came out
upon the high-road by a wicket-gate.  On the other side of the way was
the entrance to what at first sight looked like a neglected meadow, the
gate being a rotten one, without a bottom rail, and broken-down palings
lying on each side.  The dry hard mud of the opening was marked with
several horse and cow tracks, that had been half obliterated by fifty
score sheep tracks, surcharged with the tracks of a man and a dog.  Beyond
this geological record appeared a carriage-road, nearly grown over with
grass, which Anne followed.  It descended by a gentle slope, dived under
dark-rinded elm and chestnut trees, and conducted her on till the hiss of
a waterfall and the sound of the sea became audible, when it took a bend
round a swamp of fresh watercress and brooklime that had once been a fish
pond.  Here the grey, weather-worn front of a building edged from behind
the trees.  It was Oxwell Hall, once the seat of a family now extinct,
and of late years used as a farmhouse.

Benjamin Derriman, who owned the crumbling place, had originally been
only the occupier and tenant-farmer of the fields around.  His wife had
brought him a small fortune, and during the growth of their only son
there had been a partition of the Oxwell estate, giving the farmer, now a
widower, the opportunity of acquiring the building and a small portion of
the land attached on exceptionally low terms.  But two years after the
purchase the boy died, and Derriman's existence was paralyzed forthwith.
It was said that since that event he had devised the house and fields to
a distant female relative, to keep them out of the hands of his detested
nephew; but this was not certainly known.

The hall was as interesting as mansions in a state of declension usually
are, as the excellent county history showed.  That popular work in folio
contained an old plate dedicated to the last scion of the original
owners, from which drawing it appeared that in 1750, the date of
publication, the windows were covered with little scratches like black
flashes of lightning; that a horn of hard smoke came out of each of the
twelve chimneys; that a lady and a lap-dog stood on the lawn in a
strenuously walking position; and a substantial cloud and nine flying
birds of no known species hung over the trees to the north-east.

The rambling and neglected dwelling had all the romantic excellencies and
practical drawbacks which such mildewed places share in common with
caves, mountains, wildernesses, glens, and other homes of poesy that
people of taste wish to live and die in.  Mustard and cress could have
been raised on the inner plaster of the dewy walls at any height not
exceeding three feet from the floor; and mushrooms of the most refined
and thin-stemmed kinds grew up through the chinks of the larder paving.
As for the outside, Nature, in the ample time that had been given her,
had so mingled her filings and effacements with the marks of human wear
and tear upon the house, that it was often hard to say in which of the
two or if in both, any particular obliteration had its origin.  The
keenness was gone from the mouldings of the doorways, but whether worn
out by the rubbing past of innumerable people's shoulders, and the moving
of their heavy furniture, or by Time in a grander and more abstract form,
did not appear.  The iron stanchions inside the window-panes were eaten
away to the size of wires at the bottom where they entered the stone, the
condensed breathings of generations having settled there in pools and
rusted them.  The panes themselves had either lost their shine altogether
or become iridescent as a peacock's tail.  In the middle of the porch was
a vertical sun-dial, whose gnomon swayed loosely about when the wind
blew, and cast its shadow hither and thither, as much as to say, 'Here's
your fine model dial; here's any time for any man; I am an old dial; and
shiftiness is the best policy.'

Anne passed under the arched gateway which screened the main front; over
it was the porter's lodge, reached by a spiral staircase.  Across the
archway was fixed a row of wooden hurdles, one of which Anne opened and
closed behind her.  Their necessity was apparent as soon as she got
inside.  The quadrangle of the ancient pile was a bed of mud and manure,
inhabited by calves, geese, ducks, and sow pigs surprisingly large, with
young ones surprisingly small.  In the groined porch some heifers were
amusing themselves by stretching up their necks and licking the carved
stone capitals that supported the vaulting.  Anne went on to a second and
open door, across which was another hurdle to keep the live stock from
absolute community with the inmates.  There being no knocker, she knocked
by means of a short stick which was laid against the post for that
purpose; but nobody attending, she entered the passage, and tried an
inner door.

A slight noise was heard inside, the door opened about an inch, and a
strip of decayed face, including the eye and some forehead wrinkles,
appeared within the crevice.

'Please I have come for the paper,' said Anne.

'O, is it you, dear Anne?' whined the inmate, opening the door a little
further.  'I could hardly get to the door to open it, I am so weak.'

The speaker was a wizened old gentleman, in a coat the colour of his
farmyard, breeches of the same hue, unbuttoned at the knees, revealing a
bit of leg above his stocking and a dazzlingly white shirt-frill to
compensate for this untidiness below.  The edge of his skull round his
eye-sockets was visible through the skin, and he had a mouth whose
corners made towards the back of his head on the slightest provocation.
He walked with great apparent difficulty back into the room, Anne
following him.

'Well, you can have the paper if you want it; but you never give me much
time to see what's in en!  Here's the paper.'  He held it out, but before
she could take it he drew it back again, saying, 'I have not had my share
o' the paper by a good deal, what with my weak sight, and people coming
so soon for en.  I am a poor put-upon soul; but my "Duty of Man" will be
left to me when the newspaper is gone.'  And he sank into his chair with
an air of exhaustion.

Anne said that she did not wish to take the paper if he had not done with
it, and that she was really later in the week than usual, owing to the
soldiers.

'Soldiers, yes--rot the soldiers!  And now hedges will be broke, and
hens' nests robbed, and sucking-pigs stole, and I don't know what all.
Who's to pay for't, sure?  I reckon that because the soldiers be come you
don't mean to be kind enough to read to me what I hadn't time to read
myself.'

She would read if he wished, she said; she was in no hurry.  And sitting
herself down she unfolded the paper.

'"Dinner at Carlton House"?'

'No, faith.  'Tis nothing to I.'

'"Defence of the country"?'

'Ye may read that if ye will.  I hope there will be no billeting in this
parish, or any wild work of that sort; for what would a poor old lamiger
like myself do with soldiers in his house, and nothing to feed 'em with?'

Anne began reading, and continued at her task nearly ten minutes, when
she was interrupted by the appearance in the quadrangular slough without
of a large figure in the uniform of the yeomanry cavalry.

'What do you see out there?' said the farmer with a start, as she paused
and slowly blushed.

'A soldier--one of the yeomanry,' said Anne, not quite at her ease.

'Scrounch it all--'tis my nephew!' exclaimed the old man, his face
turning to a phosphoric pallor, and his body twitching with innumerable
alarms as he formed upon his face a gasping smile of joy, with which to
welcome the new-coming relative.  'Read on, prithee, Miss Garland.'

Before she had read far the visitor straddled over the door-hurdle into
the passage and entered the room.

'Well, nunc, how do you feel?' said the giant, shaking hands with the
farmer in the manner of one violently ringing a hand-bell.  'Glad to see
you.'

'Bad and weakish, Festus,' replied the other, his person responding
passively to the rapid vibrations imparted.  'O, be tender, please--a
little softer, there's a dear nephew!  My arm is no more than a cobweb.'

'Ah, poor soul!'

'Yes, I am not much more than a skeleton, and can't bear rough usage.'

'Sorry to hear that; but I'll bear your affliction in mind.  Why, you are
all in a tremble, Uncle Benjy!'

''Tis because I am so gratified,' said the old man.  'I always get all in
a tremble when I am taken by surprise by a beloved relation.'

'Ah, that's it!' said the yeoman, bringing his hand down on the back of
his uncle's chair with a loud smack, at which Uncle Benjy nervously
sprang three inches from his seat and dropped into it again.  'Ask your
pardon for frightening ye, uncle.  'Tis how we do in the army, and I
forgot your nerves.  You have scarcely expected to see me, I dare say,
but here I am.'

'I am glad to see ye.  You are not going to stay long, perhaps?'

'Quite the contrary.  I am going to stay ever so long!'

'O I see!  I am so glad, dear Festus.  Ever so long, did ye say?'

'Yes, _ever_ so long,' said the young gentleman, sitting on the slope of
the bureau and stretching out his legs as props.  'I am going to make
this quite my own home whenever I am off duty, as long as we stay out.
And after that, when the campaign is over in the autumn, I shall come
here, and live with you like your own son, and help manage your land and
your farm, you know, and make you a comfortable old man.'

'Ah!  How you do please me!' said the farmer, with a horrified smile, and
grasping the arms of his chair to sustain himself.

'Yes; I have been meaning to come a long time, as I knew you'd like to
have me, Uncle Benjy; and 'tisn't in my heart to refuse you.'

'You always was kind that way!'

'Yes; I always was.  But I ought to tell you at once, not to disappoint
you, that I shan't be here always--all day, that is, because of my
military duties as a cavalry man.'

'O, not always?  That's a pity!' exclaimed the farmer with a cheerful
eye.

'I knew you'd say so.  And I shan't be able to sleep here at night
sometimes, for the same reason.'

'Not sleep here o' nights?' said the old gentleman, still more relieved.
'You ought to sleep here--you certainly ought; in short, you must.  But
you can't!'

'Not while we are with the colours.  But directly that's over--the very
next day--I'll stay here all day, and all night too, to oblige you, since
you ask me so very kindly.'

'Th-thank ye, that will be very nice!' said Uncle Benjy.

'Yes, I knew 'twould relieve ye.'  And he kindly stroked his uncle's
head, the old man expressing his enjoyment at the affectionate token by a
death's-head grimace.  'I should have called to see you the other night
when I passed through here,' Festus continued; 'but it was so late that I
couldn't come so far out of my way.  You won't think it unkind?'

'Not at all, if you _couldn't_.  I never shall think it unkind if you
really _can't_ come, you know, Festy.'  There was a few minutes' pause,
and as the nephew said nothing Uncle Benjy went on: 'I wish I had a
little present for ye.  But as ill-luck would have it we have lost a deal
of stock this year, and I have had to pay away so much.'

'Poor old man--I know you have.  Shall I lend you a seven-shilling piece,
Uncle Benjy?'

'Ha, ha!--you must have your joke; well, I'll think o' that.  And so they
expect Buonaparty to choose this very part of the coast for his landing,
hey?  And that the yeomanry be to stand in front as the forlorn hope?'

'Who says so?' asked the florid son of Mars, losing a little redness.

'The newspaper-man.'

'O, there's nothing in that,' said Festus bravely.  'The gover'ment
thought it possible at one time; but they don't know.'

Festus turned himself as he talked, and now said abruptly: 'Ah, who's
this?  Why, 'tis our little Anne!'  He had not noticed her till this
moment, the young woman having at his entry kept her face over the
newspaper, and then got away to the back part of the room.  'And are you
and your mother always going to stay down there in the mill-house
watching the little fishes, Miss Anne?'

She said that it was uncertain, in a tone of truthful precision which the
question was hardly worth, looking forcedly at him as she spoke.  But she
blushed fitfully, in her arms and hands as much as in her face.  Not that
she was overpowered by the great boots, formidable spurs, and other
fierce appliances of his person, as he imagined; simply she had not been
prepared to meet him there.

'I hope you will, I am sure, for my own good,' said he, letting his eyes
linger on the round of her cheek.

Anne became a little more dignified, and her look showed reserve.  But
the yeoman on perceiving this went on talking to her in so civil a way
that he irresistibly amused her, though she tried to conceal all feeling.
At a brighter remark of his than usual her mouth moved, her upper lip
playing uncertainly over her white teeth; it would stay still--no, it
would withdraw a little way in a smile; then it would flutter down again;
and so it wavered like a butterfly in a tender desire to be pleased and
smiling, and yet to be also sedate and composed; to show him that she did
not want compliments, and yet that she was not so cold as to wish to
repress any genuine feeling he might be anxious to utter.

'Shall you want any more reading, Mr. Derriman?' said she, interrupting
the younger man in his remarks.  'If not, I'll go homeward.'

'Don't let me hinder you longer,' said Festus.  'I'm off in a minute or
two, when your man has cleaned my boots.'

'Ye don't hinder us, nephew.  She must have the paper: 'tis the day for
her to have 'n.  She might read a little more, as I have had so little
profit out o' en hitherto.  Well, why don't ye speak?  Will ye, or won't
ye, my dear?'

'Not to two,' she said.

'Ho, ho! damn it, I must go then, I suppose,' said Festus, laughing; and
unable to get a further glance from her he left the room and clanked into
the back yard, where he saw a man; holding up his hand he cried, 'Anthony
Cripplestraw!'

Cripplestraw came up in a trot, moved a lock of his hair and replaced it,
and said, 'Yes, Maister Derriman.'  He was old Mr. Derriman's odd hand in
the yard and garden, and like his employer had no great pretensions to
manly beauty, owing to a limpness of backbone and speciality of mouth,
which opened on one side only, giving him a triangular smile.

'Well, Cripplestraw, how is it to-day?' said Festus, with
socially-superior heartiness.

'Middlin', considering, Maister Derriman.  And how's yerself?'

'Fairish.  Well, now, see and clean these military boots of mine.  I'll
cock my foot up on this bench.  This pigsty of my uncle's is not fit for
a soldier to come into.'

'Yes, Maister Derriman, I will.  No, 'tis not fit, Maister Derriman.'

'What stock has uncle lost this year, Cripplestraw?'

'Well, let's see, sir.  I can call to mind that we've lost three
chickens, a tom-pigeon, and a weakly sucking-pig, one of a fare of ten.  I
can't think of no more, Maister Derriman.'

'H'm, not a large quantity of cattle.  The old rascal!'

'No, 'tis not a large quantity.  Old what did you say, sir?'

'O nothing.  He's within there.'  Festus flung his forehead in the
direction of a right line towards the inner apartment.  'He's a regular
sniche one.'

'Hee, hee; fie, fie, Master Derriman!' said Cripplestraw, shaking his
head in delighted censure.  'Gentlefolks shouldn't talk so.  And an
officer, Mr. Derriman!  'Tis the duty of all cavalry gentlemen to bear in
mind that their blood is a knowed thing in the country, and not to speak
ill o't.'

'He's close-fisted.'

'Well, maister, he is--I own he is a little.  'Tis the nater of some old
venerable gentlemen to be so.  We'll hope he'll treat ye well in yer
fortune, sir.'

'Hope he will.  Do people talk about me here, Cripplestraw?' asked the
yeoman, as the other continued busy with his boots.

'Well, yes, sir; they do off and on, you know.  They says you be as fine
a piece of calvery flesh and bones as was ever growed on fallow-ground;
in short, all owns that you be a fine fellow, sir.  I wish I wasn't no
more afraid of the French than you be; but being in the Locals, Maister
Derriman, I assure ye I dream of having to defend my country every night;
and I don't like the dream at all.'

'You should take it careless, Cripplestraw, as I do; and 'twould soon
come natural to you not to mind it at all.  Well, a fine fellow is not
everything, you know.  O no.  There's as good as I in the army, and even
better.'

'And they say that when you fall this summer, you'll die like a man.'

'When I fall?'

'Yes, sure, Maister Derriman.  Poor soul o' thee!  I shan't forget 'ee as
you lie mouldering in yer soldier's grave.'

'Hey?' said the warrior uneasily.  'What makes 'em think I am going to
fall?'

'Well, sir, by all accounts the yeomanry will be put in front.'

'Front!  That's what my uncle has been saying.'

'Yes, and by all accounts 'tis true.  And naterelly they'll be mowed down
like grass; and you among 'em, poor young galliant officer!'

'Look here, Cripplestraw.  This is a reg'lar foolish report.  How can
yeomanry be put in front?  Nobody's put in front.  We yeomanry have
nothing to do with Buonaparte's landing.  We shall be away in a safe
place, guarding the possessions and jewels.  Now, can you see,
Cripplestraw, any way at all that the yeomanry can be put in front?  Do
you think they really can?'

'Well, maister, I am afraid I do,' said the cheering Cripplestraw.  'And
I know a great warrior like you is only too glad o' the chance.  'Twill
be a great thing for ye, death and glory!  In short, I hope from my heart
you will be, and I say so very often to folk--in fact, I pray at night
for't.'

'O! cuss you! you needn't pray about it.'

'No, Maister Derriman, I won't.'

'Of course my sword will do its duty.  That's enough.  And now be off
with ye.'

Festus gloomily returned to his uncle's room and found that Anne was just
leaving.  He was inclined to follow her at once, but as she gave him no
opportunity for doing this he went to the window, and remained tapping
his fingers against the shutter while she crossed the yard.

'Well, nephy, you are not gone yet?' said the farmer, looking dubiously
at Festus from under one eyelid.  'You see how I am.  Not by any means
better, you see; so I can't entertain 'ee as well as I would.'

'You can't, nunc, you can't.  I don't think you are worse--if I do, dash
my wig.  But you'll have plenty of opportunities to make me welcome when
you are better.  If you are not so brisk inwardly as you was, why not try
change of air?  This is a dull, damp hole.'

''Tis, Festus; and I am thinking of moving.'

'Ah, where to?' said Festus, with surprise and interest.

'Up into the garret in the north corner.  There is no fireplace in the
room; but I shan't want that, poor soul o' me.'

''Tis not moving far.'

''Tis not.  But I have not a soul belonging to me within ten mile; and
you know very well that I couldn't afford to go to lodgings that I had to
pay for.'

'I know it--I know it, Uncle Benjy!  Well, don't be disturbed.  I'll come
and manage for you as soon as ever this Boney alarm is over; but when a
man's country calls he must obey, if he is a man.'

'A splendid spirit!' said Uncle Benjy, with much admiration on the
surface of his countenance.  'I never had it.  How could it have got into
the boy?'

'From my mother's side, perhaps.'

'Perhaps so.  Well, take care of yourself, nephy,' said the farmer,
waving his hand impressively.  'Take care!  In these warlike times your
spirit may carry ye into the arms of the enemy; and you are the last of
the family.  You should think of this, and not let your bravery carry ye
away.'

'Don't be disturbed, uncle; I'll control myself,' said Festus, betrayed
into self-complacency against his will.  'At least I'll do what I can,
but nature will out sometimes.  Well, I'm off.'  He began humming
'Brighton Camp,' and, promising to come again soon, retired with
assurance, each yard of his retreat adding private joyousness to his
uncle's form.

When the bulky young man had disappeared through the porter's lodge,
Uncle Benjy showed preternatural activity for one in his invalid state,
jumping up quickly without his stick, at the same time opening and
shutting his mouth quite silently like a thirsty frog, which was his way
of expressing mirth.  He ran upstairs as quick as an old squirrel, and
went to a dormer window which commanded a view of the grounds beyond the
gate, and the footpath that stretched across them to the village.

'Yes, yes!' he said in a suppressed scream, dancing up and down, 'he's
after her: she've hit en!'  For there appeared upon the path the figure
of Anne Garland, and, hastening on at some little distance behind her,
the swaggering shape of Festus.  She became conscious of his approach,
and moved more quickly.  He moved more quickly still, and overtook her.
She turned as if in answer to a call from him, and he walked on beside
her, till they were out of sight.  The old man then played upon an
imaginary fiddle for about half a minute; and, suddenly discontinuing
these signs of pleasure, went downstairs again.




VII.  HOW THEY TALKED IN THE PASTURES


'You often come this way?' said Festus to Anne rather before he had
overtaken her.

'I come for the newspaper and other things,' she said, perplexed by a
doubt whether he were there by accident or design.

They moved on in silence, Festus beating the grass with his switch in a
masterful way.  'Did you speak, Mis'ess Anne?' he asked.

'No,' said Anne.

'Ten thousand pardons.  I thought you did.  Now don't let me drive you
out of the path.  I can walk among the high grass and giltycups--they
will not yellow my stockings as they will yours.  Well, what do you think
of a lot of soldiers coming to the neighbourhood in this way?'

'I think it is very lively, and a great change,' she said with demure
seriousness.

'Perhaps you don't like us warriors as a body?'

Anne smiled without replying.

'Why, you are laughing!' said the yeoman, looking searchingly at her and
blushing like a little fire.  'What do you see to laugh at?'

'Did I laugh?' said Anne, a little scared at his sudden mortification.

'Why, yes; you know you did, you young sneerer,' he said like a cross
baby.  'You are laughing at me--that's who you are laughing at!  I should
like to know what you would do without such as me if the French were to
drop in upon ye any night?'

'Would you help to beat them off?' said she.

'Can you ask such a question?  What are we for?  But you don't think
anything of soldiers.'

O yes, she liked soldiers, she said, especially when they came home from
the wars, covered with glory; though when she thought what doings had won
them that glory she did not like them quite so well.  The gallant and
appeased yeoman said he supposed her to mean chopping off heads, blowing
out brains, and that kind of business, and thought it quite right that a
tender-hearted thing like her should feel a little horrified.  But as for
him, he should not mind such another Blenheim this summer as the army had
fought a hundred years ago, or whenever it was--dash his wig if he should
mind it at all.  'Hullo! now you are laughing again; yes, I saw you!'  And
the choleric Festus turned his blue eyes and flushed face upon her as
though he would read her through.  Anne strove valiantly to look calmly
back; but her eyes could not face his, and they fell.  'You did laugh!'
he repeated.

'It was only a tiny little one,' she murmured.

'Ah--I knew you did!' thundered he.  'Now what was it you laughed at?'

'I only--thought that you were--merely in the yeomanry,' she murmured
slily.

'And what of that?'

'And the yeomanry only seem farmers that have lost their senses.'

'Yes, yes!  I knew you meant some jeering o' that sort, Mistress Anne.
But I suppose 'tis the way of women, and I take no notice.  I'll confess
that some of us are no great things: but I know how to draw a sword,
don't I?--say I don't just to provoke me.'

'I am sure you do,' said Anne sweetly.  'If a Frenchman came up to you,
Mr. Derriman, would you take him on the hip, or on the thigh?'

'Now you are flattering!' he said, his white teeth uncovering themselves
in a smile.  'Well, of course I should draw my sword--no, I mean my sword
would be already drawn; and I should put spurs to my horse--charger, as
we call it in the army; and I should ride up to him and say--no, I
shouldn't say anything, of course--men never waste words in battle; I
should take him with the third guard, low point, and then coming back to
the second guard--'

'But that would be taking care of yourself--not hitting at him.'

'How can you say that!' he cried, the beams upon his face turning to a
lurid cloud in a moment.  'How can you understand military terms who've
never had a sword in your life?  I shouldn't take him with the sword at
all.'  He went on with eager sulkiness, 'I should take him with my
pistol.  I should pull off my right glove, and throw back my goat-skin;
then I should open my priming-pan, prime, and cast about--no, I
shouldn't, that's wrong; I should draw my right pistol, and as soon as
loaded, seize the weapon by the butt; then at the word "Cock your pistol"
I should--'

'Then there is plenty of time to give such words of command in the heat
of battle?' said Anne innocently.

'No!' said the yeoman, his face again in flames.  'Why, of course I am
only telling you what _would_ be the word of command _if_--there now! you
la--'

'I didn't; 'pon my word I didn't!'

'No, I don't think you did; it was my mistake.  Well, then I come smartly
to Present, looking well along the barrel--along the barrel--and fire.  Of
course I know well enough how to engage the enemy!  But I expect my old
uncle has been setting you against me.'

'He has not said a word,' replied Anne; 'though I have heard of you, of
course.'

'What have you heard?  Nothing good, I dare say.  It makes my blood boil
within me!'

'O, nothing bad,' said she assuringly.  'Just a word now and then.'

'Now, come, tell me, there's a dear.  I don't like to be crossed.  It
shall be a sacred secret between us.  Come, now!'

Anne was embarrassed, and her smile was uncomfortable.  'I shall not tell
you,' she said at last.

'There it is again!' said the yeoman, throwing himself into a despair.  'I
shall soon begin to believe that my name is not worth sixpence about
here!'

'I tell you 'twas nothing against you,' repeated Anne.

'That means it might have been for me,' said Festus, in a mollified tone.
'Well, though, to speak the truth, I have a good many faults, some people
will praise me, I suppose.  'Twas praise?'

'It was.'

'Well, I am not much at farming, and I am not much in company, and I am
not much at figures, but perhaps I must own, since it is forced upon me,
that I can show as fine a soldier's figure on the Esplanade as any man of
the cavalry.'

'You can,' said Anne; for though her flesh crept in mortal terror of his
irascibility, she could not resist the fearful pleasure of leading him
on.  'You look very well; and some say, you are--'

'What?  Well, they say I am good-looking.  I don't make myself, so 'tis
no praise.  Hullo! what are you looking across there for?'

'Only at a bird that I saw fly out of that tree,' said Anne.

'What?  Only at a bird, do you say?' he heaved out in a voice of thunder.
'I see your shoulders a-shaking, young madam.  Now don't you provoke me
with that laughing!  By God, it won't do!'

'Then go away!' said Anne, changed from mirthfulness to irritation by his
rough manner.  'I don't want your company, you great bragging thing!  You
are so touchy there's no bearing with you.  Go away!'

'No, no, Anne; I am wrong to speak to you so.  I give you free liberty to
say what you will to me.  Say I am not a bit of a soldier, or anything!
Abuse me--do now, there's a dear.  I'm scum, I'm froth, I'm dirt before
the besom--yes!'

'I have nothing to say, sir.  Stay where you are till I am out of this
field.'

'Well, there's such command in your looks that I ha'n't heart to go
against you.  You will come this way to-morrow at the same time?  Now,
don't be uncivil.'

She was too generous not to forgive him, but the short little lip
murmured that she did not think it at all likely she should come that way
to-morrow.

'Then Sunday?' he said.

'Not Sunday,' said she.

'Then Monday--Tuesday--Wednesday, surely?' he went on experimentally.

She answered that she should probably not see him on either day, and,
cutting short the argument, went through the wicket into the other field.
Festus paused, looking after her; and when he could no longer see her
slight figure he swept away his deliberations, began singing, and turned
off in the other direction.




VIII.  ANNE MAKES A CIRCUIT OF THE CAMP


When Anne was crossing the last field, she saw approaching her an old
woman with wrinkled cheeks, who surveyed the earth and its inhabitants
through the medium of brass-rimmed spectacles.  Shaking her head at Anne
till the glasses shone like two moons, she said, 'Ah, ah; I zeed ye!  If
I had only kept on my short ones that I use for reading the Collect and
Gospel I shouldn't have zeed ye; but thinks I, I be going out o' doors,
and I'll put on my long ones, little thinking what they'd show me.  Ay, I
can tell folk at any distance with these--'tis a beautiful pair for out
o' doors; though my short ones be best for close work, such as darning,
and catching fleas, that's true.'

'What have you seen, Granny Seamore?' said Anne.

'Fie, fie, Miss Nancy! you know,' said Granny Seamore, shaking her head
still.  'But he's a fine young feller, and will have all his uncle's
money when 'a's gone.'  Anne said nothing to this, and looking ahead with
a smile passed Granny Seamore by.

Festus, the subject of the remark, was at this time about
three-and-twenty, a fine fellow as to feet and inches, and of a
remarkably warm tone in skin and hair.  Symptoms of beard and whiskers
had appeared upon him at a very early age, owing to his persistent use of
the razor before there was any necessity for its operation.  The brave
boy had scraped unseen in the out-house, in the cellar, in the wood-shed,
in the stable, in the unused parlour, in the cow-stalls, in the barn, and
wherever he could set up his triangular bit of looking-glass without
observation, or extemporize a mirror by sticking up his hat on the
outside of a window-pane.  The result now was that, did he neglect to use
the instrument he once had trifled with, a fine rust broke out upon his
countenance on the first day, a golden lichen on the second, and a fiery
stubble on the third to a degree which admitted of no further
postponement.

His disposition divided naturally into two, the boastful and the
cantankerous.  When Festus put on the big pot, as it is classically
called, he was quite blinded ipso facto to the diverting effect of that
mood and manner upon others; but when disposed to be envious or
quarrelsome he was rather shrewd than otherwise, and could do some pretty
strokes of satire.  He was both liked and abused by the girls who knew
him, and though they were pleased by his attentions, they never failed to
ridicule him behind his back.  In his cups (he knew those vessels, though
only twenty-three) he first became noisy, then excessively friendly, and
then invariably nagging.  During childhood he had made himself renowned
for his pleasant habit of pouncing down upon boys smaller and poorer than
himself, and knocking their birds' nests out of their hands, or
overturning their little carts of apples, or pouring water down their
backs; but his conduct became singularly the reverse of aggressive the
moment the little boys' mothers ran out to him, brandishing brooms,
frying-pans, skimmers, and whatever else they could lay hands on by way
of weapons.  He then fled and hid behind bushes, under faggots, or in
pits till they had gone away; and on one such occasion was known to creep
into a badger's hole quite out of sight, maintaining that post with great
firmness and resolution for two or three hours.  He had brought more
vulgar exclamations upon the tongues of respectable parents in his native
parish than any other boy of his time.  When other youngsters snowballed
him he ran into a place of shelter, where he kneaded snowballs of his
own, with a stone inside, and used these formidable missiles in returning
their pleasantry.  Sometimes he got fearfully beaten by boys his own age,
when he would roar most lustily, but fight on in the midst of his tears,
blood, and cries.

He was early in love, and had at the time of the story suffered from the
ravages of that passion thirteen distinct times.  He could not love
lightly and gaily; his love was earnest, cross-tempered, and even savage.
It was a positive agony to him to be ridiculed by the object of his
affections, and such conduct drove him into a frenzy if persisted in.  He
was a torment to those who behaved humbly towards him, cynical with those
who denied his superiority, and a very nice fellow towards those who had
the courage to ill-use him.

This stalwart gentleman and Anne Garland did not cross each other's paths
again for a week.  Then her mother began as before about the newspaper,
and, though Anne did not much like the errand, she agreed to go for it on
Mrs. Garland pressing her with unusual anxiety.  Why her mother was so
persistent on so small a matter quite puzzled the girl; but she put on
her hat and started.

As she had expected, Festus appeared at a stile over which she sometimes
went for shortness' sake, and showed by his manner that he awaited her.
When she saw this she kept straight on, as if she would not enter the
park at all.

'Surely this is your way?' said Festus.

'I was thinking of going round by the road,' she said.

'Why is that?'

She paused, as if she were not inclined to say.  'I go that way when the
grass is wet,' she returned at last.

'It is not wet now,' he persisted; 'the sun has been shining on it these
nine hours.'  The fact was that the way by the path was less open than by
the road, and Festus wished to walk with her uninterrupted.  'But, of
course, it is nothing to me what you do.'  He flung himself from the
stile and walked away towards the house.

Anne, supposing him really indifferent, took the same way, upon which he
turned his head and waited for her with a proud smile.

'I cannot go with you,' she said decisively.

'Nonsense, you foolish girl!  I must walk along with you down to the
corner.'

'No, please, Mr. Derriman; we might be seen.'

'Now, now--that's shyness!' he said jocosely.

'No; you know I cannot let you.'

'But I must.'

'But I do not allow it.'

'Allow it or not, I will.'

'Then you are unkind, and I must submit,' she said, her eyes brimming
with tears.

'Ho, ho; what a shame of me!  My wig, I won't do any such thing for the
world,' said the repentant yeoman.  'Haw, haw; why, I thought your "go
away" meant "come on," as it does with so many of the women I meet,
especially in these clothes.  Who was to know you were so confoundedly
serious?'

As he did not go Anne stood still and said nothing.

'I see you have a deal more caution and a deal less good-nature than I
ever thought you had,' he continued emphatically.

'No, sir; it is not any planned manner of mine at all,' she said
earnestly.  'But you will see, I am sure, that I could not go down to the
hall with you without putting myself in a wrong light.'

'Yes; that's it, that's it.  I am only a fellow in the yeomanry cavalry--a
plain soldier, I may say; and we know what women think of such: that they
are a bad lot--men you mustn't speak to for fear of losing your
character--chaps you avoid in the roads--chaps that come into a house
like oxen, daub the stairs wi' their boots, stain the furniture wi' their
drink, talk rubbish to the servants, abuse all that's holy and righteous,
and are only saved from being carried off by Old Nick because they are
wanted for Boney.'

'Indeed, I didn't know you were thought so bad of as that,' said she
simply.

'What! don't my uncle complain to you of me?  You are a favourite of that
handsome, nice old gaffer's, I know.'

'Never.'

'Well, what do we think of our nice trumpet-major, hey?'

Anne closed her mouth up tight, built it up, in fact, to show that no
answer was coming to that question.

'O now, come, seriously, Loveday is a good fellow, and so is his father.'

'I don't know.'

'What a close little rogue you are!  There is no getting anything out of
you.  I believe you would say "I don't know," to every mortal question,
so very discreet as you are.  Upon my heart, there are some women who
would say "I don't know," to "Will ye marry me?"'

The brightness upon Anne's cheek and in her eyes during this remark
showed that there was a fair quantity of life and warmth beneath the
discretion he complained of.  Having spoken thus, he drew aside that she
might pass, and bowed very low.  Anne formally inclined herself and went
on.

She had been at vexation point all the time that he was present, from a
haunting sense that he would not have spoken to her so freely had she
been a young woman with thriving male relatives to keep forward admirers
in check.  But she had been struck, now as at their previous meeting,
with the power she possessed of working him up either to irritation or to
complacency at will; and this consciousness of being able to play upon
him as upon an instrument disposed her to a humorous considerateness, and
made her tolerate even while she rebuffed him.

When Anne got to the hall the farmer, as usual, insisted upon her reading
what he had been unable to get through, and held the paper tightly in his
skinny hand till she had agreed.  He sent her to a hard chair that she
could not possibly injure to the extent of a pennyworth by sitting in it
a twelvemonth, and watched her from the outer angle of his near eye while
she bent over the paper.  His look might have been suggested by the sight
that he had witnessed from his window on the last occasion of her visit,
for it partook of the nature of concern.  The old man was afraid of his
nephew, physically and morally, and he began to regard Anne as a fellow-
sufferer under the same despot.  After this sly and curious gaze at her
he withdrew his eye again, so that when she casually lifted her own there
was nothing visible but his keen bluish profile as before.

When the reading was about half-way through, the door behind them opened,
and footsteps crossed the threshold.  The farmer diminished perceptibly
in his chair, and looked fearful, but pretended to be absorbed in the
reading, and quite unconscious of an intruder.  Anne felt the presence of
the swashing Festus, and stopped her reading.

'Please go on, Miss Anne,' he said, 'I am not going to speak a word.'  He
withdrew to the mantelpiece and leaned against it at his ease.

'Go on, do ye, maidy Anne,' said Uncle Benjy, keeping down his tremblings
by a great effort to half their natural extent.

Anne's voice became much lower now that there were two listeners, and her
modesty shrank somewhat from exposing to Festus the appreciative
modulations which an intelligent interest in the subject drew from her
when unembarrassed.  But she still went on that he might not suppose her
to be disconcerted, though the ensuing ten minutes was one of
disquietude.  She knew that the bothering yeoman's eyes were travelling
over her from his position behind, creeping over her shoulders, up to her
head, and across her arms and hands.  Old Benjy on his part knew the same
thing, and after sundry endeavours to peep at his nephew from the corner
of his eye, he could bear the situation no longer.

'Do ye want to say anything to me, nephew?' he quaked.

'No, uncle, thank ye,' said Festus heartily.  'I like to stay here,
thinking of you and looking at your back hair.'

The nervous old man writhed under this vivisection, and Anne read on;
till, to the relief of both, the gallant fellow grew tired of his
amusement and went out of the room.  Anne soon finished her paragraph and
rose to go, determined never to come again as long as Festus haunted the
precincts.  Her face grew warmer as she thought that he would be sure to
waylay her on her journey home to-day.

On this account, when she left the house, instead of going in the
customary direction, she bolted round to the further side, through the
bushes, along under the kitchen-garden wall, and through a door leading
into a rutted cart-track, which had been a pleasant gravelled drive when
the fine old hall was in its prosperity.  Once out of sight of the
windows she ran with all her might till she had quitted the park by a
route directly opposite to that towards her home.  Why she was so
seriously bent upon doing this she could hardly tell but the instinct to
run was irresistible.

It was necessary now to clamber over the down to the left of the camp,
and make a complete circuit round the latter--infantry, cavalry, sutlers,
and all--descending to her house on the other side.  This tremendous walk
she performed at a rapid rate, never once turning her head, and avoiding
every beaten track to keep clear of the knots of soldiers taking a walk.
When she at last got down to the levels again she paused to fetch breath,
and murmured, 'Why did I take so much trouble?  He would not, after all,
have hurt me.'

As she neared the mill an erect figure with a blue body and white thighs
descended before her from the down towards the village, and went past the
mill to a stile beyond, over which she usually returned to her house.
Here he lingered.  On coming nearer Anne discovered this person to be
Trumpet-major Loveday; and not wishing to meet anybody just now Anne
passed quickly on, and entered the house by the garden door.

'My dear Anne, what a time you have been gone!' said her mother.

'Yes, I have been round by another road.'

'Why did you do that?'

Anne looked thoughtful and reticent, for her reason was almost too silly
a one to confess.  'Well, I wanted to avoid a person who is very busy
trying to meet me--that's all,' she said.

Her mother glanced out of the window.  'And there he is, I suppose,' she
said, as John Loveday, tired of looking for Anne at the stile, passed the
house on his way to his father's door.  He could not help casting his
eyes towards their window, and, seeing them, he smiled.

Anne's reluctance to mention Festus was such that she did not correct her
mother's error, and the dame went on: 'Well, you are quite right, my
dear.  Be friendly with him, but no more at present.  I have heard of
your other affair, and think it is a very wise choice.  I am sure you
have my best wishes in it, and I only hope it will come to a point.'

'What's that?' said the astonished Anne.

'You and Mr. Festus Derriman, dear.  You need not mind me; I have known
it for several days.  Old Granny Seamore called here Saturday, and told
me she saw him coming home with you across Park Close last week, when you
went for the newspaper; so I thought I'd send you again to-day, and give
you another chance.'

'Then you didn't want the paper--and it was only for that!'

'He's a very fine young fellow; he looks a thorough woman's protector.'

'He may look it,' said Anne.

'He has given up the freehold farm his father held at Pitstock, and lives
in independence on what the land brings him.  And when Farmer Derriman
dies, he'll have all the old man's, for certain.  He'll be worth ten
thousand pounds, if a penny, in money, besides sixteen horses, cart and
hack, a fifty-cow dairy, and at least five hundred sheep.'

Anne turned away, and instead of informing her mother that she had been
running like a doe to escape the interesting heir-presumptive alluded to,
merely said 'Mother, I don't like this at all.'




IX.  ANNE IS KINDLY FETCHED BY THE TRUMPET-MAJOR


After this, Anne would on no account walk in the direction of the hall
for fear of another encounter with young Derriman.  In the course of a
few days it was told in the village that the old farmer had actually gone
for a week's holiday and change of air to the Royal watering-place near
at hand, at the instance of his nephew Festus.  This was a wonderful
thing to hear of Uncle Benjy, who had not slept outside the walls of
Oxwell Hall for many a long year before; and Anne well imagined what
extraordinary pressure must have been put upon him to induce him to take
such a step.  She pictured his unhappiness at the bustling
watering-place, and hoped no harm would come to him.

She spent much of her time indoors or in the garden, hearing little of
the camp movements beyond the periodical Ta-ta-ta-taa of the trumpeters
sounding their various ingenious calls for watch-setting, stables, feed,
boot-and-saddle, parade, and so on, which made her think how clever her
friend the trumpet-major must be to teach his pupils to play those pretty
little tunes so well.

On the third morning after Uncle Benjy's departure, she was disturbed as
usual while dressing by the tramp of the troops down the slope to the
mill-pond, and during the now familiar stamping and splashing which
followed there sounded upon the glass of the window a slight smack, which
might have been caused by a whip or switch.  She listened more
particularly, and it was repeated.

As John Loveday was the only dragoon likely to be aware that she slept in
that particular apartment, she imagined the signal to come from him,
though wondering that he should venture upon such a freak of familiarity.

Wrapping herself up in a red cloak, she went to the window, gently drew
up a corner of the curtain, and peeped out, as she had done many times
before.  Nobody who was not quite close beneath her window could see her
face; but as it happened, somebody was close.  The soldiers whose
floundering Anne had heard were not Loveday's dragoons, but a troop of
the York Hussars, quite oblivious of her existence.  They had passed on
out of the water, and instead of them there sat Festus Derriman alone on
his horse, and in plain clothes, the water reaching up to the animal's
belly, and Festus' heels elevated over the saddle to keep them out of the
stream, which threatened to wash rider and horse into the deep mill-head
just below.  It was plainly he who had struck her lattice, for in a
moment he looked up, and their eyes met.  Festus laughed loudly, and
slapped her window again; and just at that moment the dragoons began
prancing down the slope in review order.  She could not but wait a minute
or two to see them pass.  While doing so she was suddenly led to draw
back, drop the corner of the curtain, and blush privately in her room.
She had not only been seen by Festus Derriman, but by John Loveday, who,
riding along with his trumpet slung up behind him, had looked over his
shoulder at the phenomenon of Derriman beneath Anne's bedroom window and
seemed quite astounded at the sight.

She was quite vexed at the conjunction of incidents, and went no more to
the window till the dragoons had ridden far away and she had heard
Festus's horse laboriously wade on to dry land.  When she looked out
there was nobody left but Miller Loveday, who usually stood in the garden
at this time of the morning to say a word or two to the soldiers, of whom
he already knew so many, and was in a fair way of knowing many more, from
the liberality with which he handed round mugs of cheering liquor
whenever parties of them walked that way.

In the afternoon of this day Anne walked to a christening party at a
neighbour's in the adjoining parish of Springham, intending to walk home
again before it got dark; but there was a slight fall of rain towards
evening, and she was pressed by the people of the house to stay over the
night.  With some hesitation she accepted their hospitality; but at ten
o'clock, when they were thinking of going to bed, they were startled by a
smart rap at the door, and on it being unbolted a man's form was seen in
the shadows outside.

'Is Miss Garland here?' the visitor inquired, at which Anne suspended her
breath.

'Yes,' said Anne's entertainer, warily.

'Her mother is very anxious to know what's become of her.  She promised
to come home.'  To her great relief Anne recognized the voice as John
Loveday's, and not Festus Derriman's.

'Yes, I did, Mr. Loveday,' said she, coming forward; 'but it rained, and
I thought my mother would guess where I was.'

Loveday said with diffidence that it had not rained anything to speak of
at the camp, or at the mill, so that her mother was rather alarmed.

'And she asked you to come for me?' Anne inquired.

This was a question which the trumpet-major had been dreading during the
whole of his walk thither.  'Well, she didn't exactly ask me,' he said
rather lamely, but still in a manner to show that Mrs. Garland had
indirectly signified such to be her wish.  In reality Mrs. Garland had
not addressed him at all on the subject.  She had merely spoken to his
father on finding that her daughter did not return, and received an
assurance from the miller that the precious girl was doubtless quite
safe.  John heard of this inquiry, and, having a pass that evening,
resolved to relieve Mrs. Garland's mind on his own responsibility.  Ever
since his morning view of Festus under her window he had been on thorns
of anxiety, and his thrilling hope now was that she would walk back with
him.

He shifted his foot nervously as he made the bold request.  Anne felt at
once that she would go.  There was nobody in the world whose care she
would more readily be under than the trumpet-major's in a case like the
present.  He was their nearest neighbour's son, and she had liked his
single-minded ingenuousness from the first moment of his return home.

When they had started on their walk, Anne said in a practical way, to
show that there was no sentiment whatever in her acceptance of his
company, 'Mother was much alarmed about me, perhaps?'

'Yes; she was uneasy,' he said; and then was compelled by conscience to
make a clean breast of it.  'I know she was uneasy, because my father
said so.  But I did not see her myself.  The truth is, she doesn't know I
am come.'

Anne now saw how the matter stood; but she was not offended with him.
What woman could have been?  They walked on in silence, the respectful
trumpet-major keeping a yard off on her right as precisely as if that
measure had been fixed between them.  She had a great feeling of civility
toward him this evening, and spoke again.  'I often hear your trumpeters
blowing the calls.  They do it beautifully, I think.'

'Pretty fair; they might do better,' said he, as one too well-mannered to
make much of an accomplishment in which he had a hand.

'And you taught them how to do it?'

'Yes, I taught them.'

'It must require wonderful practice to get them into the way of beginning
and finishing so exactly at one time.  It is like one throat doing it
all.  How came you to be a trumpeter, Mr. Loveday?'

'Well, I took to it naturally when I was a little boy,' said he, betrayed
into quite a gushing state by her delightful interest.  'I used to make
trumpets of paper, eldersticks, eltrot stems, and even stinging-nettle
stalks, you know.  Then father set me to keep the birds off that little
barley-ground of his, and gave me an old horn to frighten 'em with.  I
learnt to blow that horn so that you could hear me for miles and miles.
Then he bought me a clarionet, and when I could play that I borrowed a
serpent, and I learned to play a tolerable bass.  So when I 'listed I was
picked out for training as trumpeter at once.'

'Of course you were.'

'Sometimes, however, I wish I had never joined the army.  My father gave
me a very fair education, and your father showed me how to draw horses--on
a slate, I mean.  Yes, I ought to have done more than I have.'

'What, did you know my father?' she asked with new interest.

'O yes, for years.  You were a little mite of a thing then; and you used
to cry when we big boys looked at you, and made pig's eyes at you, which
we did sometimes.  Many and many a time have I stood by your poor father
while he worked.  Ah, you don't remember much about him; but I do!'

Anne remained thoughtful; and the moon broke from behind the clouds,
lighting up the wet foliage with a twinkling brightness, and lending to
each of the trumpet-major's buttons and spurs a little ray of its own.
They had come to Oxwell park gate, and he said, 'Do you like going
across, or round by the lane?'

'We may as well go by the nearest road,' said Anne.

They entered the park, following the half-obliterated drive till they
came almost opposite the hall, when they entered a footpath leading on to
the village.  While hereabout they heard a shout, or chorus of
exclamation, apparently from within the walls of the dark buildings near
them.

'What was that?' said Anne.

'I don't know,' said her companion.  'I'll go and see.'

He went round the intervening swamp of watercress and brooklime which had
once been the fish-pond, crossed by a culvert the trickling brook that
still flowed that way, and advanced to the wall of the house.  Boisterous
noises were resounding from within, and he was tempted to go round the
corner, where the low windows were, and look through a chink into the
room whence the sounds proceeded.

It was the room in which the owner dined--traditionally called the great
parlour--and within it sat about a dozen young men of the yeomanry
cavalry, one of them being Festus.  They were drinking, laughing,
singing, thumping their fists on the tables, and enjoying themselves in
the very perfection of confusion.  The candles, blown by the breeze from
the partly opened window, had guttered into coffin handles and shrouds,
and, choked by their long black wicks for want of snuffing, gave out a
smoky yellow light.  One of the young men might possibly have been in a
maudlin state, for he had his arm round the neck of his next neighbour.
Another was making an incoherent speech to which nobody was listening.
Some of their faces were red, some were sallow; some were sleepy, some
wide awake.  The only one among them who appeared in his usual frame of
mind was Festus, whose huge, burly form rose at the head of the table,
enjoying with a serene and triumphant aspect the difference between his
own condition and that of his neighbours.  While the trumpet-major
looked, a young woman, niece of Anthony Cripplestraw, and one of Uncle
Benjy's servants, was called in by one of the crew, and much against her
will a fiddle was placed in her hands, from which they made her produce
discordant screeches.

The absence of Uncle Benjy had, in fact, been contrived by young Derriman
that he might make use of the hall on his own account.  Cripplestraw had
been left in charge, and Festus had found no difficulty in forcing from
that dependent the keys of whatever he required.  John Loveday turned his
eyes from the scene to the neighbouring moonlit path, where Anne still
stood waiting.  Then he looked into the room, then at Anne again.  It was
an opportunity of advancing his own cause with her by exposing Festus,
for whom he began to entertain hostile feelings of no mean force.

'No; I can't do it,' he said.  ''Tis underhand.  Let things take their
chance.'

He moved away, and then perceived that Anne, tired of waiting, had
crossed the stream, and almost come up with him.

'What is the noise about?' she said.

'There's company in the house,' said Loveday.

'Company?  Farmer Derriman is not at home,' said Anne, and went on to the
window whence the rays of light leaked out, the trumpet-major standing
where he was.  He saw her face enter the beam of candlelight, stay there
for a moment, and quickly withdraw.  She came back to him at once.  'Let
us go on,' she said.

Loveday imagined from her tone that she must have an interest in
Derriman, and said sadly, 'You blame me for going across to the window,
and leading you to follow me.'

'Not a bit,' said Anne, seeing his mistake as to the state of her heart,
and being rather angry with him for it.  'I think it was most natural,
considering the noise.'

Silence again.  'Derriman is sober as a judge,' said Loveday, as they
turned to go.  'It was only the others who were noisy.'

'Whether he is sober or not is nothing whatever to me,' said Anne.

'Of course not.  I know it,' said the trumpet-major, in accents
expressing unhappiness at her somewhat curt tone, and some doubt of her
assurance.

Before they had emerged from the shadow of the hall some persons were
seen moving along the road.  Loveday was for going on just the same; but
Anne, from a shy feeling that it was as well not to be seen walking alone
with a man who was not her lover, said--

'Mr. Loveday, let us wait here a minute till they have passed.'

On nearer view the group was seen to comprise a man on a piebald horse,
and another man walking beside him.  When they were opposite the house
they halted, and the rider dismounted, whereupon a dispute between him
and the other man ensued, apparently on a question of money.

''Tis old Mr. Derriman come home!' said Anne.  'He has hired that horse
from the bathing-machine to bring him.  Only fancy!'

Before they had gone many steps further the farmer and his companion had
ended their dispute, and the latter mounted the horse and cantered away,
Uncle Benjy coming on to the house at a nimble pace.  As soon as he
observed Loveday and Anne, he fell into a feebler gait; when they came up
he recognized Anne.

'And you have torn yourself away from King George's Esplanade so soon,
Farmer Derriman?' said she.

'Yes, faith!  I couldn't bide at such a ruination place,' said the
farmer.  'Your hand in your pocket every minute of the day.  'Tis a
shilling for this, half-a-crown for that; if you only eat one egg, or
even a poor windfall of an apple, you've got to pay; and a bunch o'
radishes is a halfpenny, and a quart o' cider a good tuppence
three-farthings at lowest reckoning.  Nothing without paying!  I couldn't
even get a ride homeward upon that screw without the man wanting a
shilling for it, when my weight didn't take a penny out of the beast.
I've saved a penn'orth or so of shoeleather to be sure; but the saddle
was so rough wi' patches that 'a took twopence out of the seat of my best
breeches.  King George hev' ruined the town for other folks.  More than
that, my nephew promised to come there to-morrow to see me, and if I had
stayed I must have treated en.  Hey--what's that?'

It was a shout from within the walls of the building, and Loveday said--

'Your nephew is here, and has company.'

'My nephew _here_?' gasped the old man.  'Good folks, will you come up to
the door with me?  I mean--hee--hee--just for company!  Dear me, I
thought my house was as quiet as a church?'

They went back to the window, and the farmer looked in, his mouth falling
apart to a greater width at the corners than in the middle, and his
fingers assuming a state of radiation.

''Tis my best silver tankards they've got, that I've never used!  O! 'tis
my strong beer!  'Tis eight candles guttering away, when I've used
nothing but twenties myself for the last half-year!'

'You didn't know he was here, then?' said Loveday.

'O no!' said the farmer, shaking his head half-way.  'Nothing's known to
poor I!  There's my best rummers jingling as careless as if 'twas tin
cups; and my table scratched, and my chairs wrenched out of joint.  See
how they tilt 'em on the two back legs--and that's ruin to a chair!  Ah!
when I be gone he won't find another old man to make such work with, and
provide goods for his breaking, and house-room and drink for his tear-
brass set!'

'Comrades and fellow-soldiers,' said Festus to the hot farmers and yeomen
he entertained within, 'as we have vowed to brave danger and death
together, so we'll share the couch of peace.  You shall sleep here to-
night, for it is getting late.  My scram blue-vinnied gallicrow of an
uncle takes care that there shan't be much comfort in the house, but you
can curl up on the furniture if beds run short.  As for my sleep, it
won't be much.  I'm melancholy!  A woman has, I may say, got my heart in
her pocket, and I have hers in mine.  She's not much--to other folk, I
mean--but she is to me.  The little thing came in my way, and conquered
me.  I fancy that simple girl!  I ought to have looked higher--I know it;
what of that?  'Tis a fate that may happen to the greatest men.'

'Whash her name?' said one of the warriors, whose head occasionally
drooped upon his epaulettes, and whose eyes fell together in the casual
manner characteristic of the tired soldier.  (It was really Farmer Stubb,
of Duddle Hole.)

'Her name?  Well, 'tis spelt, A, N--but, by gad, I won't give ye her name
here in company.  She don't live a hundred miles off, however, and she
wears the prettiest cap-ribbons you ever saw.  Well, well, 'tis weakness!
She has little, and I have much; but I do adore that girl, in spite of
myself!'

'Let's go on,' said Anne.

'Prithee stand by an old man till he's got into his house!' implored
Uncle Benjy.  'I only ask ye to bide within call.  Stand back under the
trees, and I'll do my poor best to give no trouble.'

'I'll stand by you for half-an-hour, sir,' said Loveday.  'After that I
must bolt to camp.'

'Very well; bide back there under the trees,' said Uncle Benjy.  'I don't
want to spite 'em?'

'You'll wait a few minutes, just to see if he gets in?' said the trumpet-
major to Anne as they retired from the old man.

'I want to get home,' said Anne anxiously.

When they had quite receded behind the tree-trunks and he stood alone,
Uncle Benjy, to their surprise, set up a loud shout, altogether beyond
the imagined power of his lungs.

'Man a-lost! man a-lost!' he cried, repeating the exclamation several
times; and then ran and hid himself behind a corner of the building.  Soon
the door opened, and Festus and his guests came tumbling out upon the
green.

''Tis our duty to help folks in distress,' said Festus.  'Man a-lost,
where are you?'

''Twas across there,' said one of his friends.

'No! 'twas here,' said another.

Meanwhile Uncle Benjy, coming from his hiding-place, had scampered with
the quickness of a boy up to the door they had quitted, and slipped in.
In a moment the door flew together, and Anne heard him bolting and
barring it inside.  The revellers, however, did not notice this, and came
on towards the spot where the trumpet-major and Anne were standing.

'Here's succour at hand, friends,' said Festus.  'We are all king's men;
do not fear us.'

'Thank you,' said Loveday; 'so are we.'  He explained in two words that
they were not the distressed traveller who had cried out, and turned to
go on.

''Tis she! my life, 'tis she said Festus, now first recognizing Anne.
'Fair Anne, I will not part from you till I see you safe at your own dear
door.'

'She's in my hands,' said Loveday civilly, though not without firmness,
'so it is not required, thank you.'

'Man, had I but my sword--'

'Come,' said Loveday, 'I don't want to quarrel.  Let's put it to her.
Whichever of us she likes best, he shall take her home.  Miss Anne,
which?'

Anne would much rather have gone home alone, but seeing the remainder of
the yeomanry party staggering up she thought it best to secure a
protector of some kind.  How to choose one without offending the other
and provoking a quarrel was the difficulty.

'You must both walk home with me,' she adroitly said, 'one on one side,
and one on the other.  And if you are not quite civil to one another all
the time, I'll never speak to either of you again.'

They agreed to the terms, and the other yeomen arriving at this time said
they would go also as rearguard.

'Very well,' said Anne.  'Now go and get your hats, and don't be long.'

'Ah, yes; our hats,' said the yeomanry, whose heads were so hot that they
had forgotten their nakedness till then.

'You'll wait till we've got 'em--we won't be a moment,' said Festus
eagerly.

Anne and Loveday said yes, and Festus ran back to the house, followed by
all his band.

'Now let's run and leave 'em,' said Anne, when they were out of hearing.

'But we've promised to wait!' said the trumpet-major in surprise.

'Promised to wait!' said Anne indignantly.  'As if one ought to keep such
a promise to drunken men as that.  You can do as you like, I shall go.'

'It is hardly fair to leave the chaps,' said Loveday reluctantly, and
looking back at them.  But she heard no more, and flitting off under the
trees, was soon lost to his sight.

Festus and the rest had by this time reached Uncle Benjy's door, which
they were discomfited and astonished to find closed.  They began to
knock, and then to kick at the venerable timber, till the old man's head,
crowned with a tasselled nightcap, appeared at an upper window, followed
by his shoulders, with apparently nothing on but his shirt, though it was
in truth a sheet thrown over his coat.

'Fie, fie upon ye all for making such a hullaballoo at a weak old man's
door,' he said, yawning.  'What's in ye to rouse honest folks at this
time o' night?'

'Hang me--why--it's Uncle Benjy!  Haw--haw--haw?' said Festus.  'Nunc,
why how the devil's this?  'Tis I--Festus--wanting to come in.'

'O no, no, my clever man, whoever you be!' said Uncle Benjy in a tone of
incredulous integrity.  'My nephew, dear boy, is miles away at quarters,
and sound asleep by this time, as becomes a good soldier.  That story
won't do to-night, my man, not at all.'

'Upon my soul 'tis I,' said Festus.

'Not to-night, my man; not to-night!  Anthony, bring my blunderbuss,'
said the farmer, turning and addressing nobody inside the room.

'Let's break in the window-shutters,' said one of the others.

'My wig, and we will!' said Festus.  'What a trick of the old man!'

'Get some big stones,' said the yeomen, searching under the wall.

'No; forbear, forbear,' said Festus, beginning to be frightened at the
spirit he had raised.  'I forget; we should drive him into fits, for he's
subject to 'em, and then perhaps 'twould be manslaughter.  Comrades, we
must march!  No, we'll lie in the barn.  I'll see into this, take my word
for 't.  Our honour is at stake.  Now let's back to see my beauty home.'

'We can't, as we hav'n't got our hats,' said one of his
fellow-troopers--in domestic life Jacob Noakes, of Muckleford Farm.

'No more we can,' said Festus, in a melancholy tone.  'But I must go to
her and tell her the reason.  She pulls me in spite of all.'

'She's gone.  I saw her flee across park while we were knocking at the
door,' said another of the yeomanry.

'Gone!' said Festus, grinding his teeth and putting himself into a rigid
shape.  'Then 'tis my enemy--he has tempted her away with him!  But I am
a rich man, and he's poor, and rides the King's horse while I ride my
own.  Could I but find that fellow, that regular, that common man, I
would--'

'Yes?' said the trumpet-major, coming up behind him.

'I,'--said Festus, starting round,--'I would seize him by the hand and
say, "Guard her; if you are my friend, guard her from all harm!"'

'A good speech.  And I will, too,' said Loveday heartily.

'And now for shelter,' said Festus to his companions.

They then unceremoniously left Loveday, without wishing him good-night,
and proceeded towards the barn.  He crossed the park and ascended the
down to the camp, grieved that he had given Anne cause of complaint, and
fancying that she held him of slight account beside his wealthier rival.




X. THE MATCH-MAKING VIRTUES OF A DOUBLE GARDEN


Anne was so flurried by the military incidents attending her return home
that she was almost afraid to venture alone outside her mother's
premises.  Moreover, the numerous soldiers, regular and otherwise, that
haunted Overcombe and its neighbourhood, were getting better acquainted
with the villagers, and the result was that they were always standing at
garden gates, walking in the orchards, or sitting gossiping just within
cottage doors, with the bowls of their tobacco-pipes thrust outside for
politeness' sake, that they might not defile the air of the household.
Being gentlemen of a gallant and most affectionate nature, they naturally
turned their heads and smiled if a pretty girl passed by, which was
rather disconcerting to the latter if she were unused to society.  Every
belle in the village soon had a lover, and when the belles were all
allotted those who scarcely deserved that title had their turn, many of
the soldiers being not at all particular about half-an-inch of nose more
or less, a trifling deficiency of teeth, or a larger crop of freckles
than is customary in the Saxon race.  Thus, with one and another,
courtship began to be practised in Overcombe on rather a large scale, and
the dispossessed young men who had been born in the place were left to
take their walks alone, where, instead of studying the works of nature,
they meditated gross outrages on the brave men who had been so good as to
visit their village.

Anne watched these romantic proceedings from her window with much
interest, and when she saw how triumphantly other handsome girls of the
neighbourhood walked by on the gorgeous arms of Lieutenant Knockheelmann,
Cornet Flitzenhart, and Captain Klaspenkissen, of the thrilling York
Hussars, who swore the most picturesque foreign oaths, and had a
wonderful sort of estate or property called the Vaterland in their
country across the sea, she was filled with a sense of her own
loneliness.  It made her think of things which she tried to forget, and
to look into a little drawer at something soft and brown that lay in a
curl there, wrapped in paper.  At last she could bear it no longer, and
went downstairs.

'Where are you going?' said Mrs. Garland.

'To see the folks, because I am so gloomy!'

'Certainly not at present, Anne.'

'Why not, mother?' said Anne, blushing with an indefinite sense of being
very wicked.

'Because you must not.  I have been going to tell you several times not
to go into the street at this time of day.  Why not walk in the morning?
There's young Mr. Derriman would be glad to--'

'Don't mention him, mother, don't!'

'Well then, dear, walk in the garden.'

So poor Anne, who really had not the slightest wish to throw her heart
away upon a soldier, but merely wanted to displace old thoughts by new,
turned into the inner garden from day to day, and passed a good many
hours there, the pleasant birds singing to her, and the delightful
butterflies alighting on her hat, and the horrid ants running up her
stockings.

This garden was undivided from Loveday's, the two having originally been
the single garden of the whole house.  It was a quaint old place,
enclosed by a thorn hedge so shapely and dense from incessant clipping
that the mill-boy could walk along the top without sinking in--a feat
which he often performed as a means of filling out his day's work.  The
soil within was of that intense fat blackness which is only seen after a
century of constant cultivation.  The paths were grassed over, so that
people came and went upon them without being heard.  The grass harboured
slugs, and on this account the miller was going to replace it by gravel
as soon as he had time; but as he had said this for thirty years without
doing it, the grass and the slugs seemed likely to remain.

The miller's man attended to Mrs. Garland's piece of the garden as well
as to the larger portion, digging, planting, and weeding indifferently in
both, the miller observing with reason that it was not worth while for a
helpless widow lady to hire a man for her little plot when his man,
working alongside, could tend it without much addition to his labour.  The
two households were on this account even more closely united in the
garden than within the mill.  Out there they were almost one family, and
they talked from plot to plot with a zest and animation which Mrs.
Garland could never have anticipated when she first removed thither after
her husband's death.

The lower half of the garden, farthest from the road, was the most snug
and sheltered part of this snug and sheltered enclosure, and it was well
watered as the land of Lot.  Three small brooks, about a yard wide, ran
with a tinkling sound from side to side between the plots, crossing the
path under wood slabs laid as bridges, and passing out of the garden
through little tunnels in the hedge.  The brooks were so far overhung at
their brinks by grass and garden produce that, had it not been for their
perpetual babbling, few would have noticed that they were there.  This
was where Anne liked best to linger when her excursions became restricted
to her own premises; and in a spot of the garden not far removed the
trumpet-major loved to linger also.

Having by virtue of his office no stable duty to perform, he came down
from the camp to the mill almost every day; and Anne, finding that he
adroitly walked and sat in his father's portion of the garden whenever
she did so in the other half, could not help smiling and speaking to him.
So his epaulettes and blue jacket, and Anne's yellow gipsy hat, were
often seen in different parts of the garden at the same time; but he
never intruded into her part of the enclosure, nor did she into
Loveday's.  She always spoke to him when she saw him there, and he
replied in deep, firm accents across the gooseberry bushes, or through
the tall rows of flowering peas, as the case might be.  He thus gave her
accounts at fifteen paces of his experiences in camp, in quarters, in
Flanders, and elsewhere; of the difference between line and column, of
forced marches, billeting, and such-like, together with his hopes of
promotion.  Anne listened at first indifferently; but knowing no one else
so good-natured and experienced, she grew interested in him as in a
brother.  By degrees his gold lace, buckles, and spurs lost all their
strangeness and were as familiar to her as her own clothes.

At last Mrs. Garland noticed this growing friendship, and began to
despair of her motherly scheme of uniting Anne to the moneyed Festus.  Why
she could not take prompt steps to check interference with her plans
arose partly from her nature, which was the reverse of managing, and
partly from a new emotional circumstance with which she found it
difficult to reckon.  The near neighbourhood that had produced the
friendship of Anne for John Loveday was slowly effecting a warmer liking
between her mother and his father.

Thus the month of July passed.  The troop horses came with the regularity
of clockwork twice a day down to drink under her window, and, as the
weather grew hotter, kicked up their heels and shook their heads
furiously under the maddening sting of the dun-fly.  The green leaves in
the garden became of a darker dye, the gooseberries ripened, and the
three brooks were reduced to half their winter volume.

At length the earnest trumpet-major obtained Mrs. Garland's consent to
take her and her daughter to the camp, which they had not yet viewed from
any closer point than their own windows.  So one afternoon they went, the
miller being one of the party.  The villagers were by this time driving a
roaring trade with the soldiers, who purchased of them every description
of garden produce, milk, butter, and eggs at liberal prices.  The figures
of these rural sutlers could be seen creeping up the slopes, laden like
bees, to a spot in the rear of the camp, where there was a kind of market-
place on the greensward.

Mrs. Garland, Anne, and the miller were conducted from one place to
another, and on to the quarter where the soldiers' wives lived who had
not been able to get lodgings in the cottages near.  The most sheltered
place had been chosen for them, and snug huts had been built for their
use by their husbands, of clods, hurdles, a little thatch, or whatever
they could lay hands on.  The trumpet-major conducted his friends thence
to the large barn which had been appropriated as a hospital, and to the
cottage with its windows bricked up, that was used as the magazine; then
they inspected the lines of shining dark horses (each representing the
then high figure of two-and-twenty guineas purchase money), standing
patiently at the ropes which stretched from one picket-post to another, a
bank being thrown up in front of them as a protection at night.

They passed on to the tents of the German Legion, a well-grown and rather
dandy set of men, with a poetical look about their faces which rendered
them interesting to feminine eyes.  Hanoverians, Saxons, Prussians,
Swedes, Hungarians, and other foreigners were numbered in their ranks.
They were cleaning arms, which they leant carefully against a rail when
the work was complete.

On their return they passed the mess-house, a temporary wooden building
with a brick chimney.  As Anne and her companions went by, a group of
three or four of the hussars were standing at the door talking to a
dashing young man, who was expatiating on the qualities of a horse that
one was inclined to buy.  Anne recognized Festus Derriman in the seller,
and Cripplestraw was trotting the animal up and down.  As soon as she
caught the yeoman's eye he came forward, making some friendly remark to
the miller, and then turning to Miss Garland, who kept her eyes steadily
fixed on the distant landscape till he got so near that it was impossible
to do so longer.  Festus looked from Anne to the trumpet-major, and from
the trumpet-major back to Anne, with a dark expression of face, as if he
suspected that there might be a tender understanding between them.

'Are you offended with me?' he said to her in a low voice of repressed
resentment.

'No,' said Anne.

'When are you coming to the hall again?'

'Never, perhaps.'

'Nonsense, Anne,' said Mrs. Garland, who had come near, and smiled
pleasantly on Festus.  'You can go at any time, as usual.'

'Let her come with me now, Mrs. Garland; I should be pleased to walk
along with her.  My man can lead home the horse.'

'Thank you, but I shall not come,' said Miss Anne coldly.

The widow looked unhappily in her daughter's face, distressed between her
desire that Anne should encourage Festus, and her wish to consult Anne's
own feelings.

'Leave her alone, leave her alone,' said Festus, his gaze blackening.
'Now I think of it I am glad she can't come with me, for I am engaged;'
and he stalked away.

Anne moved on with her mother, young Loveday silently following, and they
began to descend the hill.

'Well, where's Mr. Loveday?' asked Mrs. Garland.

'Father's behind,' said John.

Mrs. Garland looked behind her solicitously; and the miller, who had been
waiting for the event, beckoned to her.

'I'll overtake you in a minute,' she said to the younger pair, and went
back, her colour, for some unaccountable reason, rising as she did so.
The miller and she then came on slowly together, conversing in very low
tones, and when they got to the bottom they stood still.  Loveday and
Anne waited for them, saying but little to each other, for the rencounter
with Festus had damped the spirits of both.  At last the widow's private
talk with Miller Loveday came to an end, and she hastened onward, the
miller going in another direction to meet a man on business.  When she
reached the trumpet-major and Anne she was looking very bright and rather
flurried, and seemed sorry when Loveday said that he must leave them and
return to the camp.  They parted in their usual friendly manner, and Anne
and her mother were left to walk the few remaining yards alone.

'There, I've settled it,' said Mrs. Garland.  'Anne, what are you
thinking about?  I have settled in my mind that it is all right.'

'What's all right?' said Anne.

'That you do not care for Derriman, and mean to encourage John Loveday.
What's all the world so long as folks are happy!  Child, don't take any
notice of what I have said about Festus, and don't meet him any more.'

'What a weathercock you are, mother!  Why should you say that just now?'

'It is easy to call me a weathercock,' said the matron, putting on the
look of a good woman; 'but I have reasoned it out, and at last, thank
God, I have got over my ambition.  The Lovedays are our true and only
friends, and Mr. Festus Derriman, with all his money, is nothing to us at
all.'

'But,' said Anne, 'what has made you change all of a sudden from what you
have said before?'

'My feelings and my reason, which I am thankful for!'

Anne knew that her mother's sentiments were naturally so versatile that
they could not be depended on for two days together; but it did not occur
to her for the moment that a change had been helped on in the present
case by a romantic talk between Mrs. Garland and the miller.  But Mrs.
Garland could not keep the secret long.  She chatted gaily as she walked,
and before they had entered the house she said, 'What do you think Mr
Loveday has been saying to me, dear Anne?'

Anne did not know at all.

'Why, he has asked me to marry him.'




XI.  OUR PEOPLE ARE AFFECTED BY THE PRESENCE OF ROYALTY


To explain the miller's sudden proposal it is only necessary to go back
to that moment when Anne, Festus, and Mrs. Garland were talking together
on the down.  John Loveday had fallen behind so as not to interfere with
a meeting in which he was decidedly superfluous; and his father, who
guessed the trumpet-major's secret, watched his face as he stood.  John's
face was sad, and his eyes followed Mrs. Garland's encouraging manner to
Festus in a way which plainly said that every parting of her lips was
tribulation to him.  The miller loved his son as much as any miller or
private gentleman could do, and he was pained to see John's gloom at such
a trivial circumstance.  So what did he resolve but to help John there
and then by precipitating a matter which, had he himself been the only
person concerned, he would have delayed for another six months.

He had long liked the society of his impulsive, tractable neighbour, Mrs.
Garland; had mentally taken her up and pondered her in connexion with the
question whether it would not be for the happiness of both if she were to
share his home, even though she was a little his superior in antecedents
and knowledge.  In fact he loved her; not tragically, but to a very
creditable extent for his years; that is, next to his sons, Bob and John,
though he knew very well of that ploughed-ground appearance near the
corners of her once handsome eyes, and that the little depression in her
right cheek was not the lingering dimple it was poetically assumed to be,
but a result of the abstraction of some worn-out nether millstones within
the cheek by Rootle, the Budmouth man, who lived by such practices on the
heads of the elderly.  But what of that, when he had lost two to each one
of hers, and exceeded her in age by some eight years!  To do John a
service, then, he quickened his designs, and put the question to her
while they were standing under the eyes of the younger pair.

Mrs. Garland, though she had been interested in the miller for a long
time, and had for a moment now and then thought on this question as far
as, 'Suppose he should, 'If he were to,' and so on, had never thought
much further; and she was really taken by surprise when the question
came.  She answered without affectation that she would think over the
proposal; and thus they parted.

Her mother's infirmity of purpose set Anne thinking, and she was suddenly
filled with a conviction that in such a case she ought to have some
purpose herself.  Mrs. Garland's complacency at the miller's offer had,
in truth, amazed her.  While her mother had held up her head, and
recommended Festus, it had seemed a very pretty thing to rebel; but the
pressure being removed an awful sense of her own responsibility took
possession of her mind.  As there was no longer anybody to be wise or
ambitious for her, surely she should be wise and ambitious for herself,
discountenance her mother's attachment, and encourage Festus in his
addresses, for her own and her mother's good.  There had been a time when
a Loveday thrilled her own heart; but that was long ago, before she had
thought of position or differences.  To wake into cold daylight like
this, when and because her mother had gone into the land of romance, was
dreadful and new to her, and like an increase of years without living
them.

But it was easier to think that she ought to marry the yeoman than to
take steps for doing it; and she went on living just as before, only with
a little more thoughtfulness in her eyes.

Two days after the visit to the camp, when she was again in the garden,
Soldier Loveday said to her, at a distance of five rows of beans and a
parsley-bed--

'You have heard the news, Miss Garland?'

'No,' said Anne, without looking up from a book she was reading.

'The King is coming to-morrow.'

'The King?' She looked up then.

'Yes; to Gloucester Lodge; and he will pass this way.  He can't arrive
till long past the middle of the night, if what they say is true, that he
is timed to change horses at Woodyates Inn--between Mid and South
Wessex--at twelve o'clock,' continued Loveday, encouraged by her interest
to cut off the parsley-bed from the distance between them.

Miller Loveday came round the corner of the house.

'Have ye heard about the King coming, Miss Maidy Anne?' he said.

Anne said that she had just heard of it; and the trumpet-major, who
hardly welcomed his father at such a moment, explained what he knew of
the matter.

'And you will go with your regiment to meet 'en, I suppose?' said old
Loveday.

Young Loveday said that the men of the German Legion were to perform that
duty.  And turning half from his father, and half towards Anne, he added,
in a tentative tone, that he thought he might get leave for the night, if
anybody would like to be taken to the top of the Ridgeway over which the
royal party must pass.

Anne, knowing by this time of the budding hope in the gallant dragoon's
mind, and not wishing to encourage it, said, 'I don't want to go.'

The miller looked disappointed as well as John.

'Your mother might like to?'

'Yes, I am going indoors, and I'll ask her if you wish me to,' said she.

She went indoors and rather coldly told her mother of the proposal.  Mrs.
Garland, though she had determined not to answer the miller's question on
matrimony just yet, was quite ready for this jaunt, and in spite of Anne
she sailed off at once to the garden to hear more about it.  When she re-
entered, she said--

'Anne, I have not seen the King or the King's horses for these many
years; and I am going.'

'Ah, it is well to be you, mother,' said Anne, in an elderly tone.

'Then you won't come with us?' said Mrs. Garland, rather rebuffed.

'I have very different things to think of,' said her daughter with
virtuous emphasis, 'than going to see sights at that time of night.'

Mrs. Garland was sorry, but resolved to adhere to the arrangement.  The
night came on; and it having gone abroad that the King would pass by the
road, many of the villagers went out to see the procession.  When the two
Lovedays and Mrs. Garland were gone, Anne bolted the door for security,
and sat down to think again on her grave responsibilities in the choice
of a husband, now that her natural guardian could no longer be trusted.

A knock came to the door.

Anne's instinct was at once to be silent, that the comer might think the
family had retired.

The knocking person, however, was not to be easily persuaded.  He had in
fact seen rays of light over the top of the shutter, and, unable to get
an answer, went on to the door of the mill, which was still going, the
miller sometimes grinding all night when busy.  The grinder accompanied
the stranger to Mrs. Garland's door.

'The daughter is certainly at home, sir,' said the grinder.  'I'll go
round to t'other side, and see if she's there, Master Derriman.'

'I want to take her out to see the King,' said Festus.

Anne had started at the sound of the voice.  No opportunity could have
been better for carrying out her new convictions on the disposal of her
hand.  But in her mortal dislike of Festus, Anne forgot her principles,
and her idea of keeping herself above the Lovedays.  Tossing on her hat
and blowing out the candle, she slipped out at the back door, and hastily
followed in the direction that her mother and the rest had taken.  She
overtook them as they were beginning to climb the hill.

'What! you have altered your mind after all?' said the widow.  'How came
you to do that, my dear?'

'I thought I might as well come,' said Anne.

'To be sure you did,' said the miller heartily.  'A good deal better than
biding at home there.'

John said nothing, though she could almost see through the gloom how glad
he was that she had altered her mind.  When they reached the ridge over
which the highway stretched they found many of their neighbours who had
got there before them idling on the grass border between the roadway and
the hedge, enjoying a sort of midnight picnic, which it was easy to do,
the air being still and dry.  Some carriages were also standing near,
though most people of the district who possessed four wheels, or even
two, had driven into the town to await the King there.  From this height
could be seen in the distance the position of the watering-place, an
additional number of lanterns, lamps, and candles having been lighted to-
night by the loyal burghers to grace the royal entry, if it should occur
before dawn.

Mrs. Garland touched Anne's elbow several times as they walked, and the
young woman at last understood that this was meant as a hint to her to
take the trumpet-major's arm, which its owner was rather suggesting than
offering to her.  Anne wondered what infatuation was possessing her
mother, declined to take the arm, and contrived to get in front with the
miller, who mostly kept in the van to guide the others' footsteps.  The
trumpet-major was left with Mrs. Garland, and Anne's encouraging pursuit
of them induced him to say a few words to the former.

'By your leave, ma'am, I'll speak to you on something that concerns my
mind very much indeed?'

'Certainly.'

'It is my wish to be allowed to pay my addresses to your daughter.'

'I thought you meant that,' said Mrs. Garland simply.

'And you'll not object?'

'I shall leave it to her.  I don't think she will agree, even if I do.'

The soldier sighed, and seemed helpless.  'Well, I can but ask her,' he
said.

The spot on which they had finally chosen to wait for the King was by a
field gate, whence the white road could be seen for a long distance
northwards by day, and some little distance now.  They lingered and
lingered, but no King came to break the silence of that beautiful summer
night.  As half-hour after half-hour glided by, and nobody came, Anne
began to get weary; she knew why her mother did not propose to go back,
and regretted the reason.  She would have proposed it herself, but that
Mrs. Garland seemed so cheerful, and as wide awake as at noonday, so that
it was almost a cruelty to disturb her.

The trumpet-major at last made up his mind, and tried to draw Anne into a
private conversation.  The feeling which a week ago had been a vague and
piquant aspiration, was to-day altogether too lively for the reasoning of
this warm-hearted soldier to regulate.  So he persevered in his intention
to catch her alone, and at last, in spite of her manoeuvres to the
contrary, he succeeded.  The miller and Mrs. Garland had walked about
fifty yards further on, and Anne and himself were left standing by the
gate.

But the gallant musician's soul was so much disturbed by tender
vibrations and by the sense of his presumption that he could not begin;
and it may be questioned if he would ever have broached the subject at
all, had not a distant church clock opportunely assisted him by striking
the hour of three.  The trumpet-major heaved a breath of relief.

'That clock strikes in G sharp,' he said.

'Indeed--G sharp?' said Anne civilly.

'Yes.  'Tis a fine-toned bell.  I used to notice that note when I was a
boy.'

'Did you--the very same?'

'Yes; and since then I had a wager about that bell with the bandmaster of
the North Wessex Militia.  He said the note was G; I said it wasn't.  When
we found it G sharp we didn't know how to settle it.'

'It is not a deep note for a clock.'

'O no!  The finest tenor bell about here is the bell of Peter's,
Casterbridge--in E flat.  Tum-m-m-m--that's the note--tum-m-m-m.'  The
trumpet-major sounded from far down his throat what he considered to be E
flat, with a parenthetic sense of luxury unquenchable even by his present
distraction.

'Shall we go on to where my mother is?' said Anne, less impressed by the
beauty of the note than the trumpet-major himself was.

'In one minute,' he said tremulously.  'Talking of music--I fear you
don't think the rank of a trumpet-major much to compare with your own?'

'I do.  I think a trumpet-major a very respectable man.'

'I am glad to hear you say that.  It is given out by the King's command
that trumpet-majors are to be considered respectable.'

'Indeed!  Then I am, by chance, more loyal than I thought for.'

'I get a good deal a year extra to the trumpeters, because of my
position.'

'That's very nice.'

'And I am not supposed ever to drink with the trumpeters who serve
beneath me.'

'Naturally.'

'And, by the orders of the War Office, I am to exert over them (that's
the government word) exert over them full authority; and if any one
behaves towards me with the least impropriety, or neglects my orders, he
is to be confined and reported.'

'It is really a dignified post,' she said, with, however, a reserve of
enthusiasm which was not altogether encouraging.

'And of course some day I shall,' stammered the dragoon--'shall be in
rather a better position than I am at present.'

'I am glad to hear it, Mr. Loveday.'

'And in short, Mistress Anne,' continued John Loveday bravely and
desperately, 'may I pay court to you in the hope that--no, no, don't go
away!--you haven't heard yet--that you may make me the happiest of men;
not yet, but when peace is proclaimed and all is smooth and easy again?  I
can't put it any better, though there's more to be explained.'

'This is most awkward,' said Anne, evidently with pain.  'I cannot
possibly agree; believe me, Mr. Loveday, I cannot.'

'But there's more than this.  You would be surprised to see what snug
rooms the married trumpet- and sergeant-majors have in quarters.'

'Barracks are not all; consider camp and war.'

'That brings me to my strong point!' exclaimed the soldier hopefully.  'My
father is better off than most non-commissioned officers' fathers; and
there's always a home for you at his house in any emergency.  I can tell
you privately that he has enough to keep us both, and if you wouldn't
hear of barracks, well, peace once established, I'd live at home as a
miller and farmer--next door to your own mother.'

'My mother would be sure to object,' expostulated Anne.

'No; she leaves it all to you.'

'What! you have asked her?' said Anne, with surprise.

'Yes.  I thought it would not be honourable to act otherwise.'

'That's very good of you,' said Anne, her face warming with a generous
sense of his straightforwardness.  'But my mother is so entirely ignorant
of a soldier's life, and the life of a soldier's wife--she is so simple
in all such matters, that I cannot listen to you any more readily for
what she may say.'

'Then it is all over for me,' said the poor trumpet-major, wiping his
face and putting away his handkerchief with an air of finality.

Anne was silent.  Any woman who has ever tried will know without
explanation what an unpalatable task it is to dismiss, even when she does
not love him, a man who has all the natural and moral qualities she would
desire, and only fails in the social.  Would-be lovers are not so
numerous, even with the best women, that the sacrifice of one can be felt
as other than a good thing wasted, in a world where there are few good
things.

'You are not angry, Miss Garland?' said he, finding that she did not
speak.

'O no.  Don't let us say anything more about this now.'  And she moved
on.

When she drew near to the miller and her mother she perceived that they
were engaged in a conversation of that peculiar kind which is all the
more full and communicative from the fact of definitive words being few.
In short, here the game was succeeding which with herself had failed.  It
was pretty clear from the symptoms, marks, tokens, telegraphs, and
general byplay between widower and widow, that Miller Loveday must have
again said to Mrs. Garland some such thing as he had said before, with
what result this time she did not know.

As the situation was delicate, Anne halted awhile apart from them.  The
trumpet-major, quite ignorant of how his cause was entered into by the
white-coated man in the distance (for his father had not yet told him of
his designs upon Mrs. Garland), did not advance, but stood still by the
gate, as though he were attending a princess, waiting till he should be
called up.  Thus they lingered, and the day began to break.  Mrs. Garland
and the miller took no heed of the time, and what it was bringing to
earth and sky, so occupied were they with themselves; but Anne in her
place and the trumpet-major in his, each in private thought of no bright
kind, watched the gradual glory of the east through all its tones and
changes.  The world of birds and insects got lively, the blue and the
yellow and the gold of Loveday's uniform again became distinct; the sun
bored its way upward, the fields, the trees, and the distant landscape
kindled to flame, and the trumpet-major, backed by a lilac shadow as tall
as a steeple, blazed in the rays like a very god of war.

It was half-past three o'clock.  A short time after, a rattle of horses
and wheels reached their ears from the quarter in which they gazed, and
there appeared upon the white line of road a moving mass, which presently
ascended the hill and drew near.

Then there arose a huzza from the few knots of watchers gathered there,
and they cried, 'Long live King Jarge!'  The cortege passed abreast.  It
consisted of three travelling-carriages, escorted by a detachment of the
German Legion.  Anne was told to look in the first carriage--a
post-chariot drawn by four horses--for the King and Queen, and was
rewarded by seeing a profile reminding her of the current coin of the
realm; but as the party had been travelling all night, and the spectators
here gathered were few, none of the royal family looked out of the
carriage windows.  It was said that the two elder princesses were in the
same carriage, but they remained invisible.  The next vehicle, a coach
and four, contained more princesses, and the third some of their
attendants.

'Thank God, I have seen my King!' said Mrs. Garland, when they had all
gone by.

Nobody else expressed any thankfulness, for most of them had expected a
more pompous procession than the bucolic tastes of the King cared to
indulge in; and one old man said grimly that that sight of dusty old
leather coaches was not worth waiting for.  Anne looked hither and
thither in the bright rays of the day, each of her eyes having a little
sun in it, which gave her glance a peculiar golden fire, and kindled the
brown curls grouped over her forehead to a yellow brilliancy, and made
single hairs, blown astray by the night, look like lacquered wires.  She
was wondering if Festus were anywhere near, but she could not see him.

Before they left the ridge they turned their attention towards the Royal
watering-place, which was visible at this place only as a portion of the
sea-shore, from which the night-mist was rolling slowly back.  The sea
beyond was still wrapped in summer fog, the ships in the roads showing
through it as black spiders suspended in the air.  While they looked and
walked a white jet of smoke burst from a spot which the miller knew to be
the battery in front of the King's residence, and then the report of guns
reached their ears.  This announcement was answered by a salute from the
Castle of the adjoining Isle, and the ships in the neighbouring
anchorage.  All the bells in the town began ringing.  The King and his
family had arrived.




XII.  HOW EVERYBODY GREAT AND SMALL CLIMBED TO THE TOP OF THE DOWNS


As the days went on, echoes of the life and bustle of the town reached
the ears of the quiet people in Overcombe hollow--exciting and moving
those unimportant natives as a ground-swell moves the weeds in a cave.
Travelling-carriages of all kinds and colours climbed and descended the
road that led towards the seaside borough.  Some contained those
personages of the King's suite who had not kept pace with him in his
journey from Windsor; others were the coaches of aristocracy, big and
little, whom news of the King's arrival drew thither for their own
pleasure: so that the highway, as seen from the hills about Overcombe,
appeared like an ant-walk--a constant succession of dark spots creeping
along its surface at nearly uniform rates of progress, and all in one
direction.

The traffic and intelligence between camp and town passed in a measure
over the villagers' heads.  It being summer time the miller was much
occupied with business, and the trumpet-major was too constantly engaged
in marching between the camp and Gloucester Lodge with the rest of the
dragoons to bring his friends any news for some days.

At last he sent a message that there was to be a review on the downs by
the King, and that it was fixed for the day following.  This information
soon spread through the village and country round, and next morning the
whole population of Overcombe--except two or three very old men and
women, a few babies and their nurses, a cripple, and Corporal
Tullidge--ascended the slope with the crowds from afar, and awaited the
events of the day.

The miller wore his best coat on this occasion, which meant a good deal.
An Overcombe man in those days would have a best coat, and keep it as a
best coat half his life.  The miller's had seen five and twenty summers
chiefly through the chinks of a clothes-box, and was not at all shabby as
yet, though getting singular.  But that could not be helped; common coats
and best coats were distinct species, and never interchangeable.  Living
so near the scene of the review he walked up the hill, accompanied by
Mrs. Garland and Anne as usual.

It was a clear day, with little wind stirring, and the view from the
downs, one of the most extensive in the county, was unclouded.  The eye
of any observer who cared for such things swept over the wave-washed
town, and the bay beyond, and the Isle, with its pebble bank, lying on
the sea to the left of these, like a great crouching animal tethered to
the mainland.  On the extreme east of the marine horizon, St. Aldhelm's
Head closed the scene, the sea to the southward of that point glaring
like a mirror under the sun.  Inland could be seen Badbury Rings, where a
beacon had been recently erected; and nearer, Rainbarrow, on Egdon Heath,
where another stood: farther to the left Bulbarrow, where there was yet
another.  Not far from this came Nettlecombe Tout; to the west, Dogberry
Hill, and Black'on near to the foreground, the beacon thereon being built
of furze faggots thatched with straw, and standing on the spot where the
monument now raises its head.

At nine o'clock the troops marched upon the ground--some from the camps
in the vicinity, and some from quarters in the different towns round
about.  The approaches to the down were blocked with carriages of all
descriptions, ages, and colours, and with pedestrians of every class.  At
ten the royal personages were said to be drawing near, and soon after the
King, accompanied by the Dukes of Cambridge and Cumberland, and a couple
of generals, appeared on horseback, wearing a round hat turned up at the
side, with a cockade and military feather.  (Sensation among the crowd.)
Then the Queen and three of the princesses entered the field in a great
coach drawn by six beautiful cream-coloured horses.  Another coach, with
four horses of the same sort, brought the two remaining princesses.
(Confused acclamations, 'There's King Jarge!' 'That's Queen Sharlett!'
'Princess 'Lizabeth!' 'Princesses Sophiar and Meelyer!' etc., from the
surrounding spectators.)

Anne and her party were fortunate enough to secure a position on the top
of one of the barrows which rose here and there on the down; and the
miller having gallantly constructed a little cairn of flints, he placed
the two women thereon, by which means they were enabled to see over the
heads, horses, and coaches of the multitudes below and around.  At the
march-past the miller's eye, which had been wandering about for the
purpose, discovered his son in his place by the trumpeters, who had moved
forwards in two ranks, and were sounding the march.

'That's John!' he cried to the widow.  'His trumpet-sling is of two
colours, d'ye see; and the others be plain.'

Mrs. Garland too saw him now, and enthusiastically admired him from her
hands upwards, and Anne silently did the same.  But before the young
woman's eyes had quite left the trumpet-major they fell upon the figure
of Yeoman Festus riding with his troop, and keeping his face at a medium
between haughtiness and mere bravery.  He certainly looked as soldierly
as any of his own corps, and felt more soldierly than half-a-dozen, as
anybody could see by observing him.  Anne got behind the miller, in case
Festus should discover her, and, regardless of his monarch, rush upon her
in a rage with, 'Why the devil did you run away from me that night--hey,
madam?'  But she resolved to think no more of him just now, and to stick
to Loveday, who was her mother's friend.  In this she was helped by the
stirring tones which burst from the latter gentleman and his subordinates
from time to time.

'Well,' said the miller complacently, 'there's few of more consequence in
a regiment than a trumpeter.  He's the chap that tells 'em what to do,
after all.  Hey, Mrs. Garland?'

'So he is, miller,' said she.

'They could no more do without Jack and his men than they could without
generals.'

'Indeed they could not,' said Mrs. Garland again, in a tone of pleasant
agreement with any one in Great Britain or Ireland.

It was said that the line that day was three miles long, reaching from
the high ground on the right of where the people stood to the turnpike
road on the left.  After the review came a sham fight, during which
action the crowd dispersed more widely over the downs, enabling Widow
Garland to get still clearer glimpses of the King, and his handsome
charger, and the head of the Queen, and the elbows and shoulders of the
princesses in the carriages, and fractional parts of General Garth and
the Duke of Cumberland; which sights gave her great gratification.  She
tugged at her daughter at every opportunity, exclaiming, 'Now you can see
his feather!' 'There's her hat!' 'There's her Majesty's India muslin
shawl!' in a minor form of ecstasy, that made the miller think her more
girlish and animated than her daughter Anne.

In those military manoeuvres the miller followed the fortunes of one man;
Anne Garland of two.  The spectators, who, unlike our party, had no
personal interest in the soldiery, saw only troops and battalions in the
concrete, straight lines of red, straight lines of blue, white lines
formed of innumerable knee-breeches, black lines formed of many gaiters,
coming and going in kaleidoscopic change.  Who thought of every point in
the line as an isolated man, each dwelling all to himself in the
hermitage of his own mind?  One person did, a young man far removed from
the barrow where the Garlands and Miller Loveday stood.  The natural
expression of his face was somewhat obscured by the bronzing effects of
rough weather, but the lines of his mouth showed that affectionate
impulses were strong within him--perhaps stronger than judgment well
could regulate.  He wore a blue jacket with little brass buttons, and was
plainly a seafaring man.

Meanwhile, in the part of the plain where rose the tumulus on which the
miller had established himself, a broad-brimmed tradesman was elbowing
his way along.  He saw Mr. Loveday from the base of the barrow, and
beckoned to attract his attention.  Loveday went halfway down, and the
other came up as near as he could.

'Miller,' said the man, 'a letter has been lying at the post-office for
you for the last three days.  If I had known that I should see ye here
I'd have brought it along with me.'

The miller thanked him for the news, and they parted, Loveday returning
to the summit.  'What a very strange thing!' he said to Mrs. Garland, who
had looked inquiringly at his face, now very grave.  'That was Budmouth
postmaster, and he says there's a letter for me.  Ah, I now call to mind
that there _was_ a letter in the candle three days ago this very night--a
large red one; but foolish-like I thought nothing o't.  Who _can_ that
letter be from?'

A letter at this time was such an event for hamleteers, even of the
miller's respectable standing, that Loveday thenceforward was thrown into
a fit of abstraction which prevented his seeing any more of the sham
fight, or the people, or the King.  Mrs. Garland imbibed some of his
concern, and suggested that the letter might come from his son Robert.

'I should naturally have thought that,' said Miller Loveday; 'but he
wrote to me only two months ago, and his brother John heard from him
within the last four weeks, when he was just about starting on another
voyage.  If you'll pardon me, Mrs. Garland, ma'am, I'll see if there's
any Overcombe man here who is going to Budmouth to-day, so that I may get
the letter by night-time.  I cannot possibly go myself.'

So Mr. Loveday left them for awhile; and as they were so near home Mrs.
Garland did not wait on the barrow for him to come back, but walked about
with Anne a little time, until they should be disposed to trot down the
slope to their own door.  They listened to a man who was offering one
guinea to receive ten in case Buonaparte should be killed in three
months, and to other entertainments of that nature, which at this time
were not rare.  Once during their peregrination the eyes of the sailor
before-mentioned fell upon Anne; but he glanced over her and passed her
unheedingly by.  Loveday the elder was at this time on the other side of
the line, looking for a messenger to the town.  At twelve o'clock the
review was over, and the King and his family left the hill.  The troops
then cleared off the field, the spectators followed, and by one o'clock
the downs were again bare.

They still spread their grassy surface to the sun as on that beautiful
morning not, historically speaking, so very long ago; but the King and
his fifteen thousand armed men, the horses, the bands of music, the
princesses, the cream-coloured teams--the gorgeous centre-piece, in
short, to which the downs were but the mere mount or margin--how entirely
have they all passed and gone!--lying scattered about the world as
military and other dust, some at Talavera, Albuera, Salamanca, Vittoria,
Toulouse, and Waterloo; some in home churchyards; and a few small
handfuls in royal vaults.

In the afternoon John Loveday, lightened of his trumpet and trappings,
appeared at the old mill-house door, and beheld Anne standing at hers.

'I saw you, Miss Garland,' said the soldier gaily.

'Where was I?' said she, smiling.

'On the top of the big mound--to the right of the King.'

'And I saw you; lots of times,' she rejoined.

Loveday seemed pleased.  'Did you really take the trouble to find me?
That was very good of you.'

'Her eyes followed you everywhere,' said Mrs. Garland from an upper
window.

'Of course I looked at the dragoons most,' said Anne, disconcerted.  'And
when I looked at them my eyes naturally fell upon the trumpets.  I looked
at the dragoons generally, no more.'

She did not mean to show any vexation to the trumpet-major, but he
fancied otherwise, and stood repressed.  The situation was relieved by
the arrival of the miller, still looking serious.

'I am very much concerned, John; I did not go to the review for nothing.
There's a letter a-waiting for me at Budmouth, and I must get it before
bedtime, or I shan't sleep a wink.'

'I'll go, of course,' said John; 'and perhaps Miss Garland would like to
see what's doing there to-day?  Everybody is gone or going; the road is
like a fair.'

He spoke pleadingly, but Anne was not won to assent.

'You can drive in the gig; 'twill do Blossom good,' said the miller.

'Let David drive Miss Garland,' said the trumpet-major, not wishing to
coerce her; 'I would just as soon walk.'

Anne joyfully welcomed this arrangement, and a time was fixed for the
start.




XIII.  THE CONVERSATION IN THE CROWD


In the afternoon they drove off, John Loveday being nowhere visible.  All
along the road they passed and were overtaken by vehicles of all
descriptions going in the same direction; among them the extraordinary
machines which had been invented for the conveyance of troops to any
point of the coast on which the enemy should land; they consisted of four
boards placed across a sort of trolly, thirty men of the volunteer
companies riding on each.

The popular Georgian watering-place was in a paroxysm of gaiety.  The
town was quite overpowered by the country round, much to the town's
delight and profit.  The fear of invasion was such that six frigates lay
in the roads to ensure the safety of the royal family, and from the
regiments of horse and foot quartered at the barracks, or encamped on the
hills round about, a picket of a thousand men mounted guard every day in
front of Gloucester Lodge, where the King resided.  When Anne and her
attendant reached this point, which they did on foot, stabling the horse
on the outskirts of the town, it was about six o'clock.  The King was on
the Esplanade, and the soldiers were just marching past to mount guard.
The band formed in front of the King, and all the officers saluted as
they went by.

Anne now felt herself close to and looking into the stream of recorded
history, within whose banks the littlest things are great, and outside
which she and the general bulk of the human race were content to live on
as an unreckoned, unheeded superfluity.

When she turned from her interested gaze at this scene, there stood John
Loveday.  She had had a presentiment that he would turn up in this
mysterious way.  It was marvellous that he could have got there so
quickly; but there he was--not looking at the King, or at the crowd, but
waiting for the turn of her head.

'Trumpet-major, I didn't see you,' said Anne demurely.  'How is it that
your regiment is not marching past?'

'We take it by turns, and it is not our turn,' said Loveday.

She wanted to know then if they were afraid that the King would be
carried off by the First Consul.  Yes, Loveday told her; and his Majesty
was rather venturesome.  A day or two before he had gone so far to sea
that he was nearly caught by some of the enemy's cruisers.  'He is
anxious to fight Boney single-handed,' he said.

'What a good, brave King!' said Anne.

Loveday seemed anxious to come to more personal matters.  'Will you let
me take you round to the other side, where you can see better?' he asked.
'The Queen and the princesses are at the window.'

Anne passively assented.  'David, wait here for me,' she said; 'I shall
be back again in a few minutes.'

The trumpet-major then led her off triumphantly, and they skirted the
crowd and came round on the side towards the sands.  He told her
everything he could think of, military and civil, to which Anne returned
pretty syllables and parenthetic words about the colour of the sea and
the curl of the foam--a way of speaking that moved the soldier's heart
even more than long and direct speeches would have done.

'And that other thing I asked you?' he ventured to say at last.

'We won't speak of it.'

'You don't dislike me?'

'O no!' she said, gazing at the bathing-machines, digging children, and
other common objects of the seashore, as if her interest lay there rather
than with him.

'But I am not worthy of the daughter of a genteel professional man--that's
what you mean?'

'There's something more than worthiness required in such cases, you
know,' she said, still without calling her mind away from surrounding
scenes.  'Ah, there are the Queen and princesses at the window!'

'Something more?'

'Well, since you will make me speak, I mean the woman ought to love the
man.'

The trumpet-major seemed to be less concerned about this than about her
supposed superiority.  'If it were all right on that point, would you
mind the other?' he asked, like a man who knows he is too persistent, yet
who cannot be still.

'How can I say, when I don't know?  What a pretty chip hat the elder
princess wears?'

Her companion's general disappointment extended over him almost to his
lace and his plume.  'Your mother said, you know, Miss Anne--'

'Yes, that's the worst of it,' she said.  'Let us go back to David; I
have seen all I want to see, Mr. Loveday.'

The mass of the people had by this time noticed the Queen and princesses
at the window, and raised a cheer, to which the ladies waved their
embroidered handkerchiefs.  Anne went back towards the pavement with her
trumpet-major, whom all the girls envied her, so fine-looking a soldier
was he; and not only for that, but because it was well known that he was
not a soldier from necessity, but from patriotism, his father having
repeatedly offered to set him up in business: his artistic taste in
preferring a horse and uniform to a dirty, rumbling flour-mill was
admired by all.  She, too, had a very nice appearance in her best clothes
as she walked along--the sarcenet hat, muslin shawl, and tight-sleeved
gown being of the newest Overcombe fashion, that was only about a year
old in the adjoining town, and in London three or four.  She could not be
harsh to Loveday and dismiss him curtly, for his musical pursuits had
refined him, educated him, and made him quite poetical.  To-day he had
been particularly well-mannered and tender; so, instead of answering,
'Never speak to me like this again,' she merely put him off with a 'Let
us go back to David.'

When they reached the place where they had left him David was gone.

Anne was now positively vexed.  'What _shall_ I do?' she said.

'He's only gone to drink the King's health,' said Loveday, who had
privately given David the money for performing that operation.  'Depend
upon it, he'll be back soon.'

'Will you go and find him?' said she, with intense propriety in her looks
and tone.

'I will,' said Loveday reluctantly; and he went.

Anne stood still.  She could now escape her gallant friend, for, although
the distance was long, it was not impossible to walk home.  On the other
hand, Loveday was a good and sincere fellow, for whom she had almost a
brotherly feeling, and she shrank from such a trick.  While she stood and
mused, scarcely heeding the music, the marching of the soldiers, the
King, the dukes, the brilliant staff, the attendants, and the happy
groups of people, her eyes fell upon the ground.

Before her she saw a flower lying--a crimson sweet-william--fresh and
uninjured.  An instinctive wish to save it from destruction by the
passengers' feet led her to pick it up; and then, moved by a sudden self-
consciousness, she looked around.  She was standing before an inn, and
from an upper window Festus Derriman was leaning with two or three
kindred spirits of his cut and kind.  He nodded eagerly, and signified to
her that he had thrown the flower.

What should she do?  To throw it away would seem stupid, and to keep it
was awkward.  She held it between her finger and thumb, twirled it round
on its axis and twirled it back again, regarding and yet not examining
it.  Just then she saw the trumpet-major coming back.

'I can't find David anywhere,' he said; and his heart was not sorry as he
said it.

Anne was still holding out the sweet-william as if about to drop it, and,
scarcely knowing what she did under the distressing sense that she was
watched, she offered the flower to Loveday.

His face brightened with pleasure as he took it.  'Thank you, indeed,' he
said.

Then Anne saw what a misleading blunder she had committed towards Loveday
in playing to the yeoman.  Perhaps she had sown the seeds of a quarrel.

'It was not my sweet-william,' she said hastily; 'it was lying on the
ground.  I don't mean anything by giving it to you.'

'But I'll keep it all the same,' said the innocent soldier, as if he knew
a good deal about womankind; and he put the flower carefully inside his
jacket, between his white waistcoat and his heart.

Festus, seeing this, enlarged himself wrathfully, got hot in the face,
rose to his feet, and glared down upon them like a turnip-lantern.

'Let us go away,' said Anne timorously.

'I'll see you safe to your own door, depend upon me,' said Loveday.
'But--I had near forgot--there's father's letter, that he's so anxiously
waiting for!  Will you come with me to the post-office?  Then I'll take
you straight home.'

Anne, expecting Festus to pounce down every minute, was glad to be off
anywhere; so she accepted the suggestion, and they went along the parade
together.

Loveday set this down as a proof of Anne's relenting.  Thus in joyful
spirits he entered the office, paid the postage, and received the letter.

'It is from Bob, after all!' he said.  'Father told me to read it at
once, in case of bad news.  Ask your pardon for keeping you a moment.'  He
broke the seal and read, Anne standing silently by.

'He is coming home _to be married_,' said the trumpet-major, without
looking up.

Anne did not answer.  The blood swept impetuously up her face at his
words, and as suddenly went away again, leaving her rather paler than
before.  She disguised her agitation and then overcame it, Loveday
observing nothing of this emotional performance.

'As far as I can understand he will be here Saturday,' he said.

'Indeed!' said Anne quite calmly.  'And who is he going to marry?'

'That I don't know,' said John, turning the letter about.  'The woman is
a stranger.'

At this moment the miller entered the office hastily.

'Come, John,' he cried, 'I have been waiting and waiting for that there
letter till I was nigh crazy!'

John briefly explained the news, and when his father had recovered from
his astonishment, taken off his hat, and wiped the exact line where his
forehead joined his hair, he walked with Anne up the street, leaving John
to return alone.  The miller was so absorbed in his mental perspective of
Bob's marriage, that he saw nothing of the gaieties they passed through;
and Anne seemed also so much impressed by the same intelligence, that she
crossed before the inn occupied by Festus without showing a recollection
of his presence there.




XIV.  LATER IN THE EVENING OF THE SAME DAY


When they reached home the sun was going down.  It had already been
noised abroad that miller Loveday had received a letter, and, his cart
having been heard coming up the lane, the population of Overcombe drew
down towards the mill as soon as he had gone indoors--a sudden flash of
brightness from the window showing that he had struck such an early light
as nothing but the immediate deciphering of literature could require.
Letters were matters of public moment, and everybody in the parish had an
interest in the reading of those rare documents; so that when the miller
had placed the candle, slanted himself, and called in Mrs. Garland to
have her opinion on the meaning of any hieroglyphics that he might
encounter in his course, he found that he was to be additionally assisted
by the opinions of the other neighbours, whose persons appeared in the
doorway, partly covering each other like a hand of cards, yet each
showing a large enough piece of himself for identification.  To pass the
time while they were arranging themselves, the miller adopted his usual
way of filling up casual intervals, that of snuffing the candle.

'We heard you had got a letter, Maister Loveday,' they said.

'Yes; "Southampton, the twelfth of August, dear father,"' said Loveday;
and they were as silent as relations at the reading of a will.  Anne, for
whom the letter had a singular fascination, came in with her mother and
sat down.

Bob stated in his own way that having, since landing, taken into
consideration his father's wish that he should renounce a seafaring life
and become a partner in the mill, he had decided to agree to the
proposal; and with that object in view he would return to Overcombe in
three days from the time of writing.

He then said incidentally that since his voyage he had been in lodgings
at Southampton, and during that time had become acquainted with a lovely
and virtuous young maiden, in whom he found the exact qualities necessary
to his happiness.  Having known this lady for the full space of a
fortnight he had had ample opportunities of studying her character, and,
being struck with the recollection that, if there was one thing more than
another necessary in a mill which had no mistress, it was somebody who
could play that part with grace and dignity, he had asked Miss Matilda
Johnson to be his wife.  In her kindness she, though sacrificing far
better prospects, had agreed; and he could not but regard it as a happy
chance that he should have found at the nick of time such a woman to
adorn his home, whose innocence was as stunning as her beauty.  Without
much ado, therefore, he and she had arranged to be married at once, and
at Overcombe, that his father might not be deprived of the pleasures of
the wedding feast.  She had kindly consented to follow him by land in the
course of a few days, and to live in the house as their guest for the
week or so previous to the ceremony.

''Tis a proper good letter,' said Mrs. Comfort from the background.  'I
never heerd true love better put out of hand in my life; and they seem
'nation fond of one another.'

'He haven't knowed her such a very long time,' said Job Mitchell
dubiously.

'That's nothing,' said Esther Beach.  'Nater will find her way, very
rapid when the time's come for't.  Well, 'tis good news for ye, miller.'

'Yes, sure, I hope 'tis,' said Loveday, without, however, showing any
great hurry to burst into the frantic form of fatherly joy which the
event should naturally have produced, seeming more disposed to let off
his feelings by examining thoroughly into the fibres of the letter-paper.

'I was five years a-courting my wife,' he presently remarked.  'But folks
were slower about everything in them days.  Well, since she's coming we
must make her welcome.  Did any of ye catch by my reading which day it is
he means?  What with making out the penmanship, my mind was drawn off
from the sense here and there.'

'He says in three days,' said Mrs. Garland.  'The date of the letter will
fix it.'

On examination it was found that the day appointed was the one nearly
expired; at which the miller jumped up and said, 'Then he'll be here
before bedtime.  I didn't gather till now that he was coming afore
Saturday.  Why, he may drop in this very minute!'

He had scarcely spoken when footsteps were heard coming along the front,
and they presently halted at the door.  Loveday pushed through the
neighbours and rushed out; and, seeing in the passage a form which
obscured the declining light, the miller seized hold of him, saying, 'O
my dear Bob; then you are come!'

'Scrounch it all, miller, don't quite pull my poor shoulder out of joint!
Whatever is the matter?' said the new-comer, trying to release himself
from Loveday's grasp of affection.  It was Uncle Benjy.

'Thought 'twas my son!' faltered the miller, sinking back upon the toes
of the neighbours who had closely followed him into the entry.  'Well,
come in, Mr. Derriman, and make yerself at home.  Why, you haven't been
here for years!  Whatever has made you come now, sir, of all times in the
world?'

'Is he in there with ye?' whispered the farmer with misgiving.

'Who?'

'My nephew, after that maid that he's so mighty smit with?'

'O no; he never calls here.'

Farmer Derriman breathed a breath of relief.  'Well, I've called to tell
ye,' he said, 'that there's more news of the French.  We shall have 'em
here this month as sure as a gun.  The gunboats be all ready--near two
thousand of 'em--and the whole army is at Boulogne.  And, miller, I know
ye to be an honest man.'

Loveday did not say nay.

'Neighbour Loveday, I know ye to be an honest man,' repeated the old
squireen.  'Can I speak to ye alone?'

As the house was full, Loveday took him into the garden, all the while
upon tenter-hooks, not lest Buonaparte should appear in their midst, but
lest Bob should come whilst he was not there to receive him.  When they
had got into a corner Uncle Benjy said, 'Miller, what with the French,
and what with my nephew Festus, I assure ye my life is nothing but
wherrit from morning to night.  Miller Loveday, you are an honest man.'

Loveday nodded.

'Well, I've come to ask a favour--to ask if you will take charge of my
few poor title-deeds and documents and suchlike, while I am away from
home next week, lest anything should befall me, and they should be stole
away by Boney or Festus, and I should have nothing left in the wide
world?  I can trust neither banks nor lawyers in these terrible times;
and I am come to you.'

Loveday after some hesitation agreed to take care of anything that
Derriman should bring, whereupon the farmer said he would call with the
parchments and papers alluded to in the course of a week.  Derriman then
went away by the garden gate, mounted his pony, which had been tethered
outside, and rode on till his form was lost in the shades.

The miller rejoined his friends, and found that in the meantime John had
arrived.  John informed the company that after parting from his father
and Anne he had rambled to the harbour, and discovered the Pewit by the
quay.  On inquiry he had learnt that she came in at eleven o'clock, and
that Bob had gone ashore.

'We'll go and meet him,' said the miller.  ''Tis still light out of
doors.'

So, as the dew rose from the meads and formed fleeces in the hollows,
Loveday and his friends and neighbours strolled out, and loitered by the
stiles which hampered the footpath from Overcombe to the high road at
intervals of a hundred yards.  John Loveday, being obliged to return to
camp, was unable to accompany them, but Widow Garland thought proper to
fall in with the procession.  When she had put on her bonnet she called
to her daughter.  Anne said from upstairs that she was coming in a
minute; and her mother walked on without her.

What was Anne doing?  Having hastily unlocked a receptacle for emotional
objects of small size, she took thence the little folded paper with which
we have already become acquainted, and, striking a light from her private
tinder-box, she held the paper, and curl of hair it contained, in the
candle till they were burnt.  Then she put on her hat and followed her
mother and the rest of them across the moist grey fields, cheerfully
singing in an undertone as she went, to assure herself of her
indifference to circumstances.




XV.  'CAPTAIN' BOB LOVEDAY OF THE MERCHANT SERVICE


While Loveday and his neighbours were thus rambling forth, full of
expectancy, some of them, including Anne in the rear, heard the crackling
of light wheels along the curved lane to which the path was the chord.  At
once Anne thought, 'Perhaps that's he, and we are missing him.'  But
recent events were not of a kind to induce her to say anything; and the
others of the company did not reflect on the sound.

Had they gone across to the hedge which hid the lane, and looked through
it, they would have seen a light cart driven by a boy, beside whom was
seated a seafaring man, apparently of good standing in the merchant
service, with his feet outside on the shaft.  The vehicle went over the
main bridge, turned in upon the other bridge at the tail of the mill, and
halted by the door.  The sailor alighted, showing himself to be a well-
shaped, active, and fine young man, with a bright eye, an anonymous nose,
and of such a rich complexion by exposure to ripening suns that he might
have been some connexion of the foreigner who calls his likeness the
Portrait of a Gentleman in galleries of the Old Masters.  Yet in spite of
this, and though Bob Loveday had been all over the world from Cape Horn
to Pekin, and from India's coral strand to the White Sea, the most
conspicuous of all the marks that he had brought back with him was an
increased resemblance to his mother, who had lain all the time beneath
Overcombe church wall.

Captain Loveday tried the house door; finding this locked he went to the
mill door: this was locked also, the mill being stopped for the night.

'They are not at home,' he said to the boy.  'But never mind that.  Just
help to unload the things and then I'll pay you, and you can drive off
home.'

The cart was unloaded, and the boy was dismissed, thanking the sailor
profusely for the payment rendered.  Then Bob Loveday, finding that he
had still some leisure on his hands, looked musingly east, west, north,
south, and nadir; after which he bestirred himself by carrying his goods,
article by article, round to the back door, out of the way of casual
passers.  This done, he walked round the mill in a more regardful
attitude, and surveyed its familiar features one by one--the panes of the
grinding-room, now as heretofore clouded with flour as with stale hoar-
frost; the meal lodged in the corners of the window-sills, forming a soil
in which lichens grew without ever getting any bigger, as they had done
since his smallest infancy; the mosses on the plinth towards the river,
reaching as high as the capillary power of the walls would fetch up
moisture for their nourishment, and the penned mill-pond, now as ever on
the point of overflowing into the garden.  Everything was the same.

When he had had enough of this it occurred to Loveday that he might get
into the house in spite of the locked doors; and by entering the garden,
placing a pole from the fork of an apple-tree to the window-sill of a
bedroom on that side, and climbing across like a Barbary ape, he entered
the window and stepped down inside.  There was something anomalous in
being close to the familiar furniture without having first seen his
father, and its silent, impassive shine was not cheering; it was as if
his relations were all dead, and only their tables and chests of drawers
left to greet him.  He went downstairs and seated himself in the dark
parlour.  Finding this place, too, rather solitary, and the tick of the
invisible clock preternaturally loud, he unearthed the tinder-box,
obtained a light, and set about making the house comfortable for his
father's return, divining that the miller had gone out to meet him by the
wrong road.

Robert's interest in this work increased as he proceeded, and he bustled
round and round the kitchen as lightly as a girl.  David, the indoor
factotum, having lost himself among the quart pots of Budmouth, there had
been nobody left here to prepare supper, and Bob had it all to himself.
In a short time a fire blazed up the chimney, a tablecloth was found, the
plates were clapped down, and a search made for what provisions the house
afforded, which, in addition to various meats, included some fresh eggs
of the elongated shape that produces cockerels when hatched, and had been
set aside on that account for putting under the next broody hen.

A more reckless cracking of eggs than that which now went on had never
been known in Overcombe since the last large christening; and as Loveday
gashed one on the side, another at the end, another longways, and another
diagonally, he acquired adroitness by practice, and at last made every
son of a hen of them fall into two hemispheres as neatly as if it opened
by a hinge.  From eggs he proceeded to ham, and from ham to kidneys, the
result being a brilliant fry.

Not to be tempted to fall to before his father came back, the returned
navigator emptied the whole into a dish, laid a plate over the top, his
coat over the plate, and his hat over his coat.  Thus completely stopping
in the appetizing smell, he sat down to await events.  He was relieved
from the tediousness of doing this by hearing voices outside; and in a
minute his father entered.

'Glad to welcome ye home, father,' said Bob.  'And supper is just ready.'

'Lard, lard--why, Captain Bob's here!' said Mrs. Garland.

'And we've been out waiting to meet thee!' said the miller, as he entered
the room, followed by representatives of the houses of Cripplestraw,
Comfort, Mitchell, Beach, and Snooks, together with some small beginnings
of Fencible Tremlett's posterity.  In the rear came David, and quite in
the vanishing-point of the composition, Anne the fair.

'I drove over; and so was forced to come by the road,' said Bob.

'And we went across the fields, thinking you'd walk,' said his father.

'I should have been here this morning; but not so much as a wheelbarrow
could I get for my traps; everything was gone to the review.  So I went
too, thinking I might meet you there.  I was then obliged to return to
the harbour for the luggage.'

Then there was a welcoming of Captain Bob by pulling out his arms like
drawers and shutting them again, smacking him on the back as if he were
choking, holding him at arm's length as if he were of too large type to
read close.  All which persecution Bob bore with a wide, genial smile
that was shaken into fragments and scattered promiscuously among the
spectators.

'Get a chair for 'n!' said the miller to David, whom they had met in the
fields and found to have got nothing worse by his absence than a slight
slant in his walk.

'Never mind--I am not tired--I have been here ever so long,' said Bob.
'And I--'  But the chair having been placed behind him, and a smart touch
in the hollow of a person's knee by the edge of that piece of furniture
having a tendency to make the person sit without further argument, Bob
sank down dumb, and the others drew up other chairs at a convenient
nearness for easy analytic vision and the subtler forms of good
fellowship.  The miller went about saying, 'David, the nine best glasses
from the corner cupboard!'--'David, the corkscrew!'--'David, whisk the
tail of thy smock-frock round the inside of these quart pots afore you
draw drink in 'em--they be an inch thick in dust!'--'David, lower that
chimney-crook a couple of notches that the flame may touch the bottom of
the kettle, and light three more of the largest candles!'--'If you can't
get the cork out of the jar, David, bore a hole in the tub of Hollands
that's buried under the scroff in the fuel-house; d'ye hear?--Dan Brown
left en there yesterday as a return for the little porker I gied en.'

When they had all had a thimbleful round, and the superfluous neighbours
had reluctantly departed, one by one, the inmates gave their minds to the
supper, which David had begun to serve up.

'What be you rolling back the tablecloth for, David?' said the miller.

'Maister Bob have put down one of the under sheets by mistake, and I
thought you might not like it, sir, as there's ladies present!'

'Faith, 'twas the first thing that came to hand,' said Robert.  'It
seemed a tablecloth to me.'

'Never mind--don't pull off the things now he's laid 'em down--let it
bide,' said the miller.  'But where's Widow Garland and Maidy Anne?'

'They were here but a minute ago,' said David.  'Depend upon it they have
slinked off 'cause they be shy.'

The miller at once went round to ask them to come back and sup with him;
and while he was gone David told Bob in confidence what an excellent
place he had for an old man.

'Yes, Cap'n Bob, as I suppose I must call ye; I've worked for yer father
these eight-and-thirty years, and we have always got on very well
together.  Trusts me with all the keys, lends me his sleeve-waistcoat,
and leaves the house entirely to me.  Widow Garland next door, too, is
just the same with me, and treats me as if I was her own child.'

'She must have married young to make you that, David.'

'Yes, yes--I'm years older than she.  'Tis only my common way of
speaking.'

Mrs. Garland would not come in to supper, and the meal proceeded without
her, Bob recommending to his father the dish he had cooked, in the manner
of a householder to a stranger just come.  The miller was anxious to know
more about his son's plans for the future, but would not for the present
interrupt his eating, looking up from his own plate to appreciate Bob's
travelled way of putting English victuals out of sight, as he would have
looked at a mill on improved principles.

David had only just got the table clear, and set the plates in a row
under the bakehouse table for the cats to lick, when the door was hastily
opened, and Mrs. Garland came in, looking concerned.

'I have been waiting to hear the plates removed to tell you how
frightened we are at something we hear at the back-door.  It seems like
robbers muttering; but when I look out there's nobody there!'

'This must be seen to,' said the miller, rising promptly.  'David, light
the middle-sized lantern.  I'll go and search the garden.'

'And I'll go too,' said his son, taking up a cudgel.  'Lucky I've come
home just in time!'

They went out stealthily, followed by the widow and Anne, who had been
afraid to stay alone in the house under the circumstances.  No sooner
were they beyond the door when, sure enough, there was the muttering
almost close at hand, and low upon the ground, as from persons lying down
in hiding.

'Bless my heart!' said Bob, striking his head as though it were some
enemy's: 'why, 'tis my luggage.  I'd quite forgot it!'

'What!' asked his father.

'My luggage.  Really, if it hadn't been for Mrs. Garland it would have
stayed there all night, and they, poor things! would have been starved.
I've got all sorts of articles for ye.  You go inside, and I'll bring 'em
in.  'Tis parrots that you hear a muttering, Mrs. Garland.  You needn't
be afraid any more.'

'Parrots?' said the miller.  'Well, I'm glad 'tis no worse.  But how
couldst forget so, Bob?'

The packages were taken in by David and Bob, and the first unfastened
were three, wrapped in cloths, which being stripped off revealed three
cages, with a gorgeous parrot in each.

'This one is for you, father, to hang up outside the door, and amuse us,'
said Bob.  'He'll talk very well, but he's sleepy to-night.  This other
one I brought along for any neighbour that would like to have him.  His
colours are not so bright; but 'tis a good bird.  If you would like to
have him you are welcome to him,' he said, turning to Anne, who had been
tempted forward by the birds.  'You have hardly spoken yet, Miss Anne,
but I recollect you very well.  How much taller you have got, to be
sure!'

Anne said she was much obliged, but did not know what she could do with
such a present.  Mrs. Garland accepted it for her, and the sailor went
on--'Now this other bird I hardly know what to do with; but I dare say
he'll come in for something or other.'

'He is by far the prettiest,' said the widow.  'I would rather have it
than the other, if you don't mind.'

'Yes,' said Bob, with embarrassment.  'But the fact is, that bird will
hardly do for ye, ma'am.  He's a hard swearer, to tell the truth; and I
am afraid he's too old to be broken of it.'

'How dreadful!' said Mrs. Garland.

'We could keep him in the mill,' suggested the miller.  'It won't matter
about the grinder hearing him, for he can't learn to cuss worse than he
do already!'

'The grinder shall have him, then,' said Bob.  'The one I have given you,
ma'am, has no harm in him at all.  You might take him to church o'
Sundays as far as that goes.'

The sailor now untied a small wooden box about a foot square, perforated
with holes.  'Here are two marmosets,' he continued.  'You can't see them
to-night; but they are beauties--the tufted sort.'

'What's a marmoset?' said the miller.

'O, a little kind of monkey.  They bite strangers rather hard, but you'll
soon get used to 'em.'

'They are wrapped up in something, I declare,' said Mrs. Garland, peeping
in through a chink.

'Yes, that's my flannel shirt,' said Bob apologetically.  'They suffer
terribly from cold in this climate, poor things! and I had nothing better
to give them.  Well, now, in this next box I've got things of different
sorts.'

The latter was a regular seaman's chest, and out of it he produced shells
of many sizes and colours, carved ivories, queer little caskets, gorgeous
feathers, and several silk handkerchiefs, which articles were spread out
upon all the available tables and chairs till the house began to look
like a bazaar.

'What a lovely shawl!' exclaimed Widow Garland, in her interest
forestalling the regular exhibition by looking into the box at what was
coming.

'O yes,' said the mate, pulling out a couple of the most bewitching
shawls that eyes ever saw.  'One of these I am going to give to that
young lady I am shortly to be married to, you know, Mrs. Garland.  Has
father told you about it?  Matilda Johnson, of Southampton, that's her
name.'

'Yes, we know all about it,' said the widow.

'Well, I shall give one of these shawls to her--because, of course, I
ought to.'

'Of course,' said she.

'But the other one I've got no use for at all; and,' he continued,
looking round, 'will you have it, Miss Anne?  You refused the parrot, and
you ought not to refuse this.'

'Thank you,' said Anne calmly, but much distressed; 'but really I don't
want it, and couldn't take it.'

'But do have it!' said Bob in hurt tones, Mrs. Garland being all the
while on tenter-hooks lest Anne should persist in her absurd refusal.

'Why, there's another reason why you ought to!' said he, his face
lighting up with recollections.  'It never came into my head till this
moment that I used to be your beau in a humble sort of way.  Faith, so I
did, and we used to meet at places sometimes, didn't we--that is, when
you were not too proud; and once I gave you, or somebody else, a bit of
my hair in fun.'

'It was somebody else,' said Anne quickly.

'Ah, perhaps it was,' said Bob innocently.  'But it was you I used to
meet, or try to, I am sure.  Well, I've never thought of that boyish time
for years till this minute!  I am sure you ought to accept some one gift,
dear, out of compliment to those old times!'

Anne drew back and shook her head, for she would not trust her voice.

'Well, Mrs. Garland, then you shall have it,' said Bob, tossing the shawl
to that ready receiver.  'If you don't, upon my life I will throw it out
to the first beggar I see.  Now, here's a parcel of cap ribbons of the
splendidest sort I could get.  Have these--do, Anne!'

'Yes, do,' said Mrs. Garland.

'I promised them to Matilda,' continued Bob; 'but I am sure she won't
want 'em, as she has got some of her own: and I would as soon see them
upon your head, my dear, as upon hers.'

'I think you had better keep them for your bride if you have promised
them to her,' said Mrs. Garland mildly.

'It wasn't exactly a promise.  I just said, "Til, there's some cap
ribbons in my box, if you would like to have them."  But she's got enough
things already for any bride in creation.  Anne, now you shall have
'em--upon my soul you shall--or I'll fling them down the mill-tail!'

Anne had meant to be perfectly firm in refusing everything, for reasons
obvious even to that poor waif, the meanest capacity; but when it came to
this point she was absolutely compelled to give in, and reluctantly
received the cap ribbons in her arms, blushing fitfully, and with her lip
trembling in a motion which she tried to exhibit as a smile.

'What would Tilly say if she knew!' said the miller slily.

'Yes, indeed--and it is wrong of him!' Anne instantly cried, tears
running down her face as she threw the parcel of ribbons on the floor.
'You'd better bestow your gifts where you bestow your l--l--love, Mr.
Loveday--that's what I say!'  And Anne turned her back and went away.

'I'll take them for her,' said Mrs. Garland, quickly picking up the
parcel.

'Now that's a pity,' said Bob, looking regretfully after Anne.  'I didn't
remember that she was a quick-tempered sort of girl at all.  Tell her,
Mrs. Garland, that I ask her pardon.  But of course I didn't know she was
too proud to accept a little present--how should I?  Upon my life if it
wasn't for Matilda I'd--Well, that can't be, of course.'

'What's this?' said Mrs. Garland, touching with her foot a large package
that had been laid down by Bob unseen.

'That's a bit of baccy for myself,' said Robert meekly.

The examination of presents at last ended, and the two families parted
for the night.  When they were alone, Mrs. Garland said to Anne, 'What a
close girl you are!  I am sure I never knew that Bob Loveday and you had
walked together: you must have been mere children.'

'O yes--so we were,' said Anne, now quite recovered.  'It was when we
first came here, about a year after father died.  We did not walk
together in any regular way.  You know I have never thought the Lovedays
high enough for me.  It was only just--nothing at all, and I had almost
forgotten it.'

It is to be hoped that somebody's sins were forgiven her that night
before she went to bed.

When Bob and his father were left alone, the miller said, 'Well, Robert,
about this young woman of thine--Matilda what's her name?'

'Yes, father--Matilda Johnson.  I was just going to tell ye about her.'

The miller nodded, and sipped his mug.

'Well, she is an excellent body,' continued Bob; 'that can truly be
said--a real charmer, you know--a nice good comely young woman, a miracle
of genteel breeding, you know, and all that.  She can throw her hair into
the nicest curls, and she's got splendid gowns and headclothes.  In
short, you might call her a land mermaid.  She'll make such a first-rate
wife as there never was.'

'No doubt she will,' said the miller; 'for I have never known thee
wanting in sense in a jineral way.'  He turned his cup round on its axis
till the handle had travelled a complete circle.  'How long did you say
in your letter that you had known her?'

'A fortnight.'

'Not _very_ long.'

'It don't sound long, 'tis true; and 'twas really longer--'twas fifteen
days and a quarter.  But hang it, father, I could see in the twinkling of
an eye that the girl would do.  I know a woman well enough when I see
her--I ought to, indeed, having been so much about the world.  Now, for
instance, there's Widow Garland and her daughter.  The girl is a nice
little thing; but the old woman--O no!'  Bob shook his head.

'What of her?' said his father, slightly shifting in his chair.

'Well, she's, she's--I mean, I should never have chose her, you know.
She's of a nice disposition, and young for a widow with a grown-up
daughter; but if all the men had been like me she would never have had a
husband.  I like her in some respects; but she's a style of beauty I
don't care for.'

'O, if 'tis only looks you are thinking of,' said the miller, much
relieved, 'there's nothing to be said, of course.  Though there's many a
duchess worse-looking, if it comes to argument, as you would find, my
son,' he added, with a sense of having been mollified too soon.

The mate's thoughts were elsewhere by this time.

'As to my marrying Matilda, thinks I, here's one of the very genteelest
sort, and I may as well do the job at once.  So I chose her.  She's a
dear girl; there's nobody like her, search where you will.'

'How many did you choose her out from?' inquired his father.

'Well, she was the only young woman I happened to know in Southampton,
that's true.  But what of that?  It would have been all the same if I had
known a hundred.'

'Her father is in business near the docks, I suppose?'

'Well, no.  In short, I didn't see her father.'

'Her mother?'

'Her mother?  No, I didn't.  I think her mother is dead; but she has got
a very rich aunt living at Melchester.  I didn't see her aunt, because
there wasn't time to go; but of course we shall know her when we are
married.'

'Yes, yes, of course,' said the miller, trying to feel quite satisfied.
'And she will soon be here?'

'Ay, she's coming soon,' said Bob.  'She has gone to this aunt's at
Melchester to get her things packed, and suchlike, or she would have come
with me.  I am going to meet the coach at the King's Arms, Casterbridge,
on Sunday, at one o'clock.  To show what a capital sort of wife she'll
be, I may tell you that she wanted to come by the Mercury, because 'tis a
little cheaper than the other.  But I said, "For once in your life do it
well, and come by the Royal Mail, and I'll pay."  I can have the pony and
trap to fetch her, I suppose, as 'tis too far for her to walk?'

'Of course you can, Bob, or anything else.  And I'll do all I can to give
you a good wedding feast.'




XVI.  THEY MAKE READY FOR THE ILLUSTRIOUS STRANGER


Preparations for Matilda's welcome, and for the event which was to
follow, at once occupied the attention of the mill.  The miller and his
man had but dim notions of housewifery on any large scale; so the great
wedding cleaning was kindly supervised by Mrs. Garland, Bob being mostly
away during the day with his brother, the trumpet-major, on various
errands, one of which was to buy paint and varnish for the gig that
Matilda was to be fetched in, which he had determined to decorate with
his own hands.

By the widow's direction the old familiar incrustation of shining dirt,
imprinted along the back of the settle by the heads of countless jolly
sitters, was scrubbed and scraped away; the brown circle round the nail
whereon the miller hung his hat, stained by the brim in wet weather, was
whitened over; the tawny smudges of bygone shoulders in the passage were
removed without regard to a certain genial and historical value which
they had acquired.  The face of the clock, coated with verdigris as thick
as a diachylon plaister, was rubbed till the figures emerged into day;
while, inside the case of the same chronometer, the cobwebs that formed
triangular hammocks, which the pendulum could hardly wade through, were
cleared away at one swoop.

Mrs. Garland also assisted at the invasion of worm-eaten cupboards, where
layers of ancient smells lingered on in the stagnant air, and recalled to
the reflective nose the many good things that had been kept there.  The
upper floors were scrubbed with such abundance of water that the
old-established death-watches, wood-lice, and flour-worms were all
drowned, the suds trickling down into the room below in so lively and
novel a manner as to convey the romantic notion that the miller lived in
a cave with dripping stalactites.

They moved what had never been moved before--the oak coffer, containing
the miller's wardrobe--a tremendous weight, what with its locks, hinges,
nails, dirt, framework, and the hard stratification of old jackets,
waistcoats, and knee-breeches at the bottom, never disturbed since the
miller's wife died, and half pulverized by the moths, whose flattened
skeletons lay amid the mass in thousands.

'It fairly makes my back open and shut!' said Loveday, as, in obedience
to Mrs. Garland's direction, he lifted one corner, the grinder and David
assisting at the others.  'All together: speak when ye be going to heave.
Now!'

The pot covers and skimmers were brought to such a state that, on
examining them, the beholder was not conscious of utensils, but of his
own face in a condition of hideous elasticity.  The broken clock-line was
mended, the kettles rocked, the creeper nailed up, and a new handle put
to the warming-pan.  The large household lantern was cleaned out, after
three years of uninterrupted accumulation, the operation yielding a
conglomerate of candle-snuffs, candle-ends, remains of matches,
lamp-black, and eleven ounces and a half of good grease--invaluable as
dubbing for skitty boots and ointment for cart-wheels.

Everybody said that the mill residence had not been so thoroughly scoured
for twenty years.  The miller and David looked on with a sort of awe
tempered by gratitude, tacitly admitting by their gaze that this was
beyond what they had ever thought of.  Mrs. Garland supervised all with
disinterested benevolence.  It would never have done, she said, for his
future daughter-in-law to see the house in its original state.  She would
have taken a dislike to him, and perhaps to Bob likewise.

'Why don't ye come and live here with me, and then you would be able to
see to it at all times?' said the miller as she bustled about again.  To
which she answered that she was considering the matter, and might in good
time.  He had previously informed her that his plan was to put Bob and
his wife in the part of the house that she, Mrs. Garland, occupied, as
soon as she chose to enter his, which relieved her of any fear of being
incommoded by Matilda.

The cooking for the wedding festivities was on a proportionate scale of
thoroughness.  They killed the four supernumerary chickens that had just
begun to crow, and the little curly-tailed barrow pig, in preference to
the sow; not having been put up fattening for more than five weeks it was
excellent small meat, and therefore more delicate and likely to suit a
town-bred lady's taste than the large one, which, having reached the
weight of fourteen score, might have been a little gross to a cultured
palate.  There were also provided a cold chine, stuffed veal, and two
pigeon pies.  Also thirty rings of black-pot, a dozen of white-pot, and
ten knots of tender and well-washed chitterlings, cooked plain in case
she should like a change.

As additional reserves there were sweetbreads, and five milts, sewed up
at one side in the form of a chrysalis, and stuffed with thyme, sage,
parsley, mint, groats, rice, milk, chopped egg, and other ingredients.
They were afterwards roasted before a slow fire, and eaten hot.

The business of chopping so many herbs for the various stuffings was
found to be aching work for women; and David, the miller, the grinder,
and the grinder's boy being fully occupied in their proper branches, and
Bob being very busy painting the gig and touching up the harness, Loveday
called in a friendly dragoon of John's regiment who was passing by, and
he, being a muscular man, willingly chopped all the afternoon for a quart
of strong, judiciously administered, and all other victuals found, taking
off his jacket and gloves, rolling up his shirt-sleeves and unfastening
his collar in an honourable and energetic way.

All windfalls and maggot-cored codlins were excluded from the apple pies;
and as there was no known dish large enough for the purpose, the puddings
were stirred up in the milking-pail, and boiled in the three-legged bell-
metal crock, of great weight and antiquity, which every travelling tinker
for the previous thirty years had tapped with his stick, coveted, made a
bid for, and often attempted to steal.

In the liquor line Loveday laid in an ample barrel of Casterbridge
'strong beer.'  This renowned drink--now almost as much a thing of the
past as Falstaff's favourite beverage--was not only well calculated to
win the hearts of soldiers blown dry and dusty by residence in tents on a
hill-top, but of any wayfarer whatever in that land.  It was of the most
beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full in
body, yet brisk as a volcano; piquant, yet without a twang; luminous as
an autumn sunset; free from streakiness of taste; but, finally, rather
heady.  The masses worshipped it, the minor gentry loved it more than
wine, and by the most illustrious county families it was not despised.
Anybody brought up for being drunk and disorderly in the streets of its
natal borough, had only to prove that he was a stranger to the place and
its liquor to be honourably dismissed by the magistrates, as one
overtaken in a fault that no man could guard against who entered the town
unawares.

In addition, Mr. Loveday also tapped a hogshead of fine cider that he had
had mellowing in the house for several months, having bought it of an
honest down-country man, who did not colour, for any special occasion
like the present.  It had been pressed from fruit judiciously chosen by
an old hand--Horner and Cleeves apple for the body, a few Tom-Putts for
colour, and just a dash of Old Five-corners for sparkle--a selection
originally made to please the palate of a well-known temperate earl who
was a regular cider-drinker, and lived to be eighty-eight.

On the morning of the Sunday appointed for her coming Captain Bob Loveday
set out to meet his bride.  He had been all the week engaged in painting
the gig, assisted by his brother at odd times, and it now appeared of a
gorgeous yellow, with blue streaks, and tassels at the corners, and red
wheels outlined with a darker shade.  He put in the pony at half-past
eleven, Anne looking at him from the door as he packed himself into the
vehicle and drove off.  There may be young women who look out at young
men driving to meet their brides as Anne looked at Captain Bob, and yet
are quite indifferent to the circumstances; but they are not often met
with.

So much dust had been raised on the highway by traffic resulting from the
presence of the Court at the town further on, that brambles hanging from
the fence, and giving a friendly scratch to the wanderer's face, were
dingy as church cobwebs; and the grass on the margin had assumed a paper-
shaving hue.  Bob's father had wished him to take David, lest, from want
of recent experience at the whip, he should meet with any mishap; but,
picturing to himself the awkwardness of three in such circumstances, Bob
would not hear of this; and nothing more serious happened to his driving
than that the wheel-marks formed two serpentine lines along the road
during the first mile or two, before he had got his hand in, and that the
horse shied at a milestone, a piece of paper, a sleeping tramp, and a
wheelbarrow, just to make use of the opportunity of being in bad hands.

He entered Casterbridge between twelve and one, and, putting up at the
Old Greyhound, walked on to the Bow.  Here, rather dusty on the ledges of
his clothes, he stood and waited while the people in their best summer
dresses poured out of the three churches round him.  When they had all
gone, and a smell of cinders and gravy had spread down the ancient high-
street, and the pie-dishes from adjacent bakehouses had all travelled
past, he saw the mail coach rise above the arch of Grey's Bridge, a
quarter of a mile distant, surmounted by swaying knobs, which proved to
be the heads of the outside travellers.

'That's the way for a man's bride to come to him,' said Robert to himself
with a feeling of poetry; and as the horn sounded and the horses
clattered up the street he walked down to the inn.  The knot of hostlers
and inn-servants had gathered, the horses were dragged from the vehicle,
and the passengers for Casterbridge began to descend.  Captain Bob eyed
them over, looked inside, looked outside again; to his disappointment
Matilda was not there, nor her boxes, nor anything that was hers.  Neither
coachman nor guard had seen or heard of such a person at Melchester; and
Bob walked slowly away.

Depressed by forebodings to an extent which took away nearly a third of
his appetite, he sat down in the parlour of the Old Greyhound to a slice
from the family joint of the landlord.  This gentleman, who dined in his
shirt-sleeves, partly because it was August, and partly from a sense that
they would not be so fit for public view further on in the week,
suggested that Bob should wait till three or four that afternoon, when
the road-waggon would arrive, as the lost lady might have preferred that
mode of conveyance; and when Bob appeared rather hurt at the suggestion,
the landlord's wife assured him, as a woman who knew good life, that many
genteel persons travelled in that way during the present high price of
provisions.  Loveday, who knew little of travelling by land, readily
accepted her assurance and resolved to wait.

Wandering up and down the pavement, or leaning against some hot wall
between the waggon-office and the corner of the street above, he passed
the time away.  It was a still, sunny, drowsy afternoon, and scarcely a
soul was visible in the length and breadth of the street.  The office was
not far from All Saints' Church, and the church-windows being open, he
could hear the afternoon service from where he lingered as distinctly as
if he had been one of the congregation.  Thus he was mentally conducted
through the Psalms, through the first and second lessons, through the
burst of fiddles and clarionets which announced the evening-hymn, and
well into the sermon, before any signs of the waggon could be seen upon
the London road.

The afternoon sermons at this church being of a dry and metaphysical
nature at that date, it was by a special providence that the
waggon-office was placed near the ancient fabric, so that whenever the
Sunday waggon was late, which it always was in hot weather, in cold
weather, in wet weather, and in weather of almost every other sort, the
rattle, dismounting, and swearing outside completely drowned the parson's
voice within, and sustained the flagging interest of the congregation at
precisely the right moment.  No sooner did the charity children begin to
writhe on their benches, and adult snores grow audible, than the waggon
arrived.

Captain Loveday felt a kind of sinking in his poetry at the possibility
of her for whom they had made such preparations being in the slow,
unwieldy vehicle which crunched its way towards him; but he would not
give in to the weakness.  Neither would he walk down the street to meet
the waggon, lest she should not be there.  At last the broad wheels drew
up against the kerb, the waggoner with his white smock-frock, and whip as
long as a fishing-line, descended from the pony on which he rode
alongside, and the six broad-chested horses backed from their collars and
shook themselves.  In another moment something showed forth, and he knew
that Matilda was there.

Bob felt three cheers rise within him as she stepped down; but it being
Sunday he did not utter them.  In dress, Miss Johnson passed his
expectations--a green and white gown, with long, tight sleeves, a green
silk handkerchief round her neck and crossed in front, a green parasol,
and green gloves.  It was strange enough to see this verdant caterpillar
turn out of a road-waggon, and gracefully shake herself free from the
bits of straw and fluff which would usually gather on the raiment of the
grandest travellers by that vehicle.

'But, my dear Matilda,' said Bob, when he had kissed her three times with
much publicity--the practical step he had determined on seeming to demand
that these things should no longer be done in a corner--'my dear Matilda,
why didn't you come by the coach, having the money for't and all?'

'That's my scrimping!' said Matilda in a delightful gush.  'I know you
won't be offended when you know I did it to save against a rainy day!'

Bob, of course, was not offended, though the glory of meeting her had
been less; and even if vexation were possible, it would have been out of
place to say so.  Still, he would have experienced no little surprise had
he learnt the real reason of his Matilda's change of plan.  That angel
had, in short, so wildly spent Bob's and her own money in the adornment
of her person before setting out, that she found herself without a
sufficient margin for her fare by coach, and had scrimped from sheer
necessity.

'Well, I have got the trap out at the Greyhound,' said Bob.  'I don't
know whether it will hold your luggage and us too; but it looked more
respectable than the waggon on a Sunday, and if there's not room for the
boxes I can walk alongside.'

'I think there will be room,' said Miss Johnson mildly.  And it was soon
very evident that she spoke the truth; for when her property was
deposited on the pavement, it consisted of a trunk about eighteen inches
long, and nothing more.

'O--that's all!' said Captain Loveday, surprised.

'That's all,' said the young woman assuringly.  'I didn't want to give
trouble, you know, and what I have besides I have left at my aunt's.'

'Yes, of course,' he answered readily.  'And as it's no bigger, I can
carry it in my hand to the inn, and so it will be no trouble at all.'

He caught up the little box, and they went side by side to the Greyhound;
and in ten minutes they were trotting up the Southern Road.

Bob did not hurry the horse, there being many things to say and hear, for
which the present situation was admirably suited.  The sun shone
occasionally into Matilda's face as they drove on, its rays picking out
all her features to a great nicety.  Her eyes would have been called
brown, but they were really eel-colour, like many other nice brown eyes;
they were well-shaped and rather bright, though they had more of a broad
shine than a sparkle.  She had a firm, sufficient nose, which seemed to
say of itself that it was good as noses go.  She had rather a picturesque
way of wrapping her upper in her lower lip, so that the red of the latter
showed strongly.  Whenever she gazed against the sun towards the distant
hills, she brought into her forehead, without knowing it, three short
vertical lines--not there at other times--giving her for the moment
rather a hard look.  And in turning her head round to a far angle, to
stare at something or other that he pointed out, the drawn flesh of her
neck became a mass of lines.  But Bob did not look at these things,
which, of course, were of no significance; for had she not told him, when
they compared ages, that she was a little over two-and-twenty?

As Nature was hardly invented at this early point of the century, Bob's
Matilda could not say much about the glamour of the hills, or the
shimmering of the foliage, or the wealth of glory in the distant sea, as
she would doubtless have done had she lived later on; but she did her
best to be interesting, asking Bob about matters of social interest in
the neighbourhood, to which she seemed quite a stranger.

'Is your watering-place a large city?' she inquired when they mounted the
hill where the Overcombe folk had waited for the King.

'Bless you, my dear--no!  'Twould be nothing if it wasn't for the Royal
Family, and the lords and ladies, and the regiments of soldiers, and the
frigates, and the King's messengers, and the actors and actresses, and
the games that go on.'

At the words 'actors and actresses,' the innocent young thing pricked up
her ears.

'Does Elliston pay as good salaries this summer as in--?'

'O, you know about it then?  I thought--'

'O no, no!  I have heard of Budmouth--read in the papers, you know, dear
Robert, about the doings there, and the actors and actresses, you know.'

'Yes, yes, I see.  Well, I have been away from England a long time, and
don't know much about the theatre in the town; but I'll take you there
some day.  Would it be a treat to you?'

'O, an amazing treat!' said Miss Johnson, with an ecstasy in which a
close observer might have discovered a tinge of ghastliness.

'You've never been into one perhaps, dear?'

'N--never,' said Matilda flatly.  'Whatever do I see yonder--a row of
white things on the down?'

'Yes, that's a part of the encampment above Overcombe.  Lots of soldiers
are encamped about here; those are the white tops of their tents.'

He pointed to a wing of the camp that had become visible.  Matilda was
much interested.

'It will make it very lively for us,' he added, 'especially as John is
there.'

She thought so too, and thus they chatted on.




XVII.  TWO FAINTING FITS AND A BEWILDERMENT


Meanwhile Miller Loveday was expecting the pair with interest; and about
five o'clock, after repeated outlooks, he saw two specks the size of
caraway seeds on the far line of ridge where the sunlit white of the road
met the blue of the sky.  Then the remainder parts of Bob and his lady
became visible, and then the whole vehicle, end on, and he heard the dry
rattle of the wheels on the dusty road.  Miller Loveday's plan, as far as
he had formed any, was that Robert and his wife should live with him in
the millhouse until Mrs. Garland made up her mind to join him there; in
which event her present house would be made over to the young couple.
Upon all grounds, he wished to welcome becomingly the woman of his son's
choice, and came forward promptly as they drew up at the door.

'What a lovely place you've got here!' said Miss Johnson, when the miller
had received her from the captain.  'A real stream of water, a real mill-
wheel, and real fowls, and everything!'

'Yes, 'tis real enough,' said Loveday, looking at the river with balanced
sentiments; 'and so you will say when you've lived here a bit as mis'ess,
and had the trouble of claning the furniture.'

At this Miss Johnson looked modest, and continued to do so till Anne, not
knowing they were there, came round the corner of the house, with her
prayer-book in her hand, having just arrived from church.  Bob turned and
smiled to her, at which Miss Johnson looked glum.  How long she would
have remained in that phase is unknown, for just then her ears were
assailed by a loud bass note from the other side, causing her to jump
round.

'O la! what dreadful thing is it?' she exclaimed, and beheld a cow of
Loveday's, of the name of Crumpler, standing close to her shoulder.  It
being about milking-time, she had come to look up David and hasten on the
operation.

'O, what a horrid bull!--it did frighten me so.  I hope I shan't faint,'
said Matilda.

The miller immediately used the formula which has been uttered by the
proprietors of live stock ever since Noah's time.  'She won't hurt ye.
Hoosh, Crumpler!  She's as timid as a mouse, ma'am.'

But as Crumpler persisted in making another terrific inquiry for David,
Matilda could not help closing her eyes and saying, 'O, I shall be gored
to death!' her head falling back upon Bob's shoulder, which--seeing the
urgent circumstances, and knowing her delicate nature--he had
providentially placed in a position to catch her.  Anne Garland, who had
been standing at the corner of the house, not knowing whether to go back
or come on, at this felt her womanly sympathies aroused.  She ran and
dipped her handkerchief into the splashing mill-tail, and with it damped
Matilda's face.  But as her eyes still remained closed, Bob, to increase
the effect, took the handkerchief from Anne and wrung it out on the
bridge of Matilda's nose, whence it ran over the rest of her face in a
stream.

'O, Captain Loveday!' said Anne, 'the water is running over her green
silk handkerchief, and into her pretty reticule!'

'There--if I didn't think so!' exclaimed Matilda, opening her eyes,
starting up, and promptly pulling out her own handkerchief, with which
she wiped away the drops, and an unimportant trifle of her complexion,
assisted by Anne, who, in spite of her background of antagonistic
emotions, could not help being interested.

'That's right!' said the miller, his spirits reviving with the revival of
Matilda.  'The lady is not used to country life; are you, ma'am?'

'I am not,' replied the sufferer.  'All is so strange about here!'

Suddenly there spread into the firmament, from the direction of the
down:--

   'Ra, ta, ta!  Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!  Ra, ta, ta!'

'O dear, dear! more hideous country sounds, I suppose?' she inquired,
with another start.

'O no,' said the miller cheerfully.  ''Tis only my son John's trumpeter
chaps at the camp of dragoons just above us, a-blowing Mess, or Feed, or
Picket, or some other of their vagaries.  John will be much pleased to
tell you the meaning on't when he comes down.  He's trumpet-major, as you
may know, ma'am.'

'O yes; you mean Captain Loveday's brother.  Dear Bob has mentioned him.'

'If you come round to Widow Garland's side of the house, you can see the
camp,' said the miller.

'Don't force her; she's tired with her long journey,' said Mrs. Garland
humanely, the widow having come out in the general wish to see Captain
Bob's choice.  Indeed, they all behaved towards her as if she were a
tender exotic, which their crude country manners might seriously injure.

She went into the house, accompanied by Mrs. Garland and her daughter;
though before leaving Bob she managed to whisper in his ear, 'Don't tell
them I came by waggon, will you, dear?'--a request which was quite
needless, for Bob had long ago determined to keep that a dead secret; not
because it was an uncommon mode of travel, but simply that it was hardly
the usual conveyance for a gorgeous lady to her bridal.

As the men had a feeling that they would be superfluous indoors just at
present, the miller assisted David in taking the horse round to the
stables, Bob following, and leaving Matilda to the women.  Indoors, Miss
Johnson admired everything: the new parrots and marmosets, the black
beams of the ceiling, the double-corner cupboard with the glass doors,
through which gleamed the remainders of sundry china sets acquired by
Bob's mother in her housekeeping--two-handled sugar-basins, no-handled
tea-cups, a tea-pot like a pagoda, and a cream-jug in the form of a
spotted cow.  This sociability in their visitor was returned by Mrs.
Garland and Anne; and Miss Johnson's pleasing habit of partly dying
whenever she heard any unusual bark or bellow added to her piquancy in
their eyes.  But conversation, as such, was naturally at first of a
nervous, tentative kind, in which, as in the works of some minor poets,
the sense was considerably led by the sound.

'You get the sea-breezes here, no doubt?'

'O yes, dear; when the wind is that way.'

'Do you like windy weather?'

'Yes; though not now, for it blows down the young apples.'

'Apples are plentiful, it seems.  You country-folk call St. Swithin's
their christening day, if it rains?'

'Yes, dear.  Ah me! I have not been to a christening for these many
years; the baby's name was George, I remember--after the King.'

'I hear that King George is still staying at the town here.  I _hope_
he'll stay till I have seen him!'

'He'll wait till the corn turns yellow; he always does.'

'How _very_ fashionable yellow is getting for gloves just now!'

'Yes.  Some persons wear them to the elbow, I hear.'

'Do they?  I was not aware of that.  I struck my elbow last week so hard
against the door of my aunt's mansion that I feel the ache now.'

Before they were quite overwhelmed by the interest of this discourse, the
miller and Bob came in.  In truth, Mrs. Garland found the office in which
he had placed her--that of introducing a strange woman to a house which
was not the widow's own--a rather awkward one, and yet almost a
necessity.  There was no woman belonging to the house except that
wondrous compendium of usefulness, the intermittent maid-servant, whom
Loveday had, for appearances, borrowed from Mrs. Garland, and Mrs.
Garland was in the habit of borrowing from the girl's mother.  And as for
the demi-woman David, he had been informed as peremptorily as Pharaoh's
baker that the office of housemaid and bedmaker was taken from him, and
would be given to this girl till the wedding was over, and Bob's wife
took the management into her own hands.

They all sat down to high tea, Anne and her mother included, and the
captain sitting next to Miss Johnson.  Anne had put a brave face upon the
matter--outwardly, at least--and seemed in a fair way of subduing any
lingering sentiment which Bob's return had revived.  During the evening,
and while they still sat over the meal, John came down on a hurried
visit, as he had promised, ostensibly on purpose to be introduced to his
intended sister-in-law, but much more to get a word and a smile from his
beloved Anne.  Before they saw him, they heard the trumpet-major's smart
step coming round the corner of the house, and in a moment his form
darkened the door.  As it was Sunday, he appeared in his full-dress laced
coat, white waistcoat and breeches, and towering plume, the latter of
which he instantly lowered, as much from necessity as good manners, the
beam in the mill-house ceiling having a tendency to smash and ruin all
such head-gear without warning.

'John, we've been hoping you would come down,' said the miller, 'and so
we have kept the tay about on purpose.  Draw up, and speak to Mrs.
Matilda Johnson. . . . Ma'am, this is Robert's brother.'

'Your humble servant, ma'am,' said the trumpet-major gallantly.

As it was getting dusk in the low, small-paned room, he instinctively
moved towards Miss Johnson as he spoke, who sat with her back to the
window.  He had no sooner noticed her features than his helmet nearly
fell from his hand; his face became suddenly fixed, and his natural
complexion took itself off, leaving a greenish yellow in its stead.  The
young person, on her part, had no sooner looked closely at him than she
said weakly, 'Robert's brother!' and changed colour yet more rapidly than
the soldier had done.  The faintness, previously half counterfeit, seized
on her now in real earnest.

'I don't feel well,' she said, suddenly rising by an effort.  'This warm
day has quite upset me!'

There was a regular collapse of the tea-party, like that of the Hamlet
play scene.  Bob seized his sweetheart and carried her upstairs, the
miller exclaiming, 'Ah, she's terribly worn by the journey!  I thought
she was when I saw her nearly go off at the blare of the cow.  No woman
would have been frightened at that if she'd been up to her natural
strength.'

'That, and being so very shy of men, too, must have made John's handsome
regimentals quite overpowering to her, poor thing,' added Mrs. Garland,
following the catastrophic young lady upstairs, whose indisposition was
this time beyond question.  And yet, by some perversity of the heart, she
was as eager now to make light of her faintness as she had been to make
much of it two or three hours ago.

The miller and John stood like straight sticks in the room the others had
quitted, John's face being hastily turned towards a caricature of
Buonaparte on the wall that he had not seen more than a hundred and fifty
times before.

'Come, sit down and have a dish of tea, anyhow,' said his father at last.
'She'll soon be right again, no doubt.'

'Thanks; I don't want any tea,' said John quickly.  And, indeed, he did
not, for he was in one gigantic ache from head to foot.

The light had been too dim for anybody to notice his amazement; and not
knowing where to vent it, the trumpet-major said he was going out for a
minute.  He hastened to the bakehouse; but David being there, he went to
the pantry; but the maid being there, he went to the cart-shed; but a
couple of tramps being there, he went behind a row of French beans in the
garden, where he let off an ejaculation the most pious that he had
uttered that Sabbath day: 'Heaven! what's to be done!'

And then he walked wildly about the paths of the dusky garden, where the
trickling of the brooks seemed loud by comparison with the stillness
around; treading recklessly on the cracking snails that had come forth to
feed, and entangling his spurs in the long grass till the rowels were
choked with its blades.  Presently he heard another person approaching,
and his brother's shape appeared between the stubbard tree and the hedge.

'O, is it you?' said the mate.

'Yes.  I am--taking a little air.'

'She is getting round nicely again; and as I am not wanted indoors just
now, I am going into the village to call upon a friend or two I have not
been able to speak to as yet.'

John took his brother Bob's hand.  Bob rather wondered why.

'All right, old boy,' he said.  'Going into the village?  You'll be back
again, I suppose, before it gets very late?'

'O yes,' said Captain Bob cheerfully, and passed out of the garden.

John allowed his eyes to follow his brother till his shape could not be
seen, and then he turned and again walked up and down.




XVIII.  THE NIGHT AFTER THE ARRIVAL


John continued his sad and heavy pace till walking seemed too old and
worn-out a way of showing sorrow so new, and he leant himself against the
fork of an apple-tree like a log.  There the trumpet-major remained for a
considerable time, his face turned towards the house, whose ancient, many-
chimneyed outline rose against the darkened sky, and just shut out from
his view the camp above.  But faint noises coming thence from horses
restless at the pickets, and from visitors taking their leave, recalled
its existence, and reminded him that, in consequence of Matilda's
arrival, he had obtained leave for the night--a fact which, owing to the
startling emotions that followed his entry, he had not yet mentioned to
his friends.

While abstractedly considering how he could best use that privilege under
the new circumstances which had arisen, he heard Farmer Derriman drive up
to the front door and hold a conversation with his father.  The old man
had at last apparently brought the tin box of private papers that he
wished the miller to take charge of during Derriman's absence; and it
being a calm night, John could hear, though he little heeded, Uncle
Benjy's reiterated supplications to Loveday to keep it safe from fire and
thieves.  Then Uncle Benjy left, and John's father went upstairs to
deposit the box in a place of security, the whole proceeding reaching
John's preoccupied comprehension merely as voices during sleep.

The next thing was the appearance of a light in the bedroom which had
been assigned to Matilda Johnson.  This effectually aroused the trumpet-
major, and with a stealthiness unusual in him he went indoors.  No light
was in the lower rooms, his father, Mrs. Garland, and Anne having gone
out on the bridge to look at the new moon.  John went upstairs on tip-
toe, and along the uneven passage till he came to her door.  It was
standing ajar, a band of candlelight shining across the passage and up
the opposite wall.  As soon as he entered the radiance he saw her.  She
was standing before the looking-glass, apparently lost in thought, her
fingers being clasped behind her head in abstraction, and the light
falling full upon her face.

'I must speak to you,' said the trumpet-major.

She started, turned and grew paler than before; and then, as if moved by
a sudden impulse, she swung the door wide open, and, coming out, said
quite collectedly and with apparent pleasantness, 'O yes; you are my
Bob's brother!  I didn't, for a moment, recognize you.'

'But you do now?'

'As Bob's brother.'

'You have not seen me before?'

'I have not,' she answered, with a face as impassible as Talleyrand's.

'Good God!'

'I have not!' she repeated.

'Nor any of the --th Dragoons?  Captain Jolly, for instance?'

'No.'

'You mistake.  I'll remind you of particulars,' he said drily.  And he
did remind her at some length.

'Never!' she said desperately.

But she had miscalculated her staying powers, and her adversary's
character.  Five minutes after that she was in tears, and the
conversation had resolved itself into words, which, on the soldier's
part, were of the nature of commands, tempered by pity, and were a mere
series of entreaties on hers.

The whole scene did not last ten minutes.  When it was over, the trumpet-
major walked from the doorway where they had been standing, and brushed
moisture from his eyes.  Reaching a dark lumber-room, he stood still
there to calm himself, and then descended by a Flemish-ladder to the
bakehouse, instead of by the front stairs.  He found that the others,
including Bob, had gathered in the parlour during his absence and lighted
the candles.

Miss Johnson, having sent down some time before John re-entered the house
to say that she would prefer to keep her room that evening, was not
expected to join them, and on this account Bob showed less than his
customary liveliness.  The miller wishing to keep up his son's spirits,
expressed his regret that, it being Sunday night, they could have no
songs to make the evening cheerful; when Mrs. Garland proposed that they
should sing psalms which, by choosing lively tunes and not thinking of
the words, would be almost as good as ballads.

This they did, the trumpet-major appearing to join in with the rest; but
as a matter of fact no sound came from his moving lips.  His mind was in
such a state that he derived no pleasure even from Anne Garland's
presence, though he held a corner of the same book with her, and was
treated in a winsome way which it was not her usual practice to indulge
in.  She saw that his mind was clouded, and, far from guessing the reason
why, was doing her best to clear it.

At length the Garlands found that it was the hour for them to leave, and
John Loveday at the same time wished his father and Bob good-night, and
went as far as Mrs. Garland's door with her.

He had said not a word to show that he was free to remain out of camp,
for the reason that there was painful work to be done, which it would be
best to do in secret and alone.  He lingered near the house till its
reflected window-lights ceased to glimmer upon the mill-pond, and all
within the dwelling was dark and still.  Then he entered the garden and
waited there till the back door opened, and a woman's figure timorously
came forward.  John Loveday at once went up to her, and they began to
talk in low yet dissentient tones.

They had conversed about ten minutes, and were parting as if they had
come to some painful arrangement, Miss Johnson sobbing bitterly, when a
head stealthily arose above the dense hedgerow, and in a moment a shout
burst from its owner.

'Thieves! thieves!--my tin box!--thieves! thieves!'

Matilda vanished into the house, and John Loveday hastened to the hedge.
'For heaven's sake, hold your tongue, Mr. Derriman!' he exclaimed.

'My tin box!' said Uncle Benjy.  'O, only the trumpet-major!'

'Your box is safe enough, I assure you.  It was only'--here the trumpet-
major gave vent to an artificial laugh--'only a sly bit of courting, you
know.'

'Ha, ha, I see!' said the relieved old squireen.  'Courting Miss Anne!
Then you've ousted my nephew, trumpet-major!  Well, so much the better.
As for myself, the truth on't is that I haven't been able to go to bed
easy, for thinking that possibly your father might not take care of what
I put under his charge; and at last I thought I would just step over and
see if all was safe here before I turned in.  And when I saw your two
shapes my poor nerves magnified ye to housebreakers, and Boneys, and I
don't know what all.'

'You have alarmed the house,' said the trumpet-major, hearing the
clicking of flint and steel in his father's bedroom, followed in a moment
by the rise of a light in the window of the same apartment.  'You have
got me into difficulty,' he added gloomily, as his father opened the
casement.

'I am sorry for that,' said Uncle Benjy.  'But step back; I'll put it all
right again.'

'What, for heaven's sake, is the matter?' said the miller, his tasselled
nightcap appearing in the opening.

'Nothing, nothing!' said the farmer.  'I was uneasy about my few bonds
and documents, and I walked this way, miller, before going to bed, as I
start from home to-morrow morning.  When I came down by your
garden-hedge, I thought I saw thieves, but it turned out to be--to be--'

Here a lump of earth from the trumpet-major's hand struck Uncle Benjy in
the back as a reminder.

'To be--the bough of a cherry-tree a-waving in the wind.  Good-night.'

'No thieves are like to try my house,' said Miller Loveday.  'Now don't
you come alarming us like this again, farmer, or you shall keep your box
yourself, begging your pardon for saying so.  Good-night t' ye!'

'Miller, will ye just look, since I am here--just look and see if the box
is all right? there's a good man!  I am old, you know, and my poor
remains are not what my original self was.  Look and see if it is where
you put it, there's a good, kind man.'

'Very well,' said the miller good-humouredly.

'Neighbour Loveday! on second thoughts I will take my box home again,
after all, if you don't mind.  You won't deem it ill of me?  I have no
suspicion, of course; but now I think on't there's rivalry between my
nephew and your son; and if Festus should take it into his head to set
your house on fire in his enmity, 'twould be bad for my deeds and
documents.  No offence, miller, but I'll take the box, if you don't
mind.'

'Faith! I don't mind,' said Loveday.  'But your nephew had better think
twice before he lets his enmity take that colour.'  Receding from the
window, he took the candle to a back part of the room and soon reappeared
with the tin box.

'I won't trouble ye to dress,' said Derriman considerately; 'let en down
by anything you have at hand.'

The box was lowered by a cord, and the old man clasped it in his arms.
'Thank ye!' he said with heartfelt gratitude.  'Good-night!'

The miller replied and closed the window, and the light went out.

'There, now I hope you are satisfied, sir?' said the trumpet-major.

'Quite, quite!' said Derriman; and, leaning on his walking-stick, he
pursued his lonely way.

That night Anne lay awake in her bed, musing on the traits of the new
friend who had come to her neighbour's house.  She would not be critical,
it was ungenerous and wrong; but she could not help thinking of what
interested her.  And were there, she silently asked, in Miss Johnson's
mind and person such rare qualities as placed that lady altogether beyond
comparison with herself?  O yes, there must be; for had not Captain Bob
singled out Matilda from among all other women, herself included?  Of
course, with his world-wide experience, he knew best.

When the moon had set, and only the summer stars threw their light into
the great damp garden, she fancied that she heard voices in that
direction.  Perhaps they were the voices of Bob and Matilda taking a
lover's walk before retiring.  If so, how sleepy they would be next day,
and how absurd it was of Matilda to pretend she was tired!  Ruminating in
this way, and saying to herself that she hoped they would be happy, Anne
fell asleep.




XIX.  MISS JOHNSON'S BEHAVIOUR CAUSES NO LITTLE SURPRISE


Partly from the excitement of having his Matilda under the paternal roof,
Bob rose next morning as early as his father and the grinder, and, when
the big wheel began to patter and the little ones to mumble in response,
went to sun himself outside the mill-front, among the fowls of brown and
speckled kinds which haunted that spot, and the ducks that came up from
the mill-tail.

Standing on the worn-out mill-stone inlaid in the gravel, he talked with
his father on various improvements of the premises, and on the proposed
arrangements for his permanent residence there, with an enjoyment that
was half based upon this prospect of the future, and half on the
penetrating warmth of the sun to his back and shoulders.  Then the
different troops of horses began their morning scramble down to the mill-
pond, and, after making it very muddy round the edge, ascended the slope
again.  The bustle of the camp grew more and more audible, and presently
David came to say that breakfast was ready.

'Is Miss Johnson downstairs?' said the miller; and Bob listened for the
answer, looking at a blue sentinel aloft on the down.

'Not yet, maister,' said the excellent David.

'We'll wait till she's down,' said Loveday.  'When she is, let us know.'

David went indoors again, and Loveday and Bob continued their morning
survey by ascending into the mysterious quivering recesses of the mill,
and holding a discussion over a second pair of burr-stones, which had to
be re-dressed before they could be used again.  This and similar things
occupied nearly twenty minutes, and, looking from the window, the elder
of the two was reminded of the time of day by seeing Mrs. Garland's table-
cloth fluttering from her back door over the heads of a flock of pigeons
that had alighted for the crumbs.

'I suppose David can't find us,' he said, with a sense of hunger that was
not altogether strange to Bob.  He put out his head and shouted.

'The lady is not down yet,' said his man in reply.

'No hurry, no hurry,' said the miller, with cheerful emptiness.  'Bob, to
pass the time we'll look into the garden.'

'She'll get up sooner than this, you know, when she's signed articles and
got a berth here,' Bob observed apologetically.

'Yes, yes,' said Loveday; and they descended into the garden.

Here they turned over sundry flat stones and killed the slugs sheltered
beneath them from the coming heat of the day, talking of slugs in all
their branches--of the brown and the black, of the tough and the tender,
of the reason why there were so many in the garden that year, of the
coming time when the grass-walks harbouring them were to be taken up and
gravel laid, and of the relatively exterminatory merits of a pair of
scissors and the heel of the shoe.  At last the miller said, 'Well,
really, Bob, I'm hungry; we must begin without her.'

They were about to go in, when David appeared with haste in his motions,
his eyes wider vertically than crosswise, and his cheeks nearly all gone.

'Maister, I've been to call her; and as 'a didn't speak I rapped, and as
'a didn't answer I kicked, and not being latched the door opened,
and--she's gone!'

Bob went off like a swallow towards the house, and the miller followed
like the rather heavy man that he was.  That Miss Matilda was not in her
room, or a scrap of anything belonging to her, was soon apparent.  They
searched every place in which she could possibly hide or squeeze herself,
every place in which she could not, but found nothing at all.

Captain Bob was quite wild with astonishment and grief.  When he was
quite sure that she was nowhere in his father's house, he ran into Mrs.
Garland's, and telling them the story so hastily that they hardly
understood the particulars, he went on towards Comfort's house, intending
to raise the alarm there, and also at Mitchell's, Beach's,
Cripplestraw's, the parson's, the clerk's, the camp of dragoons, of
hussars, and so on through the whole county.  But he paused, and thought
it would be hardly expedient to publish his discomfiture in such a way.
If Matilda had left the house for any freakish reason he would not care
to look for her, and if her deed had a tragic intent she would keep aloof
from camp and village.

In his trouble he thought of Anne.  She was a nice girl and could be
trusted.  To her he went, and found her in a state of excitement and
anxiety which equalled his own.

''Tis so lonely to cruise for her all by myself!' said Bob
disconsolately, his forehead all in wrinkles, 'and I've thought you would
come with me and cheer the way?'

'Where shall we search?' said Anne.

'O, in the holes of rivers, you know, and down wells, and in quarries,
and over cliffs, and like that.  Your eyes might catch the loom of any
bit of a shawl or bonnet that I should overlook, and it would do me a
real service.  Please do come!'

So Anne took pity upon him, and put on her hat and went, the miller and
David having gone off in another direction.  They examined the ditches of
fields, Bob going round by one fence and Anne by the other, till they met
at the opposite side.  Then they peeped under culverts, into outhouses,
and down old wells and quarries, till the theory of a tragical end had
nearly spent its force in Bob's mind, and he began to think that Matilda
had simply run away.  However, they still walked on, though by this time
the sun was hot and Anne would gladly have sat down.

'Now, didn't you think highly of her, Miss Garland?' he inquired, as the
search began to languish.

'O yes,' said Anne, 'very highly.'

'She was really beautiful; no nonsense about her looks, was there?'

'None.  Her beauty was thoroughly ripe--not too young.  We should all
have got to love her.  What can have possessed her to go away?'

'I don't know, and, upon my life, I shall soon be drove to say I don't
care!' replied the mate despairingly.  'Let me pilot ye down over those
stones,' he added, as Anne began to descend a rugged quarry.  He stepped
forward, leapt down, and turned to her.

She gave him her hand and sprang down.  Before he relinquished his hold,
Captain Bob raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

'O, Captain Loveday!' cried Anne, snatching away her hand in genuine
dismay, while a tear rose unexpectedly to each eye.  'I never heard of
such a thing!  I won't go an inch further with you, sir; it is too
barefaced!'  And she turned and ran off.

'Upon my life I didn't mean it!' said the repentant captain, hastening
after.  'I do love her best--indeed I do--and I don't love you at all!  I
am not so fickle as that!  I merely just for the moment admired you as a
sweet little craft, and that's how I came to do it.  You know, Miss
Garland,' he continued earnestly, and still running after, ''tis like
this: when you come ashore after having been shut up in a ship for
eighteen months, women-folks seem so new and nice that you can't help
liking them, one and all in a body; and so your heart is apt to get
scattered and to yaw a bit; but of course I think of poor Matilda most,
and shall always stick to her.'  He heaved a sigh of tremendous
magnitude, to show beyond the possibility of doubt that his heart was
still in the place that honour required.

'I am glad to hear that--of course I am very glad!' said she, with quick
petulance, keeping her face turned from him.  'And I hope we shall find
her, and that the wedding will not be put off, and that you'll both be
happy.  But I won't look for her any more!  No; I don't care to look for
her--and my head aches.  I am going home!'

'And so am I,' said Robert promptly.

'No, no; go on looking for her, of course--all the afternoon, and all
night.  I am sure you will, if you love her.'

'O yes; I mean to.  Still, I ought to convoy you home first?'

'No, you ought not; and I shall not accept your company.  Good-morning,
sir!'  And she went off over one of the stone stiles with which the spot
abounded, leaving the friendly sailor standing in the field.

He sighed again, and, observing the camp not far off, thought he would go
to his brother John and ask him his opinion on the sorrowful case.  On
reaching the tents he found that John was not at liberty just at that
time, being engaged in practising the trumpeters; and leaving word that
he wished the trumpet-major to come down to the mill as soon as possible,
Bob went back again.

''Tis no good looking for her,' he said gloomily.  'She liked me well
enough, but when she came here and saw the house, and the place, and the
old horse, and the plain furniture, she was disappointed to find us all
so homely, and felt she didn't care to marry into such a family!'

His father and David had returned with no news.

'Yes, 'tis as I've been thinking, father,' Bob said.  'We weren't good
enough for her, and she went away in scorn!'

'Well, that can't be helped,' said the miller.  'What we be, we be, and
have been for generations.  To my mind she seemed glad enough to get hold
of us!'

'Yes, yes--for the moment--because of the flowers, and birds, and what's
pretty in the place,' said Bob tragically.  'But you don't know,
father--how should you know, who have hardly been out of Overcombe in
your life?--you don't know what delicate feelings are in a real refined
woman's mind.  Any little vulgar action unreaves their nerves like a
marline-spike.  Now I wonder if you did anything to disgust her?'

'Faith! not that I know of,' said Loveday, reflecting.  'I didn't say a
single thing that I should naturally have said, on purpose to give no
offence.'

'You was always very homely, you know, father.'

'Yes; so I was,' said the miller meekly.

'I wonder what it could have been,' Bob continued, wandering about
restlessly.  'You didn't go drinking out of the big mug with your mouth
full, or wipe your lips with your sleeve?'

'That I'll swear I didn't!' said the miller firmly.  'Thinks I, there's
no knowing what I may do to shock her, so I'll take my solid victuals in
the bakehouse, and only a crumb and a drop in her company for manners.'

'You could do no more than that, certainly,' said Bob gently.

'If my manners be good enough for well-brought-up people like the
Garlands, they be good enough for her,' continued the miller, with a
sense of injustice.

'That's true.  Then it must have been David.  David, come here!  How did
you behave before that lady?  Now, mind you speak the truth!'

'Yes, Mr. Captain Robert,' said David earnestly.  'I assure ye she was
served like a royal queen.  The best silver spoons wez put down, and yer
poor grandfer's silver tanket, as you seed, and the feather cushion for
her to sit on--'

'Now I've got it!' said Bob decisively, bringing down his hand upon the
window-sill.  'Her bed was hard!--and there's nothing shocks a true lady
like that.  The bed in that room always was as hard as the Rock of
Gibraltar!'

'No, Captain Bob!  The beds were changed--wasn't they maister?  We put
the goose bed in her room, and the flock one, that used to be there, in
yours.'

'Yes, we did,' corroborated the miller.  'David and I changed 'em with
our own hands, because they were too heavy for the women to move.'

'Sure I didn't know I had the flock bed,' murmured Bob.  'I slept on,
little thinking what I was going to wake to.  Well, well, she's gone; and
search as I will I shall never find another like her!  She was too good
for me.  She must have carried her box with her own hands, poor girl.  As
far as that goes, I could overtake her even now, I dare say; but I won't
entreat her against her will--not I.'

Miller Loveday and David, feeling themselves to be rather a desecration
in the presence of Bob's sacred emotions, managed to edge off by degrees,
the former burying himself in the most floury recesses of the mill, his
invariable resource when perturbed, the rumbling having a soothing effect
upon the nerves of those properly trained to its music.

Bob was so impatient that, after going up to her room to assure himself
once more that she had not undressed, but had only lain down on the
outside of the bed, he went out of the house to meet John, and waited on
the sunny slope of the down till his brother appeared.  John looked so
brave and shapely and warlike that, even in Bob's present distress, he
could not but feel an honest and affectionate pride at owning such a
relative.  Yet he fancied that John did not come along with the same
swinging step he had shown yesterday; and when the trumpet-major got
nearer he looked anxiously at the mate and waited for him to speak first.

'You know our great trouble, John?' said Robert, gazing stoically into
his brother's eyes.

'Come and sit down, and tell me all about it,' answered the
trumpet-major, showing no surprise.

They went towards a slight ravine, where it was easier to sit down than
on the flat ground, and here John reclined among the grasshoppers,
pointing to his brother to do the same.

'But do you know what it is?' said Robert.  'Has anybody told ye?'

'I do know,' said John.  'She's gone; and I am thankful!'

'What!' said Bob, rising to his knees in amazement.

'I'm at the bottom of it,' said the trumpet-major slowly.

'You, John?'

'Yes; and if you will listen I'll tell you all.  Do you remember what
happened when I came into the room last night?  Why, she turned colour
and nearly fainted away.  That was because she knew me.'

Bob stared at his brother with a face of pain and distrust.

'For once, Bob, I must say something that will hurt thee a good deal,'
continued John.  'She was not a woman who could possibly be your wife--and
so she's gone.'

'You sent her off?'

'Well, I did.'

'John!--Tell me right through--tell me!'

'Perhaps I had better,' said the trumpet-major, his blue eyes resting on
the far distant sea, that seemed to rise like a wall as high as the hill
they sat upon.

And then he told a tale of Miss Johnson and the --th Dragoons which wrung
his heart as much in the telling as it did Bob's to hear, and which
showed that John had been temporarily cruel to be ultimately kind.  Even
Bob, excited as he was, could discern from John's manner of speaking what
a terrible undertaking that night's business had been for him.  To
justify the course he had adopted the dictates of duty must have been
imperative; but the trumpet-major, with a becoming reticence which his
brother at the time was naturally unable to appreciate, scarcely dwelt
distinctly enough upon the compelling cause of his conduct.  It would,
indeed, have been hard for any man, much less so modest a one as John, to
do himself justice in that remarkable relation, when the listener was the
lady's lover; and it is no wonder that Robert rose to his feet and put a
greater distance between himself and John.

'And what time was it?' he asked in a hard, suppressed voice.

'It was just before one o'clock.'

'How could you help her to go away?'

'I had a pass.  I carried her box to the coach-office.  She was to follow
at dawn.'

'But she had no money.'

'Yes, she had; I took particular care of that.'  John did not add, as he
might have done, that he had given her, in his pity, all the money he
possessed, and at present had only eighteen-pence in the world.  'Well,
it is over, Bob; so sit ye down, and talk with me of old times,' he
added.

'Ah, Jack, it is well enough for you to speak like that,' said the
disquieted sailor; 'but I can't help feeling that it is a cruel thing you
have done.  After all, she would have been snug enough for me.  Would I
had never found out this about her!  John, why did you interfere?  You
had no right to overhaul my affairs like this.  Why didn't you tell me
fairly all you knew, and let me do as I chose?  You have turned her out
of the house, and it's a shame!  If she had only come to me!  Why didn't
she?'

'Because she knew it was best to do otherwise.'

'Well, I shall go after her,' said Bob firmly.

'You can do as you like,' said John; 'but I would advise you strongly to
leave matters where they are.'

'I won't leave matters where they are,' said Bob impetuously.  'You have
made me miserable, and all for nothing.  I tell you she was good enough
for me; and as long as I knew nothing about what you say of her history,
what difference would it have made to me?  Never was there a young woman
who was better company; and she loved a merry song as I do myself.  Yes,
I'll follow her.'

'O, Bob,' said John; 'I hardly expected this!'

'That's because you didn't know your man.  Can I ask you to do me one
kindness?  I don't suppose I can.  Can I ask you not to say a word
against her to any of them at home?'

'Certainly.  The very reason why I got her to go off silently, as she has
done, was because nothing should be said against her here, and no scandal
should be heard of.'

'That may be; but I'm off after her.  Marry that girl I will.'

'You'll be sorry.'

'That we shall see,' replied Robert with determination; and he went away
rapidly towards the mill.  The trumpet-major had no heart to follow--no
good could possibly come of further opposition; and there on the down he
remained like a graven image till Bob had vanished from his sight into
the mill.

Bob entered his father's only to leave word that he was going on a
renewed search for Matilda, and to pack up a few necessaries for his
journey.  Ten minutes later he came out again with a bundle in his hand,
and John saw him go diagonally across the lower fields towards the high-
road.

'And this is all the good I have done!' said John, musingly readjusting
his stock where it cut his neck, and descending towards the mill.




XX.  HOW THEY LESSENED THE EFFECT OF THE CALAMITY


Meanwhile Anne Garland had gone home, and, being weary with her ramble in
search of Matilda, sat silent in a corner of the room.  Her mother was
passing the time in giving utterance to every conceivable surmise on the
cause of Miss Johnson's disappearance that the human mind could frame, to
which Anne returned monosyllabic answers, the result, not of
indifference, but of intense preoccupation.  Presently Loveday, the
father, came to the door; her mother vanished with him, and they remained
closeted together a long time.  Anne went into the garden and seated
herself beneath the branching tree whose boughs had sheltered her during
so many hours of her residence here.  Her attention was fixed more upon
the miller's wing of the irregular building before her than upon that
occupied by her mother, for she could not help expecting every moment to
see some one run out with a wild face and announce some awful clearing up
of the mystery.

Every sound set her on the alert, and hearing the tread of a horse in the
lane she looked round eagerly.  Gazing at her over the hedge was Festus
Derriman, mounted on such an incredibly tall animal that he could see to
her very feet over the thick and broad thorn fence.  She no sooner
recognized him than she withdrew her glance; but as his eyes were fixed
steadily upon her this was a futile manoeuvre.

'I saw you look round!' he exclaimed crossly.  'What have I done to make
you behave like that?  Come, Miss Garland, be fair.  'Tis no use to turn
your back upon me.'  As she did not turn he went on--'Well, now, this is
enough to provoke a saint.  Now I tell you what, Miss Garland; here I'll
stay till you do turn round, if 'tis all the afternoon.  You know my
temper--what I say I mean.'  He seated himself firmly in the saddle,
plucked some leaves from the hedge, and began humming a song, to show how
absolutely indifferent he was to the flight of time.

'What have you come for, that you are so anxious to see me?' inquired
Anne, when at last he had wearied her patience, rising and facing him
with the added independence which came from a sense of the hedge between
them.

'There, I knew you would turn round!' he said, his hot angry face invaded
by a smile in which his teeth showed like white hemmed in by red at
chess.

'What do you want, Mr. Derriman?' said she.

'"What do you want, Mr. Derriman?"--now listen to that!  Is that my
encouragement?'

Anne bowed superciliously, and moved away.

'I have just heard news that explains all that,' said the giant, eyeing
her movements with somnolent irascibility.  'My uncle has been letting
things out.  He was here late last night, and he saw you.'

'Indeed he didn't,' said Anne.

'O, now!  He saw Trumpet-major Loveday courting somebody like you in that
garden walk; and when he came you ran indoors.'

'It is not true, and I wish to hear no more.'

'Upon my life, he said so!  How can you do it, Miss Garland, when I, who
have enough money to buy up all the Lovedays, would gladly come to terms
with ye?  What a simpleton you must be, to pass me over for him!  There,
now you are angry because I said simpleton!--I didn't mean simpleton, I
meant misguided--misguided rosebud!  That's it--run off,' he continued in
a raised voice, as Anne made towards the garden door.  'But I'll have you
yet.  Much reason you have to be too proud to stay with me.  But it won't
last long; I shall marry you, madam, if I choose, as you'll see.'

When he was quite gone, and Anne had calmed down from the not altogether
unrelished fear and excitement that he always caused her, she returned to
her seat under the tree, and began to wonder what Festus Derriman's story
meant, which, from the earnestness of his tone, did not seem like a pure
invention.  It suddenly flashed upon her mind that she herself had heard
voices in the garden, and that the persons seen by Farmer Derriman, of
whose visit and reclamation of his box the miller had told her, might
have been Matilda and John Loveday.  She further recalled the strange
agitation of Miss Johnson on the preceding evening, and that it occurred
just at the entry of the dragoon, till by degrees suspicion amounted to
conviction that he knew more than any one else supposed of that lady's
disappearance.

It was just at this time that the trumpet-major descended to the mill
after his talk with his brother on the down.  As fate would have it,
instead of entering the house he turned aside to the garden and walked
down that pleasant enclosure, to learn if he were likely to find in the
other half of it the woman he loved so well.

Yes, there she was, sitting on the seat of logs that he had repaired for
her, under the apple-tree; but she was not facing in his direction.  He
walked with a noisier tread, he coughed, he shook a bough, he did
everything, in short, but the one thing that Festus did in the same
circumstances--call out to her.  He would not have ventured on that for
the world.  Any of his signs would have been sufficient to attract her a
day or two earlier; now she would not turn.  At last, in his fond
anxiety, he did what he had never done before without an invitation, and
crossed over into Mrs. Garland's half of the garden, till he stood before
her.

When she could not escape him she arose, and, saying 'Good afternoon,
trumpet-major,' in a glacial manner unusual with her, walked away to
another part of the garden.

Loveday, quite at a loss, had not the strength of mind to persevere
further.  He had a vague apprehension that some imperfect knowledge of
the previous night's unhappy business had reached her; and, unable to
remedy the evil without telling more than he dared, he went into the
mill, where his father still was, looking doleful enough, what with his
concern at events and the extra quantity of flour upon his face through
sticking so closely to business that day.

'Well, John; Bob has told you all, of course?  A queer, strange,
perplexing thing, isn't it?  I can't make it out at all.  There must be
something wrong in the woman, or it couldn't have happened.  I haven't
been so upset for years.'

'Nor have I.  I wouldn't it should have happened for all I own in the
world,' said the dragoon.  'Have you spoke to Anne Garland to-day--or has
anybody been talking to her?'

'Festus Derriman rode by half-an-hour ago, and talked to her over the
hedge.'

John guessed the rest, and, after standing on the threshold in silence
awhile, walked away towards the camp.

All this time his brother Robert had been hastening along in pursuit of
the woman who had withdrawn from the scene to avoid the exposure and
complete overthrow which would have resulted had she remained.  As the
distance lengthened between himself and the mill, Bob was conscious of
some cooling down of the excitement that had prompted him to set out; but
he did not pause in his walk till he had reached the head of the river
which fed the mill-stream.  Here, for some indefinite reason, he allowed
his eyes to be attracted by the bubbling spring whose waters never failed
or lessened, and he stopped as if to look longer at the scene; it was
really because his mind was so absorbed by John's story.

The sun was warm, the spot was a pleasant one, and he deposited his
bundle and sat down.  By degrees, as he reflected, first on John's view
and then on his own, his convictions became unsettled; till at length he
was so balanced between the impulse to go on and the impulse to go back,
that a puff of wind either way would have been well-nigh sufficient to
decide for him.  When he allowed John's story to repeat itself in his
ears, the reasonableness and good sense of his advice seemed beyond
question.  When, on the other hand, he thought of his poor Matilda's
eyes, and her, to him, pleasant ways, their charming arrangements to
marry, and her probable willingness still, he could hardly bring himself
to do otherwise than follow on the road at the top of his speed.

This strife of thought was so well maintained that sitting and standing,
he remained on the borders of the spring till the shadows had stretched
out eastwards, and the chance of overtaking Matilda had grown
considerably less.  Still he did not positively go towards home.  At last
he took a guinea from his pocket, and resolved to put the question to the
hazard.  'Heads I go; tails I don't.'  The piece of gold spun in the air
and came down heads.

'No, I won't go, after all,' he said.  'I won't be steered by accidents
any more.'

He picked up his bundle and switch, and retraced his steps towards
Overcombe Mill, knocking down the brambles and nettles as he went with
gloomy and indifferent blows.  When he got within sight of the house he
beheld David in the road.

'All right--all right again, captain!', shouted that retainer.  'A
wedding after all!  Hurrah!'

'Ah--she's back again?' cried Bob, seizing David, ecstatically, and
dancing round with him.

'No--but it's all the same! it is of no consequence at all, and no harm
will be done!  Maister and Mrs. Garland have made up a match, and mean to
marry at once, that the wedding victuals may not be wasted!  They felt
'twould be a thousand pities to let such good things get blue-vinnied for
want of a ceremony to use 'em upon, and at last they have thought of
this.'

'Victuals--I don't care for the victuals!' bitterly cried Bob, in a tone
of far higher thought.  'How you disappoint me!' and he went slowly
towards the house.

His father appeared in the opening of the mill-door, looking more
cheerful than when they had parted.  'What, Robert, you've been after
her?' he said.  'Faith, then, I wouldn't have followed her if I had been
as sure as you were that she went away in scorn of us.  Since you told me
that, I have not looked for her at all.'

'I was wrong, father,' Bob replied gravely, throwing down his bundle and
stick.  'Matilda, I find, has not gone away in scorn of us; she has gone
away for other reasons.  I followed her some way; but I have come back
again.  She may go.'

'Why is she gone?' said the astonished miller.

Bob had intended, for Matilda's sake, to give no reason to a living soul
for her departure.  But he could not treat his father thus reservedly;
and he told.

'She has made great fools of us,' said the miller deliberately; 'and she
might have made us greater ones.  Bob, I thought th' hadst more sense.'

'Well, don't say anything against her, father,' implored Bob.  ''Twas a
sorry haul, and there's an end on't.  Let her down quietly, and keep the
secret.  You promise that?'

'I do.'  Loveday the elder remained thinking awhile, and then went
on--'Well, what I was going to say is this: I've hit upon a plan to get
out of the awkward corner she has put us in.  What you'll think of it I
can't say.'

'David has just given me the heads.'

'And do it hurt your feelings, my son, at such a time?'

'No--I'll bring myself to bear it, anyhow!  Why should I object to other
people's happiness because I have lost my own?' said Bob, with saintly
self-sacrifice in his air.

'Well said!' answered the miller heartily.  'But you may be sure that
there will be no unseemly rejoicing, to disturb ye in your present frame
of mind.  All the morning I felt more ashamed than I cared to own at the
thought of how the neighbours, great and small, would laugh at what they
would call your folly, when they knew what had happened; so I resolved to
take this step to stave it off, if so be 'twas possible.  And when I saw
Mrs. Garland I knew I had done right.  She pitied me so much for having
had the house cleaned in vain, and laid in provisions to waste, that it
put her into the humour to agree.  We mean to do it right off at once,
afore the pies and cakes get mouldy and the blackpot stale.  'Twas a good
thought of mine and hers, and I am glad 'tis settled,' he concluded
cheerfully.

'Poor Matilda!' murmured Bob.

'There--I was afraid 'twould hurt thy feelings,' said the miller, with
self-reproach: 'making preparations for thy wedding, and using them for
my own!'

'No,' said Bob heroically; 'it shall not.  It will be a great comfort in
my sorrow to feel that the splendid grub, and the ale, and your stunning
new suit of clothes, and the great table-cloths you've bought, will be
just as useful now as if I had married myself.  Poor Matilda!  But you
won't expect me to join in--you hardly can.  I can sheer off that day
very easily, you know.'

'Nonsense, Bob!' said the miller reproachfully.

'I couldn't stand it--I should break down.'

'Deuce take me if I would have asked her, then, if I had known 'twas
going to drive thee out of the house!  Now, come, Bob, I'll find a way of
arranging it and sobering it down, so that it shall be as melancholy as
you can require--in short, just like a funeral, if thou'lt promise to
stay?'

'Very well,' said the afflicted one.  'On that condition I'll stay.'




XXI.  'UPON THE HILL HE TURNED'


Having entered into this solemn compact with his son, the elder Loveday's
next action was to go to Mrs. Garland, and ask her how the toning down of
the wedding had best be done.  'It is plain enough that to make merry
just now would be slighting Bob's feelings, as if we didn't care who was
not married, so long as we were,' he said.  'But then, what's to be done
about the victuals?'

'Give a dinner to the poor folk,' she suggested.  'We can get everything
used up that way.'

'That's true' said the miller.  'There's enough of 'em in these times to
carry off any extras whatsoever.'

'And it will save Bob's feelings wonderfully.  And they won't know that
the dinner was got for another sort of wedding and another sort of
guests; so you'll have their good-will for nothing.'

The miller smiled at the subtlety of the view.  'That can hardly be
called fair,' he said.  'Still, I did mean some of it for them, for the
friends we meant to ask would not have cleared all.'

Upon the whole the idea pleased him well, particularly when he noticed
the forlorn look of his sailor son as he walked about the place, and
pictured the inevitably jarring effect of fiddles and tambourines upon
Bob's shattered nerves at such a crisis, even if the notes of the former
were dulled by the application of a mute, and Bob shut up in a distant
bedroom--a plan which had at first occurred to him.  He therefore told
Bob that the surcharged larder was to be emptied by the charitable
process above alluded to, and hoped he would not mind making himself
useful in such a good and gloomy work.  Bob readily fell in with the
scheme, and it was at once put in hand and the tables spread.

The alacrity with which the substituted wedding was carried out, seemed
to show that the worthy pair of neighbours would have joined themselves
into one long ago, had there previously occurred any domestic incident
dictating such a step as an apposite expedient, apart from their personal
wish to marry.

The appointed morning came, and the service quietly took place at the
cheerful hour of ten, in the face of a triangular congregation, of which
the base was the front pew, and the apex the west door.  Mrs. Garland
dressed herself in the muslin shawl like Queen Charlotte's, that Bob had
brought home, and her best plum-coloured gown, beneath which peeped out
her shoes with red rosettes.  Anne was present, but she considerately
toned herself down, so as not to too seriously damage her mother's
appearance.  At moments during the ceremony she had a distressing sense
that she ought not to be born, and was glad to get home again.

The interest excited in the village, though real, was hardly enough to
bring a serious blush to the face of coyness.  Neighbours' minds had
become so saturated by the abundance of showy military and regal incident
lately vouchsafed to them, that the wedding of middle-aged civilians was
of small account, excepting in so far that it solved the question whether
or not Mrs. Garland would consider herself too genteel to mate with a
grinder of corn.

In the evening, Loveday's heart was made glad by seeing the baked and
boiled in rapid process of consumption by the kitchenful of people
assembled for that purpose.  Three-quarters of an hour were sufficient to
banish for ever his fears as to spoilt food.  The provisions being the
cause of the assembly, and not its consequence, it had been determined to
get all that would not keep consumed on that day, even if highways and
hedges had to be searched for operators.  And, in addition to the poor
and needy, every cottager's daughter known to the miller was invited, and
told to bring her lover from camp--an expedient which, for letting
daylight into the inside of full platters, was among the most happy ever
known.

While Mr. and Mrs. Loveday, Anne, and Bob were standing in the parlour,
discussing the progress of the entertainment in the next room, John, who
had not been down all day, entered the house and looked in upon them
through the open door.

'How's this, John?  Why didn't you come before?'

'Had to see the captain, and--other duties,' said the trumpet-major, in a
tone which showed no great zeal for explanations.

'Well, come in, however,' continued the miller, as his son remained with
his hand on the door-post, surveying them reflectively.

'I cannot stay long,' said John, advancing.  'The Route is come, and we
are going away.'

'Going away!  Where to?'

'To Exonbury.'

'When?'

'Friday morning.'

'All of you?'

'Yes; some to-morrow and some next day.  The King goes next week.'

'I am sorry for this,' said the miller, not expressing half his sorrow by
the simple utterance.  'I wish you could have been here to-day, since
this is the case,' he added, looking at the horizon through the window.

Mrs. Loveday also expressed her regret, which seemed to remind the
trumpet-major of the event of the day, and he went to her and tried to
say something befitting the occasion.  Anne had not said that she was
either sorry or glad, but John Loveday fancied that she had looked rather
relieved than otherwise when she heard his news.  His conversation with
Bob on the down made Bob's manner, too, remarkably cool, notwithstanding
that he had after all followed his brother's advice, which it was as yet
too soon after the event for him to rightly value.  John did not know why
the sailor had come back, never supposing that it was because he had
thought better of going, and said to him privately, 'You didn't overtake
her?'

'I didn't try to,' said Bob.

'And you are not going to?'

'No; I shall let her drift.'

'I am glad indeed, Bob; you have been wise,' said John heartily.

Bob, however, still loved Matilda too well to be other than dissatisfied
with John and the event that he had precipitated, which the elder brother
only too promptly perceived; and it made his stay that evening of short
duration.  Before leaving he said with some hesitation to his father,
including Anne and her mother by his glance, 'Do you think to come up and
see us off?'

The miller answered for them all, and said that of course they would
come.  'But you'll step down again between now and then?' he inquired.

'I'll try to.'  He added after a pause, 'In case I should not, remember
that Revalley will sound at half past five; we shall leave about eight.
Next summer, perhaps, we shall come and camp here again.'

'I hope so,' said his father and Mrs. Loveday.

There was something in John's manner which indicated to Anne that he
scarcely intended to come down again; but the others did not notice it,
and she said nothing.  He departed a few minutes later, in the dusk of
the August evening, leaving Anne still in doubt as to the meaning of his
private meeting with Miss Johnson.

John Loveday had been going to tell them that on the last night, by an
especial privilege, it would be in his power to come and stay with them
until eleven o'clock, but at the moment of leaving he abandoned the
intention.  Anne's attitude had chilled him, and made him anxious to be
off.  He utilized the spare hours of that last night in another way.

This was by coming down from the outskirts of the camp in the evening,
and seating himself near the brink of the mill-pond as soon as it was
quite dark; where he watched the lights in the different windows till one
appeared in Anne's bedroom, and she herself came forward to shut the
casement, with the candle in her hand.  The light shone out upon the
broad and deep mill-head, illuminating to a distinct individuality every
moth and gnat that entered the quivering chain of radiance stretching
across the water towards him, and every bubble or atom of froth that
floated into its width.  She stood for some time looking out, little
thinking what the darkness concealed on the other side of that wide
stream; till at length she closed the casement, drew the curtains, and
retreated into the room.  Presently the light went out, upon which John
Loveday returned to camp and lay down in his tent.

The next morning was dull and windy, and the trumpets of the --th sounded
Reveille for the last time on Overcombe Down.  Knowing that the Dragoons
were going away, Anne had slept heedfully, and was at once awakened by
the smart notes.  She looked out of the window, to find that the miller
was already astir, his white form being visible at the end of his garden,
where he stood motionless, watching the preparations.  Anne also looked
on as well as she could through the dim grey gloom, and soon she saw the
blue smoke from the cooks' fires creeping fitfully along the ground,
instead of rising in vertical columns, as it had done during the fine
weather season.  Then the men began to carry their bedding to the
waggons, and others to throw all refuse into the trenches, till the down
was lively as an ant-hill.  Anne did not want to see John Loveday again,
but hearing the household astir, she began to dress at leisure, looking
out at the camp the while.

When the soldiers had breakfasted, she saw them selling and giving away
their superfluous crockery to the natives who had clustered round; and
then they pulled down and cleared away the temporary kitchens which they
had constructed when they came.  A tapping of tent-pegs and wriggling of
picket-posts followed, and soon the cones of white canvas, now almost
become a component part of the landscape, fell to the ground.  At this
moment the miller came indoors and asked at the foot of the stairs if
anybody was going up the hill with him.

Anne felt that, in spite of the cloud hanging over John in her mind, it
would ill become the present moment not to see him off, and she went
downstairs to her mother, who was already there, though Bob was nowhere
to be seen.  Each took an arm of the miller, and thus climbed to the top
of the hill.  By this time the men and horses were at the place of
assembly, and, shortly after the mill-party reached level ground, the
troops slowly began to move forward.  When the trumpet-major, half buried
in his uniform, arms, and horse-furniture, drew near to the spot where
the Lovedays were waiting to see him pass, his father turned anxiously to
Anne and said, 'You will shake hands with John?'

Anne faintly replied 'Yes,' and allowed the miller to take her forward on
his arm to the trackway, so as to be close to the flank of the
approaching column.  It came up, many people on each side grasping the
hands of the troopers in bidding them farewell; and as soon as John
Loveday saw the members of his father's household, he stretched down his
hand across his right pistol for the same performance.  The miller gave
his, then Mrs. Loveday gave hers, and then the hand of the trumpet-major
was extended towards Anne.  But as the horse did not absolutely stop, it
was a somewhat awkward performance for a young woman to undertake, and,
more on that account than on any other, Anne drew back, and the gallant
trooper passed by without receiving her adieu.  Anne's heart reproached
her for a moment; and then she thought that, after all, he was not going
off to immediate battle, and that she would in all probability see him
again at no distant date, when she hoped that the mystery of his conduct
would be explained.  Her thoughts were interrupted by a voice at her
elbow: 'Thank heaven, he's gone!  Now there's a chance for me.'

She turned, and Festus Derriman was standing by her.

'There's no chance for you,' she said indignantly.

'Why not?'

'Because there's another left!'

The words had slipped out quite unintentionally, and she blushed quickly.
She would have given anything to be able to recall them; but he had
heard, and said, 'Who?'

Anne went forward to the miller to avoid replying, and Festus caught her
no more.

'Has anybody been hanging about Overcombe Mill except Loveday's son the
soldier?' he asked of a comrade.

'His son the sailor,' was the reply.

'O--his son the sailor,' said Festus slowly.  'Damn his son the sailor!'




XXII.  THE TWO HOUSEHOLDS UNITED


At this particular moment the object of Festus Derriman's fulmination was
assuredly not dangerous as a rival.  Bob, after abstractedly watching the
soldiers from the front of the house till they were out of sight, had
gone within doors and seated himself in the mill-parlour, where his
father found him, his elbows resting on the table and his forehead on his
hands, his eyes being fixed upon a document that lay open before him.

'What art perusing, Bob, with such a long face?'

Bob sighed, and then Mrs. Loveday and Anne entered.  ''Tis only a state-
paper that I fondly thought I should have a use for,' he said gloomily.
And, looking down as before, he cleared his voice, as if moved inwardly
to go on, and began to read in feeling tones from what proved to be his
nullified marriage licence:--

'"Timothy Titus Philemon, by permission Bishop of Bristol: To our well-
beloved Robert Loveday, of the parish of Overcombe, Bachelor; and Matilda
Johnson, of the same parish, Spinster.  Greeting."'

Here Anne sighed, but contrived to keep down her sigh to a mere nothing.

'Beautiful language, isn't it!' said Bob.  'I was never greeted like that
afore!'

'Yes; I have often thought it very excellent language myself,' said Mrs.
Loveday.

'Come to that, the old gentleman will greet thee like it again any day
for a couple of guineas,' said the miller.

'That's not the point, father!  You never could see the real meaning of
these things. . . .  Well, then he goes on: "Whereas ye are, as it is
alleged, determined to enter into the holy estate of matrimony--"  But
why should I read on?  It all means nothing now--nothing, and the
splendid words are all wasted upon air.  It seems as if I had been hailed
by some venerable hoary prophet, and had turned away, put the helm hard
up, and wouldn't hear.'

Nobody replied, feeling probably that sympathy could not meet the case,
and Bob went on reading the rest of it to himself, occasionally heaving a
breath like the wind in a ship's shrouds.

'I wouldn't set my mind so much upon her, if I was thee,' said his father
at last.

'Why not?'

'Well, folk might call thee a fool, and say thy brains were turning to
water.'

Bob was apparently much struck by this thought, and, instead of
continuing the discourse further, he carefully folded up the licence,
went out, and walked up and down the garden.  It was startlingly apt what
his father had said; and, worse than that, what people would call him
might be true, and the liquefaction of his brains turn out to be no
fable.  By degrees he became much concerned, and the more he examined
himself by this new light the more clearly did he perceive that he was in
a very bad way.

On reflection he remembered that since Miss Johnson's departure his
appetite had decreased amazingly.  He had eaten in meat no more than
fourteen or fifteen ounces a day, but one-third of a quartern pudding on
an average, in vegetables only a small heap of potatoes and half a York
cabbage, and no gravy whatever; which, considering the usual appetite of
a seaman for fresh food at the end of a long voyage, was no small index
of the depression of his mind.  Then he had waked once every night, and
on one occasion twice.  While dressing each morning since the gloomy day
he had not whistled more than seven bars of a hornpipe without stopping
and falling into thought of a most painful kind; and he had told none but
absolutely true stories of foreign parts to the neighbouring villagers
when they saluted and clustered about him, as usual, for anything he
chose to pour forth--except that story of the whale whose eye was about
as large as the round pond in Derriman's ewe-lease--which was like
tempting fate to set a seal for ever upon his tongue as a traveller.  All
this enervation, mental and physical, had been produced by Matilda's
departure.

He also considered what he had lost of the rational amusements of manhood
during these unfortunate days.  He might have gone to the neighbouring
fashionable resort every afternoon, stood before Gloucester Lodge till
the King and Queen came out, held his hat in his hand, and enjoyed their
Majesties' smiles at his homage all for nothing--watched the
picket-mounting, heard the different bands strike up, observed the staff;
and, above all, have seen the pretty town girls go trip-trip-trip along
the esplanade, deliberately fixing their innocent eyes on the distant
sea, the grey cliffs, and the sky, and accidentally on the soldiers and
himself.

'I'll raze out her image,' he said.  'She shall make a fool of me no
more.'  And his resolve resulted in conduct which had elements of real
greatness.

He went back to his father, whom he found in the mill-loft.  ''Tis true,
father, what you say,' he observed: 'my brains will turn to bilge-water
if I think of her much longer.  By the oath of a--navigator, I wish I
could sigh less and laugh more! She's gone--why can't I let her go, and
be happy?  But how begin?'

'Take it careless, my son,' said the miller, 'and lay yourself out to
enjoy snacks and cordials.'

'Ah--that's a thought!' said Bob.

'Baccy is good for't.  So is sperrits.  Though I don't advise thee to
drink neat.'

'Baccy--I'd almost forgot it!' said Captain Loveday.

He went to his room, hastily untied the package of tobacco that he had
brought home, and began to make use of it in his own way, calling to
David for a bottle of the old household mead that had lain in the cellar
these eleven years.  He was discovered by his father three-quarters of an
hour later as a half-invisible object behind a cloud of smoke.

The miller drew a breath of relief.  'Why, Bob,' he said, 'I thought the
house was a-fire!'

'I'm smoking rather fast to drown my reflections, father.  'Tis no use to
chaw.'

To tempt his attenuated appetite the unhappy mate made David cook an
omelet and bake a seed-cake, the latter so richly compounded that it
opened to the knife like a freckled buttercup.  With the same object he
stuck night-lines into the banks of the mill-pond, and drew up next
morning a family of fat eels, some of which were skinned and prepared for
his breakfast.  They were his favourite fish, but such had been his
condition that, until the moment of making this effort, he had quite
forgotten their existence at his father's back-door.

In a few days Bob Loveday had considerably improved in tone and vigour.
One other obvious remedy for his dejection was to indulge in the society
of Miss Garland, love being so much more effectually got rid of by
displacement than by attempted annihilation.  But Loveday's belief that
he had offended her beyond forgiveness, and his ever-present sense of her
as a woman who by education and antecedents was fitted to adorn a higher
sphere than his own, effectually kept him from going near her for a long
time, notwithstanding that they were inmates of one house.  The reserve
was, however, in some degree broken by the appearance one morning, later
in the season, of the point of a saw through the partition which divided
Anne's room from the Loveday half of the house.  Though she dined and
supped with her mother and the Loveday family, Miss Garland had still
continued to occupy her old apartments, because she found it more
convenient there to pursue her hobbies of wool-work and of copying her
father's old pictures.  The division wall had not as yet been broken
down.

As the saw worked its way downwards under her astonished gaze Anne jumped
up from her drawing; and presently the temporary canvasing and papering
which had sealed up the old door of communication was cut completely
through.  The door burst open, and Bob stood revealed on the other side,
with the saw in his hand.

'I beg your ladyship's pardon,' he said, taking off the hat he had been
working in, as his handsome face expanded into a smile.  'I didn't know
this door opened into your private room.'

'Indeed, Captain Loveday!'

'I am pulling down the division on principle, as we are now one family.
But I really thought the door opened into your passage.'

'It don't matter; I can get another room.'

'Not at all.  Father wouldn't let me turn you out.  I'll close it up
again.'

But Anne was so interested in the novelty of a new doorway that she
walked through it, and found herself in a dark low passage which she had
never seen before.

'It leads to the mill,' said Bob.  'Would you like to go in and see it at
work?  But perhaps you have already.'

'Only into the ground floor.'

'Come all over it.  I am practising as grinder, you know, to help my
father.'

She followed him along the dark passage, in the side of which he opened a
little trap, when she saw a great slimy cavern, where the long arms of
the mill-wheel flung themselves slowly and distractedly round, and
splashing water-drops caught the little light that strayed into the
gloomy place, turning it into stars and flashes.  A cold mist-laden puff
of air came into their faces, and the roar from within made it necessary
for Anne to shout as she said, 'It is dismal! let us go on.'

Bob shut the trap, the roar ceased, and they went on to the inner part of
the mill, where the air was warm and nutty, and pervaded by a fog of
flour.  Then they ascended the stairs, and saw the stones lumbering round
and round, and the yellow corn running down through the hopper.  They
climbed yet further to the top stage, where the wheat lay in bins, and
where long rays like feelers stretched in from the sun through the little
window, got nearly lost among cobwebs and timber, and completed their
course by marking the opposite wall with a glowing patch of gold.

In his earnestness as an exhibitor Bob opened the bolter, which was
spinning rapidly round, the result being that a dense cloud of flour
rolled out in their faces, reminding Anne that her complexion was
probably much paler by this time than when she had entered the mill.  She
thanked her companion for his trouble, and said she would now go down.  He
followed her with the same deference as hitherto, and with a sudden and
increasing sense that of all cures for his former unhappy passion this
would have been the nicest, the easiest, and the most effectual, if he
had only been fortunate enough to keep her upon easy terms.  But Miss
Garland showed no disposition to go further than accept his services as a
guide; she descended to the open air, shook the flour from her like a
bird, and went on into the garden amid the September sunshine, whose rays
lay level across the blue haze which the earth gave forth.  The gnats
were dancing up and down in airy companies, the nasturtium flowers shone
out in groups from the dark hedge over which they climbed, and the mellow
smell of the decline of summer was exhaled by everything.  Bob followed
her as far as the gate, looked after her, thought of her as the same girl
who had half encouraged him years ago, when she seemed so superior to
him; though now they were almost equal she apparently thought him beneath
her.  It was with a new sense of pleasure that his mind flew to the fact
that she was now an inmate of his father's house.

His obsequious bearing was continued during the next week.  In the busy
hours of the day they seldom met, but they regularly encountered each
other at meals, and these cheerful occasions began to have an interest
for him quite irrespective of dishes and cups.  When Anne entered and
took her seat she was always loudly hailed by Miller Loveday as he
whetted his knife; but from Bob she condescended to accept no such
familiar greeting, and they often sat down together as if each had a
blind eye in the direction of the other.  Bob sometimes told serious and
correct stories about sea-captains, pilots, boatswains, mates, able
seamen, and other curious fauna of the marine world; but these were
directly addressed to his father and Mrs. Loveday, Anne being included at
the clinching-point by a glance only.  He sometimes opened bottles of
sweet cider for her, and then she thanked him; but even this did not lead
to her encouraging his chat.

One day when Anne was paring an apple she was left at table with the
young man.  'I have made something for you,' he said.

She looked all over the table; nothing was there save the ordinary
remnants.

'O I don't mean that it is here; it is out by the bridge at the
mill-head.'

He arose, and Anne followed with curiosity in her eyes, and with her firm
little mouth pouted up to a puzzled shape.  On reaching the mossy mill-
head she found that he had fixed in the keen damp draught which always
prevailed over the wheel an AEolian harp of large size.  At present the
strings were partly covered with a cloth.  He lifted it, and the wires
began to emit a weird harmony which mingled curiously with the plashing
of the wheel.

'I made it on purpose for you, Miss Garland,' he said.

She thanked him very warmly, for she had never seen anything like such an
instrument before, and it interested her.  'It was very thoughtful of you
to make it,' she added.  'How came you to think of such a thing?'

'O I don't know exactly,' he replied, as if he did not care to be
questioned on the point.  'I have never made one in my life till now.'

Every night after this, during the mournful gales of autumn, the strange
mixed music of water, wind, and strings met her ear, swelling and sinking
with an almost supernatural cadence.  The character of the instrument was
far enough removed from anything she had hitherto seen of Bob's hobbies;
so that she marvelled pleasantly at the new depths of poetry this
contrivance revealed as existent in that young seaman's nature, and
allowed her emotions to flow out yet a little further in the old
direction, notwithstanding her late severe resolve to bar them back.

One breezy night, when the mill was kept going into the small hours, and
the wind was exactly in the direction of the water-current, the music so
mingled with her dreams as to wake her: it seemed to rhythmically set
itself to the words, 'Remember me! think of me!'  She was much impressed;
the sounds were almost too touching; and she spoke to Bob the next
morning on the subject.

'How strange it is that you should have thought of fixing that harp where
the water gushes!' she gently observed.  'It affects me almost painfully
at night.  You are poetical, Captain Bob.  But it is too--too sad!'

'I will take it away,' said Captain Bob promptly.  'It certainly is too
sad; I thought so myself.  I myself was kept awake by it one night.'

'How came you to think of making such a peculiar thing?'

'Well,' said Bob, 'it is hardly worth saying why.  It is not a good place
for such a queer noisy machine; and I'll take it away.'

'On second thoughts,' said Anne, 'I should like it to remain a little
longer, because it sets me thinking.'

'Of me?' he asked with earnest frankness.

Anne's colour rose fast.

'Well, yes,' she said, trying to infuse much plain matter-of-fact into
her voice.  'Of course I am led to think of the person who invented it.'

Bob seemed unaccountably embarrassed, and the subject was not pursued.
About half-an-hour later he came to her again, with something of an
uneasy look.

'There was a little matter I didn't tell you just now, Miss Garland,' he
said.  'About that harp thing, I mean.  I did make it, certainly, but it
was my brother John who asked me to do it, just before he went away.  John
is very musical, as you know, and he said it would interest you; but as
he didn't ask me to tell, I did not.  Perhaps I ought to have, and not
have taken the credit to myself.'

'O, it is nothing!' said Anne quickly.  'It is a very incomplete
instrument after all, and it will be just as well for you to take it away
as you first proposed.'

He said that he would, but he forgot to do it that day; and the following
night there was a high wind, and the harp cried and moaned so movingly
that Anne, whose window was quite near, could hardly bear the sound with
its new associations.  John Loveday was present to her mind all night as
an ill-used man; and yet she could not own that she had ill-used him.

The harp was removed next day.  Bob, feeling that his credit for
originality was damaged in her eyes, by way of recovering it set himself
to paint the summer-house which Anne frequented, and when he came out he
assured her that it was quite his own idea.

'It wanted doing, certainly,' she said, in a neutral tone.

'It is just about troublesome.'

'Yes; you can't quite reach up.  That's because you are not very tall; is
it not, Captain Loveday?'

'You never used to say things like that.'

'O, I don't mean that you are much less than tall!  Shall I hold the
paint for you, to save your stepping down?'

'Thank you, if you would.'

She took the paint-pot, and stood looking at the brush as it moved up and
down in his hand.

'I hope I shall not sprinkle your fingers,' he observed as he dipped.

'O, that would not matter!  You do it very well.'

'I am glad to hear that you think so.'

'But perhaps not quite so much art is demanded to paint a summer-house as
to paint a picture?'

Thinking that, as a painter's daughter, and a person of education
superior to his own, she spoke with a flavour of sarcasm, he felt humbled
and said--

'You did not use to talk like that to me.'

'I was perhaps too young then to take any pleasure in giving pain,' she
observed daringly.

'Does it give you pleasure?'

Anne nodded.

'I like to give pain to people who have given pain to me,' she said
smartly, without removing her eyes from the green liquid in her hand.

'I ask your pardon for that.'

'I didn't say I meant you--though I did mean you.'

Bob looked and looked at her side face till he was bewitched into putting
down his brush.

'It was that stupid forgetting of 'ee for a time!' he exclaimed.  'Well,
I hadn't seen you for so very long--consider how many years!  O, dear
Anne!' he said, advancing to take her hand, 'how well we knew one another
when we were children!  You was a queen to me then; and so you are now,
and always.'

Possibly Anne was thrilled pleasantly enough at having brought the truant
village lad to her feet again; but he was not to find the situation so
easy as he imagined, and her hand was not to be taken yet.

'Very pretty!' she said, laughing.  'And only six weeks since Miss
Johnson left.'

'Zounds, don't say anything about that!' implored Bob.  'I swear that I
never--never deliberately loved her--for a long time together, that is;
it was a sudden sort of thing, you know.  But towards you--I have more or
less honoured and respectfully loved you, off and on, all my life.  There,
that's true.'

Anne retorted quickly--

'I am willing, off and on, to believe you, Captain Robert.  But I don't
see any good in your making these solemn declarations.'

'Give me leave to explain, dear Miss Garland.  It is to get you to be
pleased to renew an old promise--made years ago--that you'll think o'
me.'

'Not a word of any promise will I repeat.'

'Well, well, I won't urge 'ee to-day.  Only let me beg of you to get over
the quite wrong notion you have of me; and it shall be my whole endeavour
to fetch your gracious favour.'

Anne turned away from him and entered the house, whither in the course of
a quarter of an hour he followed her, knocking at her door, and asking to
be let in.  She said she was busy; whereupon he went away, to come back
again in a short time and receive the same answer.

'I have finished painting the summer-house for you,' he said through the
door.

'I cannot come to see it.  I shall be engaged till supper-time.'

She heard him breathe a heavy sigh and withdraw, murmuring something
about his bad luck in being cut away from the starn like this.  But it
was not over yet.  When supper-time came and they sat down together, she
took upon herself to reprove him for what he had said to her in the
garden.

Bob made his forehead express despair.

'Now, I beg you this one thing,' he said.  'Just let me know your whole
mind.  Then I shall have a chance to confess my faults and mend them, or
clear my conduct to your satisfaction.'

She answered with quickness, but not loud enough to be heard by the old
people at the other end of the table--'Then, Captain Loveday, I will tell
you one thing, one fault, that perhaps would have been more proper to my
character than to yours.  You are too easily impressed by new faces, and
that gives me a _bad opinion_ of you--yes, a _bad opinion_.'

'O, that's it!' said Bob slowly, looking at her with the intense respect
of a pupil for a master, her words being spoken in a manner so precisely
between jest and earnest that he was in some doubt how they were to be
received.  'Impressed by new faces.  It is wrong, certainly, of me.'

The popping of a cork, and the pouring out of strong beer by the miller
with a view to giving it a head, were apparently distractions sufficient
to excuse her in not attending further to him; and during the remainder
of the sitting her gentle chiding seemed to be sinking seriously into his
mind.  Perhaps her own heart ached to see how silent he was; but she had
always meant to punish him.  Day after day for two or three weeks she
preserved the same demeanour, with a self-control which did justice to
her character.  And, on his part, considering what he had to put up
with--how she eluded him, snapped him off, refused to come out when he
called her, refused to see him when he wanted to enter the little parlour
which she had now appropriated to her private use, his patience testified
strongly to his good-humour.




XXIII.  MILITARY PREPARATIONS ON AN EXTENDED SCALE


Christmas had passed.  Dreary winter with dark evenings had given place
to more dreary winter with light evenings.  Rapid thaws had ended in
rain, rain in wind, wind in dust.  Showery days had come--the season of
pink dawns and white sunsets; and people hoped that the March weather was
over.

The chief incident that concerned the household at the mill was that the
miller, following the example of all his neighbours, had become a
volunteer, and duly appeared twice a week in a red, long-tailed military
coat, pipe-clayed breeches, black cloth gaiters, a heel-balled helmet-
hat, with a tuft of green wool, and epaulettes of the same colour and
material.  Bob still remained neutral.  Not being able to decide whether
to enrol himself as a sea-fencible, a local militia-man, or a volunteer,
he simply went on dancing attendance upon Anne.  Mrs. Loveday had become
awake to the fact that the pair of young people stood in a curious
attitude towards each other; but as they were never seen with their heads
together, and scarcely ever sat even in the same room, she could not be
sure what their movements meant.

Strangely enough (or perhaps naturally enough), since entering the
Loveday family herself, she had gradually grown to think less favourably
of Anne doing the same thing, and reverted to her original idea of
encouraging Festus; this more particularly because he had of late shown
such perseverance in haunting the precincts of the mill, presumably with
the intention of lighting upon the young girl.  But the weather had kept
her mostly indoors.

One afternoon it was raining in torrents.  Such leaves as there were on
trees at this time of year--those of the laurel and other
evergreens--staggered beneath the hard blows of the drops which fell upon
them, and afterwards could be seen trickling down the stems beneath and
silently entering the ground.  The surface of the mill-pond leapt up in a
thousand spirts under the same downfall, and clucked like a hen in the
rat-holes along the banks as it undulated under the wind.  The only dry
spot visible from the front windows of the mill-house was the inside of a
small shed, on the opposite side of the courtyard.  While Mrs. Loveday
was noticing the threads of rain descending across its interior shade,
Festus Derriman walked up and entered it for shelter, which, owing to the
lumber within, it but scantily afforded to a man who would have been a
match for one of Frederick William's Patagonians.

It was an excellent opportunity for helping on her scheme.  Anne was in
the back room, and by asking him in till the rain was over she would
bring him face to face with her daughter, whom, as the days went on, she
increasingly wished to marry other than a Loveday, now that the romance
of her own alliance with the millet had in some respects worn off.  She
was better provided for than before; she was not unhappy; but the plain
fact was that she had married beneath her.  She beckoned to Festus
through the window-pane; he instantly complied with her signal, having in
fact placed himself there on purpose to be noticed; for he knew that Miss
Garland would not be out-of-doors on such a day.

'Good afternoon, Mrs. Loveday,' said Festus on entering.  'There now--if
I didn't think that's how it would be!'  His voice had suddenly warmed to
anger, for he had seen a door close in the back part of the room, a lithe
figure having previously slipped through.

Mrs. Loveday turned, observed that Anne was gone, and said, 'What is it?'
as if she did not know.

'O, nothing, nothing!' said Festus crossly.  'You know well enough what
it is, ma'am; only you make pretence otherwise.  But I'll bring her to
book yet.  You shall drop your haughty airs, my charmer!  She little
thinks I have kept an account of 'em all.'

'But you must treat her politely, sir,' said Mrs. Loveday, secretly
pleased at these signs of uncontrollable affection.

'Don't tell me of politeness or generosity, ma'am!  She is more than a
match for me.  She regularly gets over me.  I have passed by this house
five-and-fifty times since last Martinmas, and this is all my reward
for't!'

'But you will stay till the rain is over, sir?'

'No.  I don't mind rain.  I'm off again.  She's got somebody else in her
eye!'  And the yeoman went out, slamming the door.

Meanwhile the slippery object of his hopes had gone along the dark
passage, passed the trap which opened on the wheel, and through the door
into the mill, where she was met by Bob, who looked up from the flour-
shoot inquiringly and said, 'You want me, Miss Garland?'

'O no,' said she.  'I only want to be allowed to stand here a few
minutes.'

He looked at her to know if she meant it, and finding that she did,
returned to his post.  When the mill had rumbled on a little longer he
came back.

'Bob,' she said, when she saw him move, 'remember that you are at work,
and have no time to stand close to me.'

He bowed and went to his original post again, Anne watching from the
window till Festus should leave.  The mill rumbled on as before, and at
last Bob came to her for the third time.  'Now, Bob--' she began.

'On my honour, 'tis only to ask a question.  Will you walk with me to
church next Sunday afternoon?'

'Perhaps I will,' she said.  But at this moment the yeoman left the
house, and Anne, to escape further parley, returned to the dwelling by
the way she had come.

Sunday afternoon arrived, and the family was standing at the door waiting
for the church bells to begin.  From that side of the house they could
see southward across a paddock to the rising ground further ahead, where
there grew a large elm-tree, beneath whose boughs footpaths crossed in
different directions, like meridians at the pole.  The tree was old, and
in summer the grass beneath it was quite trodden away by the feet of the
many trysters and idlers who haunted the spot.  The tree formed a
conspicuous object in the surrounding landscape.

While they looked, a foot soldier in red uniform and white breeches came
along one of the paths, and stopping beneath the elm, took from his
pocket a paper, which he proceeded to nail up by the four corners to the
trunk.  He drew back, looked at it, and went on his way.  Bob got his
glass from indoors and levelled it at the placard, but after looking for
a long time he could make out nothing but a lion and a unicorn at the
top.  Anne, who was ready for church, moved away from the door, though it
was yet early, and showed her intention of going by way of the elm.  The
paper had been so impressively nailed up that she was curious to read it
even at this theological time.  Bob took the opportunity of following,
and reminded her of her promise.

'Then walk behind me not at all close,' she said.

'Yes,' he replied, immediately dropping behind.

The ludicrous humility of his manner led her to add playfully over her
shoulder, 'It serves you right, you know.'

'I deserve anything, but I must take the liberty to say that I hope my
behaviour about Matil--, in forgetting you awhile, will not make ye wish
to keep me _always_ behind?'

She replied confidentially, 'Why I am so earnest not to be seen with you
is that I may appear to people to be independent of you.  Knowing what I
do of your weaknesses I can do no otherwise.  You must be schooled into--'

'O, Anne,' sighed Bob, 'you hit me hard--too hard!  If ever I do win you
I am sure I shall have fairly earned you.'

'You are not what you once seemed to be,' she returned softly.  'I don't
quite like to let myself love you.'  The last words were not very
audible, and as Bob was behind he caught nothing of them, nor did he see
how sentimental she had become all of a sudden.  They walked the rest of
the way in silence, and coming to the tree read as follows:--

   ADDRESS TO ALL RANKS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF ENGLISHMEN.

   FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN,--The French are now assembling the largest
   force that ever was prepared to invade this Kingdom, with the
   professed purpose of effecting our complete Ruin and Destruction.  They
   do not disguise their intentions, as they have often done to other
   Countries; but openly boast that they will come over in such Numbers
   as cannot be resisted.

   Wherever the French have lately appeared they have spared neither Rich
   nor Poor, Old nor Young; but like a Destructive Pestilence have laid
   waste and destroyed every Thing that before was fair and flourishing.

   On this occasion no man's service is compelled, but you are invited
   voluntarily to come forward in defence of everything that is dear to
   you, by entering your Names on the Lists which are sent to the Tything-
   man of every Parish, and engaging to act either as _Associated
   Volunteers bearing Arms_, _as Pioneers and Labourers_, or as _Drivers
   of Waggons_.

   As Associated Volunteers you will be called out only once a week,
   unless the actual Landing of the Enemy should render your further
   Services necessary.

   As Pioneers or Labourers you will be employed in Breaking up Roads to
   hinder the Enemy's advance.

   Those who have Pickaxes, Spades, Shovels, Bill-hooks, or other Working
   Implements, are desired to mention them to the Constable or Tything-
   man of their Parish, in order that they may be entered on the Lists
   opposite their Homes, to be used if necessary. . . .

   It is thought desirable to give you this Explanation, that you may not
   be ignorant of the Duties to which you may be called.  But if the love
   of true Liberty and honest Fame has not ceased to animate the Hearts
   of Englishmen, Pay, though necessary, will be the least Part of your
   Reward.  You will find your best Recompense in having done your Duty
   to your King and Country by driving back or destroying your old and
   implacable Enemy, envious of your Freedom and Happiness, and therefore
   seeking to destroy them; in having protected your Wives and Children
   from Death, or worse than Death, which will follow the Success of such
   Inveterate Foes.

   ROUSE, therefore, and unite as one man in the best of Causes!  United
   we may defy the World to conquer us; but Victory will never belong to
   those who are slothful and unprepared. {207}

'I must go and join at once!' said Bob.

Anne turned to him, all the playfulness gone from her face.  'I wish we
lived in the north of England, Bob, so as to be further away from where
he'll land!' she murmured uneasily.

'Where we are would be Paradise to me, if you would only make it so.'

'It is not right to talk so lightly at such a serious time,' she
thoughtfully returned, going on towards the church.

On drawing near, they saw through the boughs of a clump of intervening
trees, still leafless, but bursting into buds of amber hue, a glittering
which seemed to be reflected from points of steel.  In a few moments they
heard above the tender chiming of the church bells the loud voice of a
man giving words of command, at which all the metallic points suddenly
shifted like the bristles of a porcupine, and glistened anew.

''Tis the drilling,' said Loveday.  'They drill now between the services,
you know, because they can't get the men together so readily in the week.
It makes me feel that I ought to be doing more than I am!'

When they had passed round the belt of trees, the company of recruits
became visible, consisting of the able-bodied inhabitants of the hamlets
thereabout, more or less known to Bob and Anne.  They were assembled on
the green plot outside the churchyard-gate, dressed in their common
clothes, and the sergeant who had been putting them through their drill
was the man who nailed up the proclamation.  He was now engaged in
untying a canvas money-bag, from which he drew forth a handful of
shillings, giving one to each man in payment for his attendance.

'Men, I dismissed ye too soon--parade, parade again, I say,' he cried.
'My watch is fast, I find.  There's another twenty minutes afore the
worship of God commences.  Now all of you that ha'n't got firelocks, fall
in at the lower end.  Eyes right and dress!'

As every man was anxious to see how the rest stood, those at the end of
the line pressed forward for that purpose, till the line assumed the form
of a bow.

'Look at ye now!  Why, you are all a crooking in!  Dress, dress!'

They dressed forthwith; but impelled by the same motive they soon resumed
their former figure, and so they were despairingly permitted to remain.

'Now, I hope you'll have a little patience,' said the sergeant, as he
stood in the centre of the arc, 'and pay strict attention to the word of
command, just exactly as I give it out to ye; and if I should go wrong, I
shall be much obliged to any friend who'll put me right again, for I have
only been in the army three weeks myself, and we are all liable to
mistakes.'

'So we be, so we be,' said the line heartily.

''Tention, the whole, then.  Poise fawlocks!  Very well done!'

'Please, what must we do that haven't got no firelocks!' said the lower
end of the line in a helpless voice.

'Now, was ever such a question!  Why, you must do nothing at all, but
think _how_ you'd poise 'em _if_ you had 'em.  You middle men, that are
armed with hurdle-sticks and cabbage-stumps just to make-believe, must of
course use 'em as if they were the real thing.  Now then, cock fawlocks!
Present!  Fire! (Pretend to, I mean, and the same time throw yer
imagination into the field o' battle.)  Very good--very good indeed;
except that some of you were a _little_ too soon, and the rest a _little_
too late.'

'Please, sergeant, can I fall out, as I am master-player in the choir,
and my bass-viol strings won't stand at this time o' year, unless they be
screwed up a little before the passon comes in?'

'How can you think of such trifles as churchgoing at such a time as this,
when your own native country is on the point of invasion?' said the
sergeant sternly.  'And, as you know, the drill ends three minutes afore
church begins, and that's the law, and it wants a quarter of an hour yet.
Now, at the word _Prime_, shake the powder (supposing you've got it) into
the priming-pan, three last fingers behind the rammer; then shut your
pans, drawing your right arm nimble-like towards your body.  I ought to
have told ye before this, that at _Hand your katridge_, seize it and
bring it with a quick motion to your mouth, bite the top well off, and
don't swaller so much of the powder as to make ye hawk and spet instead
of attending to your drill.  What's that man a-saying of in the rear
rank?'

'Please, sir, 'tis Anthony Cripplestraw, wanting to know how he's to bite
off his katridge, when he haven't a tooth left in 's head?'

'Man!  Why, what's your genius for war?  Hold it up to your right-hand
man's mouth, to be sure, and let him nip it off for ye.  Well, what have
you to say, Private Tremlett?  Don't ye understand English?'

'Ask yer pardon, sergeant; but what must we infantry of the awkward squad
do if Boney comes afore we get our firelocks?'

'Take a pike, like the rest of the incapables.  You'll find a store of
them ready in the corner of the church tower.  Now then--Shoulder--r--r--r--'

'There, they be tinging in the passon!' exclaimed David, Miller Loveday's
man, who also formed one of the company, as the bells changed from
chiming all three together to a quick beating of one.  The whole line
drew a breath of relief, threw down their arms, and began running off.

'Well, then, I must dismiss ye,' said the sergeant.  'Come back--come
back!  Next drill is Tuesday afternoon at four.  And, mind, if your
masters won't let ye leave work soon enough, tell me, and I'll write a
line to Gover'ment!  'Tention!  To the right--left wheel, I mean--no,
no--right wheel.  Mar--r--r--rch!'

Some wheeled to the right and some to the left, and some obliging men,
including Cripplestraw, tried to wheel both ways.

'Stop, stop; try again!  'Cruits and comrades, unfortunately when I'm in
a hurry I can never remember my right hand from my left, and never could
as a boy.  You must excuse me, please.  Practice makes perfect, as the
saying is; and, much as I've learnt since I 'listed, we always find
something new.  Now then, right wheel! march! halt!  Stand at ease!
dismiss!  I think that's the order o't, but I'll look in the Gover'ment
book afore Tuesday.' {211}

Many of the company who had been drilled preferred to go off and spend
their shillings instead of entering the church; but Anne and Captain Bob
passed in.  Even the interior of the sacred edifice was affected by the
agitation of the times.  The religion of the country had, in fact,
changed from love of God to hatred of Napoleon Buonaparte; and, as if to
remind the devout of this alteration, the pikes for the pikemen (all
those accepted men who were not otherwise armed) were kept in the church
of each parish.  There, against the wall, they always stood--a whole
sheaf of them, formed of new ash stems, with a spike driven in at one
end, the stick being preserved from splitting by a ferule.  And there
they remained, year after year, in the corner of the aisle, till they
were removed and placed under the gallery stairs, and thence ultimately
to the belfry, where they grew black, rusty, and worm-eaten, and were
gradually stolen and carried off by sextons, parish clerks, whitewashers,
window-menders, and other church servants for use at home as rake-stems,
benefit-club staves, and pick-handles, in which degraded situations they
may still occasionally be found.

But in their new and shining state they had a terror for Anne, whose eyes
were involuntarily drawn towards them as she sat at Bob's side during the
service, filling her with bloody visions of their possible use not far
from the very spot on which they were now assembled.  The sermon, too,
was on the subject of patriotism; so that when they came out she began to
harp uneasily upon the probability of their all being driven from their
homes.

Bob assured her that with the sixty thousand regulars, the militia
reserve of a hundred and twenty thousand, and the three hundred thousand
volunteers, there was not much to fear.

'But I sometimes have a fear that poor John will be killed,' he continued
after a pause.  'He is sure to be among the first that will have to face
the invaders, and the trumpeters get picked off.'

'There is the same chance for him as for the others,' said Anne.

'Yes--yes--the same chance, such as it is.  You have never liked John
since that affair of Matilda Johnson, have you?'

'Why?' she quickly asked.

'Well,' said Bob timidly, 'as it is a ticklish time for him, would it not
be worth while to make up any differences before the crash comes?'

'I have nothing to make up,' said Anne, with some distress.  She still
fully believed the trumpet-major to have smuggled away Miss Johnson
because of his own interest in that lady, which must have made his
professions to herself a mere pastime; but that very conduct had in it
the curious advantage to herself of setting Bob free.

'Since John has been gone,' continued her companion, 'I have found out
more of his meaning, and of what he really had to do with that woman's
flight.  Did you know that he had anything to do with it?'

'Yes.'

'That he got her to go away?'

She looked at Bob with surprise.  He was not exasperated with John, and
yet he knew so much as this.

'Yes,' she said; 'what did it mean?'

He did not explain to her then; but the possibility of John's death,
which had been newly brought home to him by the military events of the
day, determined him to get poor John's character cleared.  Reproaching
himself for letting her remain so long with a mistaken idea of him, Bob
went to his father as soon as they got home, and begged him to get Mrs.
Loveday to tell Anne the true reason of John's objection to Miss Johnson
as a sister-in-law.

'She thinks it is because they were old lovers new met, and that he wants
to marry her,' he exclaimed to his father in conclusion.

'Then _that's_ the meaning of the split between Miss Nancy and Jack,'
said the miller.

'What, were they any more than common friends?' asked Bob uneasily.

'Not on her side, perhaps.'

'Well, we must do it,' replied Bob, painfully conscious that common
justice to John might bring them into hazardous rivalry, yet determined
to be fair.  'Tell it all to Mrs. Loveday, and get her to tell Anne.'




XXIV.  A LETTER, A VISITOR, AND A TIN BOX


The result of the explanation upon Anne was bitter self-reproach.  She
was so sorry at having wronged the kindly soldier that next morning she
went by herself to the down, and stood exactly where his tent had covered
the sod on which he had lain so many nights, thinking what sadness he
must have suffered because of her at the time of packing up and going
away.  After that she wiped from her eyes the tears of pity which had
come there, descended to the house, and wrote an impulsive letter to him,
in which occurred the following passages, indiscreet enough under the
circumstances:--

   'I find all justice, all rectitude, on your side, John; and all
   impertinence, all inconsiderateness, on mine.  I am so much convinced
   of your honour in the whole transaction, that I shall for the future
   mistrust myself in everything.  And if it be possible, whenever I
   differ from you on any point I shall take an hour's time for
   consideration before I say that I differ.  If I have lost your
   friendship, I have only myself to thank for it; but I sincerely hope
   that you can forgive.'

After writing this she went to the garden, where Bob was shearing the
spring grass from the paths.  'What is John's direction?' she said,
holding the sealed letter in her hand.

'Exonbury Barracks,' Bob faltered, his countenance sinking.

She thanked him and went indoors.  When he came in, later in the day, he
passed the door of her empty sitting-room and saw the letter on the
mantelpiece.  He disliked the sight of it.  Hearing voices in the other
room, he entered and found Anne and her mother there, talking to
Cripplestraw, who had just come in with a message from Squire Derriman,
requesting Miss Garland, as she valued the peace of mind of an old and
troubled man, to go at once and see him.

'I cannot go,' she said, not liking the risk that such a visit involved.

An hour later Cripplestraw shambled again into the passage, on the same
errand.

'Maister's very poorly, and he hopes that you'll come, Mis'ess Anne.  He
wants to see 'ee very particular about the French.'

Anne would have gone in a moment, but for the fear that some one besides
the farmer might encounter her, and she answered as before.

Another hour passed, and the wheels of a vehicle were heard.  Cripplestraw
had come for the third time, with a horse and gig; he was dressed in his
best clothes, and brought with him on this occasion a basket containing
raisins, almonds, oranges, and sweet cakes.  Offering them to her as a
gift from the old farmer, he repeated his request for her to accompany
him, the gig and best mare having been sent as an additional inducement.

'I believe the old gentleman is in love with you, Anne,' said her mother.

'Why couldn't he drive down himself to see me?' Anne inquired of
Cripplestraw.

'He wants you at the house, please.'

'Is Mr. Festus with him?'

'No; he's away to Budmouth.'

'I'll go,' said she.

'And I may come and meet you?' said Bob.

'There's my letter--what shall I do about that?' she said, instead of
answering him.  'Take my letter to the post-office, and you may come,'
she added.

He said yes and went out, Cripplestraw retreating to the door till she
should be ready.

'What letter is it?' said her mother.

'Only one to John,' said Anne.  'I have asked him to forgive my
suspicions.  I could do no less.'

'Do you want to marry _him_?' asked Mrs. Loveday bluntly.

'Mother!'

'Well; he will take that letter as an encouragement.  Can't you see that
he will, you foolish girl?'

Anne did see instantly.  'Of course!' she said.  'Tell Robert that he
need not go.'

She went to her room to secure the letter.  It was gone from the
mantelpiece, and on inquiry it was found that the miller, seeing it
there, had sent David with it to Budmouth hours ago.  Anne said nothing,
and set out for Oxwell Hall with Cripplestraw.

'William,' said Mrs. Loveday to the miller when Anne was gone and Bob had
resumed his work in the garden, 'did you get that letter sent off on
purpose?'

'Well, I did.  I wanted to make sure of it.  John likes her, and now
'twill be made up; and why shouldn't he marry her?  I'll start him in
business, if so be she'll have him.'

'But she is likely to marry Festus Derriman.'

'I don't want her to marry anybody but John,' said the miller doggedly.

'Not if she is in love with Bob, and has been for years, and he with
her?' asked his wife triumphantly.

'In love with Bob, and he with her?' repeated Loveday.

'Certainly,' said she, going off and leaving him to his reflections.

When Anne reached the hall she found old Mr. Derriman in his customary
chair.  His complexion was more ashen, but his movement in rising at her
entrance, putting a chair and shutting the door behind her, were much the
same as usual.

'Thank God you've come, my dear girl,' he said earnestly.  'Ah, you don't
trip across to read to me now!  Why did ye cost me so much to fetch you?
Fie!  A horse and gig, and a man's time in going three times.  And what I
sent ye cost a good deal in Budmouth market, now everything is so dear
there, and 'twould have cost more if I hadn't bought the raisins and
oranges some months ago, when they were cheaper.  I tell you this because
we are old friends, and I have nobody else to tell my troubles to.  But I
don't begrudge anything to ye since you've come.'

'I am not much pleased to come, even now,' said she.  'What can make you
so seriously anxious to see me?'

'Well, you be a good girl and true; and I've been thinking that of all
people of the next generation that I can trust, you are the best.  'Tis
my bonds and my title-deeds, such as they be, and the leases, you know,
and a few guineas in packets, and more than these, my will, that I have
to speak about.  Now do ye come this way.'

'O, such things as those!' she returned, with surprise.  'I don't
understand those things at all.'

'There's nothing to understand.  'Tis just this.  The French will be here
within two months; that's certain.  I have it on the best authority, that
the army at Boulogne is ready, the boats equipped, the plans laid, and
the First Consul only waits for a tide.  Heaven knows what will become o'
the men o' these parts!  But most likely the women will he spared.  Now
I'll show 'ee.'

He led her across the hall to a stone staircase of semi-circular plan,
which conducted to the cellars.

'Down here?' she said.

'Yes; I must trouble ye to come down here.  I have thought and thought
who is the woman that can best keep a secret for six months, and I say,
"Anne Garland."  You won't be married before then?'

'O no!' murmured the young woman.

'I wouldn't expect ye to keep a close tongue after such a thing as that.
But it will not be necessary.'

When they reached the bottom of the steps he struck a light from a tinder-
box, and unlocked the middle one of three doors which appeared in the
whitewashed wall opposite.  The rays of the candle fell upon the vault
and sides of a long low cellar, littered with decayed woodwork from other
parts of the hall, among the rest stair-balusters, carved finials,
tracery panels, and wainscoting.  But what most attracted her eye was a
small flagstone turned up in the middle of the floor, a heap of earth
beside it, and a measuring-tape.  Derriman went to the corner of the
cellar, and pulled out a clamped box from under the straw.  'You be
rather heavy, my dear, eh?' he said, affectionately addressing the box as
he lifted it.  'But you are going to be put in a safe place, you know, or
that rascal will get hold of ye, and carry ye off and ruin me.'  He then
with some difficulty lowered the box into the hole, raked in the earth
upon it, and lowered the flagstone, which he was a long time in fixing to
his satisfaction.  Miss Garland, who was romantically interested, helped
him to brush away the fragments of loose earth; and when he had scattered
over the floor a little of the straw that lay about, they again ascended
to upper air.

'Is this all, sir?' said Anne.

'Just a moment longer, honey.  Will you come into the great parlour?'

She followed him thither.

'If anything happens to me while the fighting is going on--it may be on
these very fields--you will know what to do,' he resumed.  'But first
please sit down again, there's a dear, whilst I write what's in my head.
See, there's the best paper, and a new quill that I've afforded myself
for't.'

'What a strange business!  I don't think I much like it, Mr. Derriman,'
she said, seating herself.

He had by this time begun to write, and murmured as he wrote--

'"Twenty-three and a half from N.W.  Sixteen and three-quarters from
N.E."--There, that's all.  Now I seal it up and give it to you to keep
safe till I ask ye for it, or you hear of my being trampled down by the
enemy.'

'What does it mean?' she asked, as she received the paper.

'Clk!  Ha! ha!  Why, that's the distance of the box from the two corners
of the cellar.  I measured it before you came.  And, my honey, to make
all sure, if the French soldiery are after ye, tell your mother the
meaning on't, or any other friend, in case they should put ye to death,
and the secret be lost.  But that I am sure I hope they won't do, though
your pretty face will be a sad bait to the soldiers.  I often have wished
you was my daughter, honey; and yet in these times the less cares a man
has the better, so I am glad you bain't.  Shall my man drive you home?'

'No, no,' she said, much depressed by the words he had uttered.  'I can
find my way.  You need not trouble to come down.'

'Then take care of the paper.  And if you outlive me, you'll find I have
not forgot you.'




XXV.  FESTUS SHOWS HIS LOVE


Festus Derriman had remained in the Royal watering-place all that day,
his horse being sick at stables; but, wishing to coax or bully from his
uncle a remount for the coming summer, he set off on foot for Oxwell
early in the evening.  When he drew near to the village, or rather to the
hall, which was a mile from the village, he overtook a slim, quick-eyed
woman, sauntering along at a leisurely pace.  She was fashionably dressed
in a green spencer, with 'Mameluke' sleeves, and wore a velvet Spanish
hat and feather.

'Good afternoon t'ye, ma'am,' said Festus, throwing a sword-and-pistol
air into his greeting.  'You are out for a walk?'

'I _am_ out for a walk, captain,' said the lady, who had criticized him
from the crevice of her eye, without seeming to do much more than
continue her demure look forward, and gave the title as a sop to his
apparent character.

'From the town?--I'd swear it, ma'am; 'pon my honour I would!'

'Yes, I am from the town, sir,' said she.

'Ah, you are a visitor!  I know every one of the regular inhabitants; we
soldiers are in and out there continually.  Festus Derriman, Yeomanry
Cavalry, you know.  The fact is, the watering-place is under our charge;
the folks will be quite dependent upon us for their deliverance in the
coming struggle.  We hold our lives in our hands, and theirs, I may say,
in our pockets.  What made you come here, ma'am, at such a critical
time?'

'I don't see that it is such a critical time?'

'But it is, though; and so you'd say if you was as much mixed up with the
military affairs of the nation as some of us.'

The lady smiled.  'The King is coming this year, anyhow,' said she.

'Never!' said Festus firmly.  'Ah, you are one of the attendants at court
perhaps, come on ahead to get the King's chambers ready, in case Boney
should not land?'

'No,' she said; 'I am connected with the theatre, though not just at the
present moment.  I have been out of luck for the last year or two; but I
have fetched up again.  I join the company when they arrive for the
season.'

Festus surveyed her with interest.  'Faith! and is it so?  Well, ma'am,
what part do you play?'

'I am mostly the leading lady--the heroine,' she said, drawing herself up
with dignity.

'I'll come and have a look at ye if all's well, and the landing is put
off--hang me if I don't!--Hullo, hullo, what do I see?'

His eyes were stretched towards a distant field, which Anne Garland was
at that moment hastily crossing, on her way from the hall to Overcombe.

'I must be off.  Good-day to ye, dear creature!' he exclaimed, hurrying
forward.

The lady said, 'O, you droll monster!' as she smiled and watched him
stride ahead.

Festus bounded on over the hedge, across the intervening patch of green,
and into the field which Anne was still crossing.  In a moment or two she
looked back, and seeing the well-known Herculean figure of the yeoman
behind her felt rather alarmed, though she determined to show no
difference in her outward carriage.  But to maintain her natural gait was
beyond her powers.  She spasmodically quickened her pace; fruitlessly,
however, for he gained upon her, and when within a few strides of her
exclaimed, 'Well, my darling!'  Anne started off at a run.

Festus was already out of breath, and soon found that he was not likely
to overtake her.  On she went, without turning her head, till an unusual
noise behind compelled her to look round.  His face was in the act of
falling back; he swerved on one side, and dropped like a log upon a
convenient hedgerow-bank which bordered the path.  There he lay quite
still.

Anne was somewhat alarmed; and after standing at gaze for two or three
minutes, drew nearer to him, a step and a half at a time, wondering and
doubting, as a meek ewe draws near to some strolling vagabond who flings
himself on the grass near the flock.

'He is in a swoon!' she murmured.

Her heart beat quickly, and she looked around.  Nobody was in sight; she
advanced a step nearer still and observed him again.  Apparently his face
was turning to a livid hue, and his breathing had become obstructed.

''Tis not a swoon; 'tis apoplexy!' she said, in deep distress.  'I ought
to untie his neck.'  But she was afraid to do this, and only drew a
little closer still.

Miss Garland was now within three feet of him, whereupon the senseless
man, who could hold his breath no longer, sprang to his feet and darted
at her, saying, 'Ha! ha! a scheme for a kiss!'

She felt his arm slipping round her neck; but, twirling about with
amazing dexterity, she wriggled from his embrace and ran away along the
field.  The force with which she had extricated herself was sufficient to
throw Festus upon the grass, and by the time that he got upon his legs
again she was many yards off.  Uttering a word which was not exactly a
blessing, he immediately gave chase; and thus they ran till Anne entered
a meadow divided down the middle by a brook about six feet wide.  A
narrow plank was thrown loosely across at the point where the path
traversed this stream, and when Anne reached it she at once scampered
over.  At the other side she turned her head to gather the probabilities
of the situation, which were that Festus Derriman would overtake her even
now.  By a sudden forethought she stooped, seized the end of the plank,
and endeavoured to drag it away from the opposite bank.  But the weight
was too great for her to do more than slightly move it, and with a
desperate sigh she ran on again, having lost many valuable seconds.

But her attempt, though ineffectual in dragging it down, had been enough
to unsettle the little bridge; and when Derriman reached the middle,
which he did half a minute later, the plank turned over on its edge,
tilting him bodily into the river.  The water was not remarkably deep,
but as the yeoman fell flat on his stomach he was completely immersed;
and it was some time before he could drag himself out.  When he arose,
dripping on the bank, and looked around, Anne had vanished from the mead.
Then Festus's eyes glowed like carbuncles, and he gave voice to fearful
imprecations, shaking his fist in the soft summer air towards Anne, in a
way that was terrible for any maiden to behold.  Wading back through the
stream, he walked along its bank with a heavy tread, the water running
from his coat-tails, wrists, and the tips of his ears, in silvery
dribbles, that sparkled pleasantly in the sun.  Thus he hastened away,
and went round by a by-path to the hall.

Meanwhile the author of his troubles was rapidly drawing nearer to the
mill, and soon, to her inexpressible delight, she saw Bob coming to meet
her.  She had heard the flounce, and, feeling more secure from her
pursuer, had dropped her pace to a quick walk.  No sooner did she reach
Bob than, overcome by the excitement of the moment, she flung herself
into his arms.  Bob instantly enclosed her in an embrace so very thorough
that there was no possible danger of her falling, whatever degree of
exhaustion might have given rise to her somewhat unexpected action; and
in this attitude they silently remained, till it was borne in upon Anne
that the present was the first time in her life that she had ever been in
such a position.  Her face then burnt like a sunset, and she did not know
how to look up at him.  Feeling at length quite safe, she suddenly
resolved not to give way to her first impulse to tell him the whole of
what had happened, lest there should be a dreadful quarrel and fight
between Bob and the yeoman, and great difficulties caused in the Loveday
family on her account, the miller having important wheat transactions
with the Derrimans.

'You seem frightened, dearest Anne,' said Bob tenderly.

'Yes,' she replied.  'I saw a man I did not like the look of, and he was
inclined to follow me.  But, worse than that, I am troubled about the
French.  O Bob! I am afraid you will be killed, and my mother, and John,
and your father, and all of us hunted down!'

'Now I have told you, dear little heart, that it cannot be.  We shall
drive 'em into the sea after a battle or two, even if they land, which I
don't believe they will.  We've got ninety sail of the line, and though
it is rather unfortunate that we should have declared war against Spain
at this ticklish time, there's enough for all.'  And Bob went into
elaborate statistics of the navy, army, militia, and volunteers, to
prolong the time of holding her.  When he had done speaking he drew
rather a heavy sigh.

'What's the matter, Bob?'

'I haven't been yet to offer myself as a sea-fencible, and I ought to
have done it long ago.'

'You are only one.  Surely they can do without you?'

Bob shook his head.  She arose from her restful position, her eye
catching his with a shamefaced expression of having given way at last.
Loveday drew from his pocket a paper, and said, as they slowly walked on,
'Here's something to make us brave and patriotic.  I bought it in
Budmouth.  Isn't it a stirring picture?'

It was a hieroglyphic profile of Napoleon.  The hat represented a maimed
French eagle; the face was ingeniously made up of human carcases, knotted
and writhing together in such directions as to form a physiognomy; a
band, or stock, shaped to resemble the English Channel, encircled his
throat, and seemed to choke him; his epaulette was a hand tearing a
cobweb that represented the treaty of peace with England; and his ear was
a woman crouching over a dying child. {225}

'It is dreadful!' said Anne.  'I don't like to see it.'

She had recovered from her emotion, and walked along beside him with a
grave, subdued face.  Bob did not like to assume the privileges of an
accepted lover and draw her hand through his arm; for, conscious that she
naturally belonged to a politer grade than his own, he feared lest her
exhibition of tenderness were an impulse which cooler moments might
regret.  A perfect Paul-and-Virginia life had not absolutely set in for
him as yet, and it was not to be hastened by force.  When they had passed
over the bridge into the mill-front they saw the miller standing at the
door with a face of concern.

'Since you have been gone,' he said, 'a Government man has been here, and
to all the houses, taking down the numbers of the women and children, and
their ages and the number of horses and waggons that can be mustered, in
case they have to retreat inland, out of the way of the invading army.'

The little family gathered themselves together, all feeling the crisis
more seriously than they liked to express.  Mrs. Loveday thought how
ridiculous a thing social ambition was in such a conjuncture as this, and
vowed that she would leave Anne to love where she would.  Anne, too,
forgot the little peculiarities of speech and manner in Bob and his
father, which sometimes jarred for a moment upon her more refined sense,
and was thankful for their love and protection in this looming trouble.

On going upstairs she remembered the paper which Farmer Derriman had
given her, and searched in her bosom for it.  She could not find it
there.  'I must have left it on the table,' she said to herself.  It did
not matter; she remembered every word.  She took a pen and wrote a
duplicate, which she put safely away.

But Anne was wrong.  She had, after all, placed the paper where she
supposed, and there it ought to have been.  But in escaping from Festus,
when he feigned apoplexy, it had fallen out upon the grass.  Five minutes
after that event, when pursuer and pursued were two or three fields
ahead, the gaily-dressed woman whom the yeoman had overtaken, peeped
cautiously through the stile into the corner of the field which had been
the scene of the scramble; and seeing the paper she climbed over, secured
it, loosened the wafer without tearing the sheet, and read the memorandum
within.  Unable to make anything of its meaning, the saunterer put it in
her pocket, and, dismissing the matter from her mind, went on by the by-
path which led to the back of the mill.  Here, behind the hedge, she
stood and surveyed the old building for some time, after which she
meditatively turned, and retraced her steps towards the Royal watering-
place.




XXVI.  THE ALARM


The night which followed was historic and memorable.  Mrs. Loveday was
awakened by the boom of a distant gun: she told the miller, and they
listened awhile.  The sound was not repeated, but such was the state of
their feelings that Mr. Loveday went to Bob's room and asked if he had
heard it.  Bob was wide awake, looking out of the window; he had heard
the ominous sound, and was inclined to investigate the matter.  While the
father and son were dressing they fancied that a glare seemed to be
rising in the sky in the direction of the beacon hill.  Not wishing to
alarm Anne and her mother, the miller assured them that Bob and himself
were merely going out of doors to inquire into the cause of the report,
after which they plunged into the gloom together.  A few steps' progress
opened up more of the sky, which, as they had thought, was indeed
irradiated by a lurid light; but whether it came from the beacon or from
a more distant point they were unable to clearly tell.  They pushed on
rapidly towards higher ground.

Their excitement was merely of a piece with that of all men at this
critical juncture.  Everywhere expectation was at fever heat.  For the
last year or two only five-and-twenty miles of shallow water had divided
quiet English homesteads from an enemy's army of a hundred and fifty
thousand men.  We had taken the matter lightly enough, eating and
drinking as in the days of Noe, and singing satires without end.  We
punned on Buonaparte and his gunboats, chalked his effigy on
stage-coaches, and published the same in prints.  Still, between these
bursts of hilarity, it was sometimes recollected that England was the
only European country which had not succumbed to the mighty little man
who was less than human in feeling, and more than human in will; that our
spirit for resistance was greater than our strength; and that the Channel
was often calm.  Boats built of wood which was greenly growing in its
native forest three days before it was bent as wales to their sides, were
ridiculous enough; but they might be, after all, sufficient for a single
trip between two visible shores.

The English watched Buonaparte in these preparations, and Buonaparte
watched the English.  At the distance of Boulogne details were lost, but
we were impressed on fine days by the novel sight of a huge army moving
and twinkling like a school of mackerel under the rays of the sun.  The
regular way of passing an afternoon in the coast towns was to stroll up
to the signal posts and chat with the lieutenant on duty there about the
latest inimical object seen at sea.  About once a week there appeared in
the newspapers either a paragraph concerning some adventurous English
gentleman who had sailed out in a pleasure-boat till he lay near enough
to Boulogne to see Buonaparte standing on the heights among his marshals;
or else some lines about a mysterious stranger with a foreign accent,
who, after collecting a vast deal of information on our resources, had
hired a boat at a southern port, and vanished with it towards France
before his intention could be divined.

In forecasting his grand venture, Buonaparte postulated the help of
Providence to a remarkable degree.  Just at the hour when his troops were
on board the flat-bottomed boats and ready to sail, there was to be a
great fog, that should spread a vast obscurity over the length and
breadth of the Channel, and keep the English blind to events on the other
side.  The fog was to last twenty-four hours, after which it might clear
away.  A dead calm was to prevail simultaneously with the fog, with the
twofold object of affording the boats easy transit and dooming our ships
to lie motionless.  Thirdly, there was to be a spring tide, which should
combine its manoeuvres with those of the fog and calm.

Among the many thousands of minor Englishmen whose lives were affected by
these tremendous designs may be numbered our old acquaintance Corporal
Tullidge, who sported the crushed arm, and poor old Simon Burden, the
dazed veteran who had fought at Minden.  Instead of sitting snugly in the
settle of the Old Ship, in the village adjoining Overcombe, they were
obliged to keep watch on the hill.  They made themselves as comfortable
as was possible in the circumstances, dwelling in a hut of clods and
turf, with a brick chimney for cooking.  Here they observed the nightly
progress of the moon and stars, grew familiar with the heaving of moles,
the dancing of rabbits on the hillocks, the distant hoot of owls, the
bark of foxes from woods further inland; but saw not a sign of the enemy.
As, night after night, they walked round the two ricks which it was their
duty to fire at a signal--one being of furze for a quick flame, the other
of turf, for a long, slow radiance--they thought and talked of old times,
and drank patriotically from a large wood flagon that was filled every
day.

Bob and his father soon became aware that the light was from the beacon.
By the time that they reached the top it was one mass of towering flame,
from which the sparks fell on the green herbage like a fiery dew; the
forms of the two old men being seen passing and repassing in the midst of
it.  The Lovedays, who came up on the smoky side, regarded the scene for
a moment, and then emerged into the light.

'Who goes there?' said Corporal Tullidge, shouldering a pike with his
sound arm.  'O, 'tis neighbour Loveday!'

'Did you get your signal to fire it from the east?' said the miller
hastily.

'No; from Abbotsea Beach.'

'But you are not to go by a coast signal!'

'Chok' it all, wasn't the Lord-Lieutenant's direction, whenever you see
Rainbarrow's Beacon burn to the nor'east'ard, or Haggardon to the
nor'west'ard, or the actual presence of the enemy on the shore?'

'But is he here?'

'No doubt o't!  The beach light is only just gone down, and Simon heard
the guns even better than I.'

'Hark, hark!  I hear 'em!' said Bob.

They listened with parted lips, the night wind blowing through Simon
Burden's few teeth as through the ruins of Stonehenge.  From far down on
the lower levels came the noise of wheels and the tramp of horses upon
the turnpike road.

'Well, there must be something in it,' said Miller Loveday gravely.  'Bob,
we'll go home and make the women-folk safe, and then I'll don my
soldier's clothes and be off.  God knows where our company will
assemble!'

They hastened down the hill, and on getting into the road waited and
listened again.  Travellers began to come up and pass them in vehicles of
all descriptions.  It was difficult to attract their attention in the dim
light, but by standing on the top of a wall which fenced the road Bob was
at last seen.

'What's the matter?' he cried to a butcher who was flying past in his
cart, his wife sitting behind him without a bonnet.

'The French have landed!' said the man, without drawing rein.

'Where?' shouted Bob.

'In West Bay; and all Budmouth is in uproar!' replied the voice, now
faint in the distance.

Bob and his father hastened on till they reached their own house.  As
they had expected, Anne and her mother, in common with most of the
people, were both dressed, and stood at the door bonneted and shawled,
listening to the traffic on the neighbouring highway, Mrs. Loveday having
secured what money and small valuables they possessed in a huge pocket
which extended all round her waist, and added considerably to her weight
and diameter.

''Tis true enough,' said the miller: 'he's come!  You and Anne and the
maid must be off to Cousin Jim's at King's-Bere, and when you get there
you must do as they do.  I must assemble with the company.'

'And I?' said Bob.

'Thou'st better run to the church, and take a pike before they be all
gone.'

The horse was put into the gig, and Mrs. Loveday, Anne, and the servant-
maid were hastily packed into the vehicle, the latter taking the reins;
David's duties as a fighting-man forbidding all thought of his domestic
offices now.  Then the silver tankard, teapot, pair of candlesticks like
Ionic columns, and other articles too large to be pocketed were thrown
into a basket and put up behind.  Then came the leave-taking, which was
as sad as it was hurried.  Bob kissed Anne, and there was no affectation
in her receiving that mark of affection as she said through her tears,
'God bless you!'  At last they moved off in the dim light of dawn,
neither of the three women knowing which road they were to take, but
trusting to chance to find it.

As soon as they were out of sight Bob went off for a pike, and his
father, first new-flinting his firelock, proceeded to don his uniform,
pipe-claying his breeches with such cursory haste as to bespatter his
black gaiters with the same ornamental compound.  Finding when he was
ready that no bugle had as yet sounded, he went with David to the cart-
house, dragged out the waggon, and put therein some of the most useful
and easily-handled goods, in case there might be an opportunity for
conveying them away.  By the time this was done and the waggon pushed
back and locked in, Bob had returned with his weapon, somewhat mortified
at being doomed to this low form of defence.  The miller gave his son a
parting grasp of the hand, and arranged to meet him at King's-Bere at the
first opportunity if the news were true; if happily false, here at their
own house.

'Bother it all!' he exclaimed, looking at his stock of flints.

'What?' said Bob.

'I've got no ammunition: not a blessed round!'

'Then what's the use of going?' asked his son.

The miller paused.  'O, I'll go,' he said.  'Perhaps somebody will lend
me a little if I get into a hot corner?'

'Lend ye a little!  Father, you was always so simple!' said Bob
reproachfully.

'Well--I can bagnet a few, anyhow,' said the miller.

The bugle had been blown ere this, and Loveday the father disappeared
towards the place of assembly, his empty cartridge-box behind him.  Bob
seized a brace of loaded pistols which he had brought home from the ship,
and, armed with these and a pike, he locked the door and sallied out
again towards the turnpike road.

By this time the yeomanry of the district were also on the move, and
among them Festus Derriman, who was sleeping at his uncle's, and had been
awakened by Cripplestraw.  About the time when Bob and his father were
descending from the beacon the stalwart yeoman was standing in the stable-
yard adjusting his straps, while Cripplestraw saddled the horse.  Festus
clanked up and down, looked gloomily at the beacon, heard the retreating
carts and carriages, and called Cripplestraw to him, who came from the
stable leading the horse at the same moment that Uncle Benjy peeped
unobserved from a mullioned window above their heads, the distant light
of the beacon fire touching up his features to the complexion of an old
brass clock-face.

'I think that before I start, Cripplestraw,' said Festus, whose lurid
visage was undergoing a bleaching process curious to look upon, 'you
shall go on to Budmouth, and make a bold inquiry whether the cowardly
enemy is on shore as yet, or only looming in the bay.'

'I'd go in a moment, sir,' said the other, 'if I hadn't my bad leg again.
I should have joined my company afore this; but they said at last drill
that I was too old.  So I shall wait up in the hay-loft for tidings as
soon as I have packed you off, poor gentleman!'

'Do such alarms as these, Cripplestraw, ever happen without foundation?
Buonaparte is a wretch, a miserable wretch, and this may be only a false
alarm to disappoint such as me?'

'O no, sir; O no!'

'But sometimes there are false alarms?'

'Well, sir, yes.  There was a pretended sally o' gunboats last year.'

'And was there nothing else pretended--something more like this, for
instance?'

Cripplestraw shook his head.  'I notice yer modesty, Mr. Festus, in
making light of things.  But there never was, sir.  You may depend upon
it he's come.  Thank God, my duty as a Local don't require me to go to
the front, but only the valiant men like my master.  Ah, if Boney could
only see 'ee now, sir, he'd know too well there is nothing to be got from
such a determined skilful officer but blows and musket-balls!'

'Yes, yes.  Cripplestraw, if I ride off to Budmouth and meet 'em, all my
training will be lost.  No skill is required as a forlorn hope.'

'True; that's a point, sir.  You would outshine 'em all, and be picked
off at the very beginning as a too-dangerous brave man.'

'But if I stay here and urge on the faint-hearted ones, or get up into
the turret-stair by that gateway, and pop at the invaders through the
loophole, I shouldn't be so completely wasted, should I?'

'You would not, Mr. Derriman.  But, as you was going to say next, the
fire in yer veins won't let ye do that.  You are valiant; very good: you
don't want to husband yer valiance at home.  The arg'ment is plain.'

'If my birth had been more obscure,' murmured the yeoman, 'and I had only
been in the militia, for instance, or among the humble pikemen, so much
wouldn't have been expected of me--of my fiery nature.  Cripplestraw, is
there a drop of brandy to be got at in the house?  I don't feel very
well.'

'Dear nephew,' said the old gentleman from above, whom neither of the
others had as yet noticed, 'I haven't any spirits opened--so unfortunate!
But there's a beautiful barrel of crab-apple cider in draught; and
there's some cold tea from last night.'

'What, is he listening?' said Festus, staring up.  'Now I warrant how
glad he is to see me forced to go--called out of bed without breakfast,
and he quite safe, and sure to escape because he's an old
man!--Cripplestraw, I like being in the yeomanry cavalry; but I wish I
hadn't been in the ranks; I wish I had been only the surgeon, to stay in
the rear while the bodies are brought back to him--I mean, I should have
thrown my heart at such a time as this more into the labour of restoring
wounded men and joining their shattered limbs together--u-u-ugh!--more
than I can into causing the wounds--I am too humane, Cripplestraw, for
the ranks!'

'Yes, yes,' said his companion, depressing his spirits to a kindred
level.  'And yet, such is fate, that, instead of joining men's limbs
together, you'll have to get your own joined--poor young sojer!--all
through having such a warlike soul.'

'Yes,' murmured Festus, and paused.  'You can't think how strange I feel
here, Cripplestraw,' he continued, laying his hand upon the centre
buttons of his waistcoat.  'How I do wish I was only the surgeon!'

He slowly mounted, and Uncle Benjy, in the meantime, sang to himself as
he looked on, '_Twen-ty-three and half from N.W._  _Six-teen and three-
quar-ters from N.E._'

'What's that old mummy singing?' said Festus savagely.

'Only a hymn for preservation from our enemies, dear nephew,' meekly
replied the farmer, who had heard the remark.  '_Twen-ty-three and half
from N.W_.'

Festus allowed his horse to move on a few paces, and then turned again,
as if struck by a happy invention.  'Cripplestraw,' he began, with an
artificial laugh, 'I am obliged to confess, after all--I must see her!
'Tisn't nature that makes me draw back--'tis love.  I must go and look
for her.'

'A woman, sir?'

'I didn't want to confess it; but 'tis a woman.  Strange that I should be
drawn so entirely against my natural wish to rush at 'em!'

Cripplestraw, seeing which way the wind blew, found it advisable to blow
in harmony.  'Ah, now at last I see, sir!  Spite that few men live that
be worthy to command ye; spite that you could rush on, marshal the troops
to victory, as I may say; but then--what of it? there's the unhappy fate
of being smit with the eyes of a woman, and you are unmanned!  Maister
Derriman, who is himself, when he's got a woman round his neck like a
millstone?'

'It is something like that.'

'I feel the case.  Be you valiant?--I know, of course, the words being a
matter of form--be you valiant, I ask?  Yes, of course.  Then don't you
waste it in the open field.  Hoard it up, I say, sir, for a higher class
of war--the defence of yer adorable lady.  Think what you owe her at this
terrible time!  Now, Maister Derriman, once more I ask ye to cast off
that first haughty wish to rush to Budmouth, and to go where your mis'ess
is defenceless and alone.'

'I will, Cripplestraw, now you put it like that!'

'Thank ye, thank ye heartily, Maister Derriman.  Go now and hide with
her.'

'But can I?  Now, hang flattery!--can a man hide without a stain?  Of
course I would not hide in any mean sense; no, not I!'

'If you be in love, 'tis plain you may, since it is not your own life,
but another's, that you are concerned for, and you only save your own
because it can't be helped.'

''Tis true, Cripplestraw, in a sense.  But will it be understood that
way?  Will they see it as a brave hiding?'

'Now, sir, if you had not been in love I own to ye that hiding would look
queer, but being to save the tears, groans, fits, swowndings, and perhaps
death of a comely young woman, yer principle is good; you honourably
retreat because you be too gallant to advance.  This sounds strange, ye
may say, sir; but it is plain enough to less fiery minds.'

Festus did for a moment try to uncover his teeth in a natural smile, but
it died away.  'Cripplestraw, you flatter me; or do you mean it?  Well,
there's truth in it.  I am more gallant in going to her than in marching
to the shore.  But we cannot be too careful about our good names, we
soldiers.  I must not be seen.  I'm off.'

Cripplestraw opened the hurdle which closed the arch under the portico
gateway, and Festus passed under, Uncle Benjamin singing, _Twen-ty-three
and a half from N.W._ with a sort of sublime ecstasy, feeling, as Festus
had observed, that his money was safe, and that the French would not
personally molest an old man in such a ragged, mildewed coat as that he
wore, which he had taken the precaution to borrow from a scarecrow in one
of his fields for the purpose.

Festus rode on full of his intention to seek out Anne, and under cover of
protecting her retreat accompany her to King's-Bere, where he knew the
Lovedays had relatives.  In the lane he met Granny Seamore, who, having
packed up all her possessions in a small basket, was placidly retreating
to the mountains till all should be over.

'Well, granny, have ye seen the French?' asked Festus.

'No,' she said, looking up at him through her brazen spectacles.  'If I
had I shouldn't ha' seed thee!'

'Faugh!' replied the yeoman, and rode on.  Just as he reached the old
road, which he had intended merely to cross and avoid, his countenance
fell.  Some troops of regulars, who appeared to be dragoons, were
rattling along the road.  Festus hastened towards an opposite gate, so as
to get within the field before they should see him; but, as ill-luck
would have it, as soon as he got inside, a party of six or seven of his
own yeomanry troop were straggling across the same field and making for
the spot where he was.  The dragoons passed without seeing him; but when
he turned out into the road again it was impossible to retreat towards
Overcombe village because of the yeomen.  So he rode straight on, and
heard them coming at his heels.  There was no other gate, and the highway
soon became as straight as a bowstring.  Unable thus to turn without
meeting them, and caught like an eel in a water-pipe, Festus drew nearer
and nearer to the fateful shore.  But he did not relinquish hope.  Just
ahead there were cross-roads, and he might have a chance of slipping down
one of them without being seen.  On reaching the spot he found that he
was not alone.  A horseman had come up the right-hand lane and drawn
rein.  It was an officer of the German legion, and seeing Festus he held
up his hand.  Festus rode up to him and saluted.

'It ist false report!' said the officer.

Festus was a man again.  He felt that nothing was too much for him.  The
officer, after some explanation of the cause of alarm, said that he was
going across to the road which led by the moor, to stop the troops and
volunteers converging from that direction, upon which Festus offered to
give information along the Casterbridge road.  The German crossed over,
and was soon out of sight in the lane, while Festus turned back upon the
way by which he had come.  The party of yeomanry cavalry was rapidly
drawing near, and he soon recognized among them the excited voices of
Stubb of Duddle Hole, Noakes of Muckleford, and other comrades of his
orgies at the hall.  It was a magnificent opportunity, and Festus drew
his sword.  When they were within speaking distance he reined round his
charger's head to Budmouth and shouted, 'On, comrades, on!  I am waiting
for you.  You have been a long time getting up with me, seeing the
glorious nature of our deeds to-day!'

'Well said, Derriman, well said!' replied the foremost of the riders.
'Have you heard anything new?'

'Only that he's here with his tens of thousands, and that we are to ride
to meet him sword in hand as soon as we have assembled in the town ahead
here.'

'O Lord!' said Noakes, with a slight falling of the lower jaw.

'The man who quails now is unworthy of the name of yeoman,' said Festus,
still keeping ahead of the other troopers and holding up his sword to the
sun.  'O Noakes, fie, fie!  You begin to look pale, man.'

'Faith, perhaps you'd look pale,' said Noakes, with an envious glance
upon Festus's daring manner, 'if you had a wife and family depending upon
ye!'

'I'll take three frog-eating Frenchmen single-handed!' rejoined Derriman,
still flourishing his sword.

'They have as good swords as you; as you will soon find,' said another of
the yeomen.

'If they were three times armed,' said Festus--'ay, thrice three times--I
would attempt 'em three to one.  How do you feel now, my old friend
Stubb?' (turning to another of the warriors.)  'O, friend Stubb! no
bouncing health to our lady-loves in Oxwell Hall this summer as last.  Eh,
Brownjohn?'

'I am afraid not,' said Brownjohn gloomily.

'No rattling dinners at Stacie's Hotel, and the King below with his
staff.  No wrenching off door-knockers and sending 'em to the bakehouse
in a pie that nobody calls for.  Weeks of cut-and-thrust work rather!'

'I suppose so.'

'Fight how we may we shan't get rid of the cursed tyrant before autumn,
and many thousand brave men will lie low before it's done,' remarked a
young yeoman with a calm face, who meant to do his duty without much
talking.

'No grinning matches at Mai-dun Castle this summer,' Festus resumed; 'no
thread-the-needle at Greenhill Fair, and going into shows and driving the
showman crazy with cock-a-doodle-doo!'

'I suppose not.'

'Does it make you seem just a trifle uncomfortable, Noakes?  Keep up your
spirits, old comrade.  Come, forward! we are only ambling on like so many
donkey-women.  We have to get into Budmouth, join the rest of the troop,
and then march along the coast west'ard, as I imagine.  At this rate we
shan't be well into the thick of battle before twelve o'clock.  Spur on,
comrades.  No dancing on the green, Lockham, this year in the moonlight!
You was tender upon that girl; gad, what will become o' her in the
struggle?'

'Come, come, Derriman,' expostulated Lockham--'this is all very well, but
I don't care for 't.  I am as ready to fight as any man, but--'

'Perhaps when you get into battle, Derriman, and see what it's like, your
courage will cool down a little,' added Noakes on the same side, but with
secret admiration of Festus's reckless bravery.

'I shall be bayoneted first,' said Festus.  'Now let's rally, and on!'

Since Festus was determined to spur on wildly, the rest of the yeomen did
not like to seem behindhand, and they rapidly approached the town.  Had
they been calm enough to reflect, they might have observed that for the
last half-hour no carts or carriages had met them on the way, as they had
done further back.  It was not till the troopers reached the turnpike
that they learnt what Festus had known a quarter of an hour before.  At
the intelligence Derriman sheathed his sword with a sigh; and the party
soon fell in with comrades who had arrived there before them, whereupon
the source and details of the alarm were boisterously discussed.

'What, didn't you know of the mistake till now?' asked one of these of
the new-comers.  'Why, when I was dropping over the hill by the cross-
roads I looked back and saw that man talking to the messenger, and he
must have told him the truth.'  The speaker pointed to Festus.  They
turned their indignant eyes full upon him.  That he had sported with
their deepest feelings, while knowing the rumour to be baseless, was soon
apparent to all.

'Beat him black and blue with the flat of our blades!' shouted two or
three, turning their horses' heads to drop back upon Derriman, in which
move they were followed by most of the party.

But Festus, foreseeing danger from the unexpected revelation, had already
judiciously placed a few intervening yards between himself and his fellow-
yeomen, and now, clapping spurs to his horse, rattled like thunder and
lightning up the road homeward.  His ready flight added hotness to their
pursuit, and as he rode and looked fearfully over his shoulder he could
see them following with enraged faces and drawn swords, a position which
they kept up for a distance of more than a mile.  Then he had the
satisfaction of seeing them drop off one by one, and soon he and his
panting charger remained alone on the highway.




XXVII.  DANGER TO ANNE


He stopped and reflected how to turn this rebuff to advantage.  Baulked
in his project of entering the watering-place and enjoying
congratulations upon his patriotic bearing during the advance, he sulkily
considered that he might be able to make some use of his enforced
retirement by riding to Overcombe and glorifying himself in the eyes of
Miss Garland before the truth should have reached that hamlet.  Having
thus decided he spurred on in a better mood.

By this time the volunteers were on the march, and as Derriman ascended
the road he met the Overcombe company, in which trudged Miller Loveday
shoulder to shoulder with the other substantial householders of the place
and its neighbourhood, duly equipped with pouches, cross-belts,
firelocks, flint-boxes, pickers, worms, magazines, priming-horns, heel-
ball, and pomatum.  There was nothing to be gained by further suppression
of the truth, and briefly informing them that the danger was not so
immediate as had been supposed, Festus galloped on.  At the end of
another mile he met a large number of pikemen, including Bob Loveday,
whom the yeoman resolved to sound upon the whereabouts of Anne.  The
circumstances were such as to lead Bob to speak more frankly than he
might have done on reflection, and he told Festus the direction in which
the women had been sent.  Then Festus informed the group that the report
of invasion was false, upon which they all turned to go homeward with
greatly relieved spirits.

Bob walked beside Derriman's horse for some distance.  Loveday had
instantly made up his mind to go and look for the women, and ease their
anxiety by letting them know the good news as soon as possible.  But he
said nothing of this to Festus during their return together; nor did
Festus tell Bob that he also had resolved to seek them out, and by
anticipating every one else in that enterprise, make of it a glorious
opportunity for bringing Miss Garland to her senses about him.  He still
resented the ducking that he had received at her hands, and was not
disposed to let that insult pass without obtaining some sort of sweet
revenge.

As soon as they had parted Festus cantered on over the hill, meeting on
his way the Longpuddle volunteers, sixty rank and file, under Captain
Cunningham; the Casterbridge company, ninety strong (known as the
'Consideration Company' in those days), under Captain Strickland; and
others--all with anxious faces and covered with dust.  Just passing the
word to them and leaving them at halt, he proceeded rapidly onward in the
direction of King's-Bere.  Nobody appeared on the road for some time,
till after a ride of several miles he met a stray corporal of volunteers,
who told Festus in answer to his inquiry that he had certainly passed no
gig full of women of the kind described.  Believing that he had missed
them by following the highway, Derriman turned back into a lane along
which they might have chosen to journey for privacy's sake,
notwithstanding the badness and uncertainty of its track.  Arriving again
within five miles of Overcombe, he at length heard tidings of the
wandering vehicle and its precious burden, which, like the Ark when sent
away from the country of the Philistines, had apparently been left to the
instincts of the beast that drew it.  A labouring man, just at daybreak,
had seen the helpless party going slowly up a distant drive, which he
pointed out.

No sooner had Festus parted from this informant than he beheld Bob
approaching, mounted on the miller's second and heavier horse.  Bob
looked rather surprised, and Festus felt his coming glory in danger.

'They went down that lane,' he said, signifying precisely the opposite
direction to the true one.  'I, too, have been on the look-out for
missing friends.'

As Festus was riding back there was no reason to doubt his information,
and Loveday rode on as misdirected.  Immediately that he was out of sight
Festus reversed his course, and followed the track which Anne and her
companions were last seen to pursue.

This road had been ascended by the gig in question nearly two hours
before the present moment.  Molly, the servant, held the reins, Mrs.
Loveday sat beside her, and Anne behind.  Their progress was but slow,
owing partly to Molly's want of skill, and partly to the steepness of the
road, which here passed over downs of some extent, and was rarely or
never mended.  It was an anxious morning for them all, and the beauties
of the early summer day fell upon unheeding eyes.  They were too anxious
even for conjecture, and each sat thinking her own thoughts, occasionally
glancing westward, or stopping the horse to listen to sounds from more
frequented roads along which other parties were retreating.  Once, while
they listened and gazed thus, they saw a glittering in the distance, and
heard the tramp of many horses.  It was a large body of cavalry going in
the direction of the King's watering-place, the same regiment of
dragoons, in fact, which Festus had seen further on in its course.  The
women in the gig had no doubt that these men were marching at once to
engage the enemy.  By way of varying the monotony of the journey Molly
occasionally burst into tears of horror, believing Buonaparte to be in
countenance and habits precisely what the caricatures represented him.
Mrs. Loveday endeavoured to establish cheerfulness by assuring her
companions of the natural civility of the French nation, with whom
unprotected women were safe from injury, unless through the casual
excesses of soldiery beyond control.  This was poor consolation to Anne,
whose mind was more occupied with Bob than with herself, and a miserable
fear that she would never again see him alive so paled her face and
saddened her gaze forward, that at last her mother said, 'Who was you
thinking of, my dear?'  Anne's only reply was a look at her mother, with
which a tear mingled.

Molly whipped the horse, by which she quickened his pace for five yards,
when he again fell into the perverse slowness that showed how fully
conscious he was of being the master-mind and chief personage of the
four.  Whenever there was a pool of water by the road he turned aside to
drink a mouthful, and remained there his own time in spite of Molly's tug
at the reins and futile fly-flapping on his rump.  They were now in the
chalk district, where there were no hedges, and a rough attempt at
mending the way had been made by throwing down huge lumps of that glaring
material in heaps, without troubling to spread it or break them abroad.
The jolting here was most distressing, and seemed about to snap the
springs.

'How that wheel do wamble,' said Molly at last.  She had scarcely spoken
when the wheel came off, and all three were precipitated over it into the
road.

Fortunately the horse stood still, and they began to gather themselves
up.  The only one of the three who had suffered in the least from the
fall was Anne, and she was only conscious of a severe shaking which had
half stupefied her for the time.  The wheel lay flat in the road, so that
there was no possibility of driving further in their present plight.  They
looked around for help.  The only friendly object near was a lonely
cottage, from its situation evidently the home of a shepherd.

The horse was unharnessed and tied to the back of the gig, and the three
women went across to the house.  On getting close they found that the
shutters of all the lower windows were closed, but on trying the door it
opened to the hand.  Nobody was within; the house appeared to have been
abandoned in some confusion, and the probability was that the shepherd
had fled on hearing the alarm.  Anne now said that she felt the effects
of her fall too severely to be able to go any further just then, and it
was agreed that she should be left there while Mrs. Loveday and Molly
went on for assistance, the elder lady deeming Molly too young and vacant-
minded to be trusted to go alone.  Molly suggested taking the horse, as
the distance might be great, each of them sitting alternately on his back
while the other led him by the head.  This they did, Anne watching them
vanish down the white and lumpy road.

She then looked round the room, as well as she could do so by the light
from the open door.  It was plain, from the shutters being closed, that
the shepherd had left his house before daylight, the candle and
extinguisher on the table pointing to the same conclusion.  Here she
remained, her eyes occasionally sweeping the bare, sunny expanse of down,
that was only relieved from absolute emptiness by the overturned gig hard
by.  The sheep seemed to have gone away, and scarcely a bird flew across
to disturb the solitude.  Anne had risen early that morning, and leaning
back in the withy chair, which she had placed by the door, she soon fell
into an uneasy doze, from which she was awakened by the distant tramp of
a horse.  Feeling much recovered from the effects of the overturn, she
eagerly rose and looked out.  The horse was not Miller Loveday's, but a
powerful bay, bearing a man in full yeomanry uniform.

Anne did not wait to recognize further; instantly re-entering the house,
she shut the door and bolted it.  In the dark she sat and listened: not a
sound.  At the end of ten minutes, thinking that the rider if he were not
Festus had carelessly passed by, or that if he were Festus he had not
seen her, she crept softly upstairs and peeped out of the window.
Excepting the spot of shade, formed by the gig as before, the down was
quite bare.  She then opened the casement and stretched out her neck.

'Ha, young madam!  There you are!  I knew 'ee!  Now you are caught!' came
like a clap of thunder from a point three or four feet beneath her, and
turning down her frightened eyes she beheld Festus Derriman lurking close
to the wall.  His attention had first been attracted by her shutting the
door of the cottage; then by the overturned gig; and after making sure,
by examining the vehicle, that he was not mistaken in her identity, he
had dismounted, led his horse round to the side, and crept up to entrap
her.

Anne started back into the room, and remained still as a stone.  Festus
went on--'Come, you must trust to me.  The French have landed.  I have
been trying to meet with you every hour since that confounded trick you
played me.  You threw me into the water.  Faith, it was well for you I
didn't catch ye then!  I should have taken a revenge in a better way than
I shall now.  I mean to have that kiss of ye.  Come, Miss Nancy; do you
hear?--'Tis no use for you to lurk inside there.  You'll have to turn out
as soon as Boney comes over the hill--Are you going to open the door, I
say, and speak to me in a civil way?  What do you think I am, then, that
you should barricade yourself against me as if I was a wild beast or
Frenchman?  Open the door, or put out your head, or do something; or 'pon
my soul I'll break in the door!'

It occurred to Anne at this point of the tirade that the best policy
would be to temporize till somebody should return, and she put out her
head and face, now grown somewhat pale.

'That's better,' said Festus.  'Now I can talk to you.  Come, my dear,
will you open the door?  Why should you be afraid of me?'

'I am not altogether afraid of you; I am safe from the French here,' said
Anne, not very truthfully, and anxiously casting her eyes over the vacant
down.

'Then let me tell you that the alarm is false, and that no landing has
been attempted.  Now will you open the door and let me in?  I am tired.  I
have been on horseback ever since daylight, and have come to bring you
the good tidings.'

Anne looked as if she doubted the news.

'Come,' said Festus.

'No, I cannot let you in,' she murmured, after a pause.

'Dash my wig, then,' he cried, his face flaming up, 'I'll find a way to
get in!  Now, don't you provoke me!  You don't know what I am capable of.
I ask you again, will you open the door?'

'Why do you wish it?' she said faintly.

'I have told you I want to sit down; and I want to ask you a question.'

'You can ask me from where you are.'

'I cannot ask you properly.  It is about a serious matter: whether you
will accept my heart and hand.  I am not going to throw myself at your
feet; but I ask you to do your duty as a woman, namely, give your solemn
word to take my name as soon as the war is over and I have time to attend
to you.  I scorn to ask it of a haughty hussy who will only speak to me
through a window; however, I put it to you for the last time, madam.'

There was no sign on the down of anybody's return, and she said, 'I'll
think of it, sir.'

'You have thought of it long enough; I want to know.  Will you or won't
you?'

'Very well; I think I will.'  And then she felt that she might be buying
personal safety too dearly by shuffling thus, since he would spread the
report that she had accepted him, and cause endless complication.  'No,'
she said, 'I have changed my mind.  I cannot accept you, Mr. Derriman.'

'That's how you play with me!' he exclaimed, stamping.  '"Yes," one
moment; "No," the next.  Come, you don't know what you refuse.  That old
hall is my uncle's own, and he has nobody else to leave it to.  As soon
as he's dead I shall throw up farming and start as a squire.  And now,'
he added with a bitter sneer, 'what a fool you are to hang back from such
a chance!'

'Thank you, I don't value it,' said Anne.

'Because you hate him who would make it yours?'

'It may not lie in your power to do that.'

'What--has the old fellow been telling you his affairs?'

'No.'

'Then why do you mistrust me?  Now, after this will you open the door,
and show that you treat me as a friend if you won't accept me as a lover?
I only want to sit and talk to you.'

Anne thought she would trust him; it seemed almost impossible that he
could harm her.  She retired from the window and went downstairs.  When
her hand was upon the bolt of the door, her mind misgave her.  Instead of
withdrawing it she remained in silence where she was, and he began again--

'Are you going to unfasten it?'

Anne did not speak.

'Now, dash my wig, I will get at you!  You've tried me beyond endurance.
One kiss would have been enough that day in the mead; now I'll have
forty, whether you will or no!'

He flung himself against the door; but as it was bolted, and had in
addition a great wooden bar across it, this produced no effect.  He was
silent for a moment, and then the terrified girl heard him attempt the
shuttered window.  She ran upstairs and again scanned the down.  The
yellow gig still lay in the blazing sunshine, and the horse of Festus
stood by the corner of the garden--nothing else was to be seen.  At this
moment there came to her ear the noise of a sword drawn from its
scabbard; and, peeping over the window-sill, she saw her tormentor drive
his sword between the joints of the shutters, in an attempt to rip them
open.  The sword snapped off in his hand.  With an imprecation he pulled
out the piece, and returned the two halves to the scabbard.

'Ha! ha!' he cried, catching sight of the top of her head.  ''Tis only a
joke, you know; but I'll get in all the same.  All for a kiss!  But never
mind, we'll do it yet!'  He spoke in an affectedly light tone, as if
ashamed of his previous resentful temper; but she could see by the livid
back of his neck that he was brimful of suppressed passion.  'Only a
jest, you know,' he went on.  'How are we going to do it now?  Why, in
this way.  I go and get a ladder, and enter at the upper window where my
love is.  And there's the ladder lying under that corn-rick in the first
enclosed field.  Back in two minutes, dear!'

He ran off, and was lost to her view.




XXVIII.  ANNE DOES WONDERS


Anne fearfully surveyed her position.  The upper windows of the cottage
were of flimsiest lead-work, and to keep him out would be hopeless.  She
felt that not a moment was to be lost in getting away.  Running
downstairs she opened the door, and then it occurred to her terrified
understanding that there would be no chance of escaping him by flight
afoot across such an extensive down, since he might mount his horse and
easily ride after her.  The animal still remained tethered at the corner
of the garden; if she could release him and frighten him away before
Festus returned, there would not be quite such odds against her.  She
accordingly unhooked the horse by reaching over the bank, and then,
pulling off her muslin neckerchief, flapped it in his eyes to startle
him.  But the gallant steed did not move or flinch; she tried again, and
he seemed rather pleased than otherwise.  At this moment she heard a cry
from the cottage, and turning, beheld her adversary approaching round the
corner of the building.

'I thought I should tole out the mouse by that trick!' cried Festus
exultingly.  Instead of going for a ladder, he had simply hidden himself
at the back to tempt her down.

Poor Anne was now desperate.  The bank on which she stood was level with
the horse's back, and the creature seemed quiet as a lamb.  With a
determination of which she was capable in emergencies, she seized the
rein, flung herself upon the sheepskin, and held on by the mane.  The
amazed charger lifted his head, sniffed, wrenched his ears hither and
thither, and started off at a frightful speed across the down.

'O, my heart and limbs!' said Festus under his breath, as, thoroughly
alarmed, he gazed after her.  'She on Champion!  She'll break her neck,
and I shall be tried for manslaughter, and disgrace will be brought upon
the name of Derriman!'

Champion continued to go at a stretch-gallop, but he did nothing worse.
Had he plunged or reared, Derriman's fears might have been verified, and
Anne have come with deadly force to the ground.  But the course was good,
and in the horse's speed lay a comparative security.  She was scarcely
shaken in her precarious half-horizontal position, though she was awed to
see the grass, loose stones, and other objects pass her eyes like strokes
whenever she opened them, which was only just for a second at intervals
of half a minute; and to feel how wildly the stirrups swung, and that
what struck her knee was the bucket of the carbine, and that it was a
pistol-holster which hurt her arm.

They quickly cleared the down, and Anne became conscious that the course
of the horse was homeward.  As soon as the ground began to rise towards
the outer belt of upland which lay between her and the coast, Champion,
now panting and reeking with moisture, lessened his speed in sheer
weariness, and proceeded at a rapid jolting trot.  Anne felt that she
could not hold on half so well; the gallop had been child's play compared
with this.  They were in a lane, ascending to a ridge, and she made up
her mind for a fall.  Over the ridge rose an animated spot, higher and
higher; it turned out to be the upper part of a man, and the man to be a
soldier.  Such was Anne's attitude that she only got an occasional
glimpse of him; and, though she feared that he might be a Frenchman, she
feared the horse more than the enemy, as she had feared Festus more than
the horse.  Anne had energy enough left to cry, 'Stop him; stop him!' as
the soldier drew near.

He, astonished at the sight of a military horse with a bundle of drapery
across his back, had already placed himself in the middle of the lane,
and he now held out his arms till his figure assumed the form of a Latin
cross planted in the roadway.  Champion drew near, swerved, and stood
still almost suddenly, a check sufficient to send Anne slipping down his
flank to the ground.  The timely friend stepped forward and helped her to
her feet, when she saw that he was John Loveday.

'Are you hurt?' he said hastily, having turned quite pale at seeing her
fall.

'O no; not a bit,' said Anne, gathering herself up with forced briskness,
to make light of the misadventure.

'But how did you get in such a place?'

'There, he's gone!' she exclaimed, instead of replying, as Champion swept
round John Loveday and cantered off triumphantly in the direction of
Oxwell, a performance which she followed with her eyes.

'But how did you come upon his back, and whose horse is it?'

'I will tell you.'

'Well?'

'I--cannot tell you.'

John looked steadily at her, saying nothing.

'How did you come here?' she asked.  'Is it true that the French have not
landed at all?'

'Quite true; the alarm was groundless.  I'll tell you all about it.  You
look very tired.  You had better sit down a few minutes.  Let us sit on
this bank.'

He helped her to the slope indicated, and continued, still as if his
thoughts were more occupied with the mystery of her recent situation than
with what he was saying: 'We arrived at Budmouth Barracks this morning,
and are to lie there all the summer.  I could not write to tell father we
were coming.  It was not because of any rumour of the French, for we knew
nothing of that till we met the people on the road, and the colonel said
in a moment the news was false.  Buonaparte is not even at Boulogne just
now.  I was anxious to know how you had borne the fright, so I hastened
to Overcombe at once, as soon as I could get out of barracks.'

Anne, who had not been at all responsive to his discourse, now swayed
heavily against him, and looking quickly down he found that she had
silently fainted.  To support her in his arms was of course the impulse
of a moment.  There was no water to be had, and he could think of nothing
else but to hold her tenderly till she came round again.  Certainly he
desired nothing more.

Again he asked himself, what did it all mean?

He waited, looking down upon her tired eyelids, and at the row of lashes
lying upon each cheek, whose natural roundness showed itself in singular
perfection now that the customary pink had given place to a pale
luminousness caught from the surrounding atmosphere.  The dumpy ringlets
about her forehead and behind her poll, which were usually as tight as
springs, had been partially uncoiled by the wildness of her ride, and
hung in split locks over her forehead and neck.  John, who, during the
long months of his absence, had lived only to meet her again, was in a
state of ecstatic reverence, and bending down he gently kissed her.

Anne was just becoming conscious.

'O, Mr. Derriman, never, never!' she murmured, sweeping her face with her
hand.

'I thought he was at the bottom of it,' said John.

Anne opened her eyes, and started back from him.  'What is it?' she said
wildly.

'You are ill, my dear Miss Garland,' replied John in trembling anxiety,
and taking her hand.

'I am not ill, I am wearied out!' she said.  'Can't we walk on?  How far
are we from Overcombe?'

'About a mile.  But tell me, somebody has been hurting you--frightening
you.  I know who it was; it was Derriman, and that was his horse.  Now do
you tell me all.'

Anne reflected.  'Then if I tell you,' she said, 'will you discuss with
me what I had better do, and not for the present let my mother and your
father know?  I don't want to alarm them, and I must not let my affairs
interrupt the business connexion between the mill and the hall that has
gone on for so many years.'

The trumpet-major promised, and Anne told the adventure.  His brow
reddened as she went on, and when she had done she said, 'Now you are
angry.  Don't do anything dreadful, will you?  Remember that this Festus
will most likely succeed his uncle at Oxwell, in spite of present
appearances, and if Bob succeeds at the mill there should be no enmity
between them.'

'That's true.  I won't tell Bob.  Leave him to me.  Where is Derriman
now?  On his way home, I suppose.  When I have seen you into the house I
will deal with him--quite quietly, so that he shall say nothing about
it.'

'Yes, appeal to him, do!  Perhaps he will be better then.'

They walked on together, Loveday seeming to experience much quiet bliss.

'I came to look for you,' he said, 'because of that dear, sweet letter
you wrote.'

'Yes, I did write you a letter,' she admitted, with misgiving, now
beginning to see her mistake.  'It was because I was sorry I had blamed
you.'

'I am almost glad you did blame me,' said John cheerfully, 'since, if you
had not, the letter would not have come.  I have read it fifty times a
day.'

This put Anne into an unhappy mood, and they proceeded without much
further talk till the mill chimneys were visible below them.  John then
said that he would leave her to go in by herself.

'Ah, you are going back to get into some danger on my account?'

'I can't get into much danger with such a fellow as he, can I?' said
John, smiling.

'Well, no,' she answered, with a sudden carelessness of tone.  It was
indispensable that he should be undeceived, and to begin the process by
taking an affectedly light view of his personal risks was perhaps as good
a way to do it as any.  Where friendliness was construed as love, an
assumed indifference was the necessary expression for friendliness.

So she let him go; and, bidding him hasten back as soon as he could, went
down the hill, while John's feet retraced the upland.

The trumpet-major spent the whole afternoon and evening in that long and
difficult search for Festus Derriman.  Crossing the down at the end of
the second hour he met Molly and Mrs. Loveday.  The gig had been
repaired, they had learnt the groundlessness of the alarm, and they would
have been proceeding happily enough but for their anxiety about Anne.
John told them shortly that she had got a lift home, and proceeded on his
way.

The worthy object of his search had in the meantime been plodding
homeward on foot, sulky at the loss of his charger, encumbered with his
sword, belts, high boots, and uniform, and in his own discomfiture
careless whether Anne Garland's life had been endangered or not.

At length Derriman reached a place where the road ran between high banks,
one of which he mounted and paced along as a change from the hard
trackway.  Ahead of him he saw an old man sitting down, with eyes fixed
on the dust of the road, as if resting and meditating at one and the same
time.  Being pretty sure that he recognized his uncle in that venerable
figure, Festus came forward stealthily, till he was immediately above the
old man's back.  The latter was clothed in faded nankeen breeches,
speckled stockings, a drab hat, and a coat which had once been light
blue, but from exposure as a scarecrow had assumed the complexion and
fibre of a dried pudding-cloth.  The farmer was, in fact, returning to
the hall, which he had left in the morning some time later than his
nephew, to seek an asylum in a hollow tree about two miles off.  The tree
was so situated as to command a view of the building, and Uncle Benjy had
managed to clamber up inside this natural fortification high enough to
watch his residence through a hole in the bark, till, gathering from the
words of occasional passers-by that the alarm was at least premature, he
had ventured into daylight again.

He was now engaged in abstractedly tracing a diagram in the dust with his
walking-stick, and muttered words to himself aloud.  Presently he arose
and went on his way without turning round.  Festus was curious enough to
descend and look at the marks.  They represented an oblong, with two semi-
diagonals, and a little square in the middle.  Upon the diagonals were
the figures 20 and 17, and on each side of the parallelogram stood a
letter signifying the point of the compass.

'What crazy thing is running in his head now?' said Festus to himself,
with supercilious pity, recollecting that the farmer had been singing
those very numbers earlier in the morning.  Being able to make nothing of
it, he lengthened his strides, and treading on tiptoe overtook his
relative, saluting him by scratching his back like a hen.  The startled
old farmer danced round like a top, and gasping, said, as he perceived
his nephew, 'What, Festy! not thrown from your horse and killed, then,
after all!'

'No, nunc.  What made ye think that?'

'Champion passed me about an hour ago, when I was in hiding--poor timid
soul of me, for I had nothing to lose by the French coming--and he looked
awful with the stirrups dangling and the saddle empty.  'Tis a gloomy
sight, Festy, to see a horse cantering without a rider, and I thought you
had been--feared you had been thrown off and killed as dead as a nit.'

'Bless your dear old heart for being so anxious!  And what pretty picture
were you drawing just now with your walking-stick!'

'O, that!  That is only a way I have of amusing myself.  It showed how
the French might have advanced to the attack, you know.  Such trifles
fill the head of a weak old man like me.'

'Or the place where something is hid away--money, for instance?'

'Festy,' said the farmer reproachfully, 'you always know I use the old
glove in the bedroom cupboard for any guinea or two I possess.'

'Of course I do,' said Festus ironically.

They had now reached a lonely inn about a mile and a half from the hall,
and, the farmer not responding to his nephew's kind invitation to come in
and treat him, Festus entered alone.  He was dusty, draggled, and weary,
and he remained at the tavern long.  The trumpet-major, in the meantime,
having searched the roads in vain, heard in the course of the evening of
the yeoman's arrival at this place, and that he would probably be found
there still.  He accordingly approached the door, reaching it just as the
dusk of evening changed to darkness.

There was no light in the passage, but John pushed on at hazard, inquired
for Derriman, and was told that he would be found in the back parlour
alone.  When Loveday first entered the apartment he was unable to see
anything, but following the guidance of a vigorous snoring, he came to
the settle, upon which Festus lay asleep, his position being faintly
signified by the shine of his buttons and other parts of his uniform.
John laid his hand upon the reclining figure and shook him, and by
degrees Derriman stopped his snore and sat up.

'Who are you?' he said, in the accents of a man who has been drinking
hard.  'Is it you, dear Anne?  Let me kiss you; yes, I will.'

'Shut your mouth, you pitiful blockhead; I'll teach you genteeler manners
than to persecute a young woman in that way!' and taking Festus by the
ear, he gave it a good pull.  Festus broke out with an oath, and struck a
vague blow in the air with his fist; whereupon the trumpet-major dealt
him a box on the right ear, and a similar one on the left to artistically
balance the first.  Festus jumped up and used his fists wildly, but
without any definite result.

'Want to fight, do ye, eh?' said John.  'Nonsense! you can't fight, you
great baby, and never could.  You are only fit to be smacked!' and he
dealt Festus a specimen of the same on the cheek with the palm of his
hand.

'No, sir, no!  O, you are Loveday, the young man she's going to be
married to, I suppose?  Dash me, I didn't want to hurt her, sir.'

'Yes, my name is Loveday; and you'll know where to find me, since we
can't finish this to-night.  Pistols or swords, whichever you like, my
boy.  Take that, and that, so that you may not forget to call upon me!'
and again he smacked the yeoman's ears and cheeks.  'Do you know what it
is for, eh?'

'No, Mr. Loveday, sir--yes, I mean, I do.'

'What is it for, then?  I shall keep smacking until you tell me.  Gad! if
you weren't drunk, I'd half kill you here to-night.'

'It is because I served her badly.  Damned if I care!  I'll do it again,
and be hanged to 'ee!  Where's my horse Champion?  Tell me that,' and he
hit at the trumpet-major.

John parried this attack, and taking him firmly by the collar, pushed him
down into the seat, saying, 'Here I hold 'ee till you beg pardon for your
doings to-day.  Do you want any more of it, do you?'  And he shook the
yeoman to a sort of jelly.

'I do beg pardon--no, I don't.  I say this, that you shall not take such
liberties with old Squire Derriman's nephew, you dirty miller's son, you
flour-worm, you smut in the corn!  I'll call you out to-morrow morning,
and have my revenge.'

'Of course you will; that's what I came for.'  And pushing him back into
the corner of the settle, Loveday went out of the house, feeling
considerable satisfaction at having got himself into the beginning of as
nice a quarrel about Anne Garland as the most jealous lover could desire.

But of one feature in this curious adventure he had not the least
notion--that Festus Derriman, misled by the darkness, the fumes of his
potations, and the constant sight of Anne and Bob together, never once
supposed his assailant to be any other man than Bob, believing the
trumpet-major miles away.

There was a moon during the early part of John's walk home, but when he
had arrived within a mile of Overcombe the sky clouded over, and rain
suddenly began to fall with some violence.  Near him was a wooden granary
on tall stone staddles, and perceiving that the rain was only a
thunderstorm which would soon pass away, he ascended the steps and
entered the doorway, where he stood watching the half-obscured moon
through the streaming rain.  Presently, to his surprise, he beheld a
female figure running forward with great rapidity, not towards the
granary for shelter, but towards open ground.  What could she be running
for in that direction?  The answer came in the appearance of his brother
Bob from that quarter, seated on the back of his father's heavy horse.  As
soon as the woman met him, Bob dismounted and caught her in his arms.
They stood locked together, the rain beating into their unconscious
forms, and the horse looking on.

The trumpet-major fell back inside the granary, and threw himself on a
heap of empty sacks which lay in the corner: he had recognized the woman
to be Anne.  Here he reclined in a stupor till he was aroused by the
sound of voices under him, the voices of Anne and his brother, who,
having at last discovered that they were getting wet, had taken shelter
under the granary floor.

'I have been home,' said she.  'Mother and Molly have both got back long
ago.  We were all anxious about you, and I came out to look for you.  O,
Bob, I am so glad to see you again!'

John might have heard every word of the conversation, which was continued
in the same strain for a long time; but he stopped his ears, and would
not.  Still they remained, and still was he determined that they should
not see him.  With the conserved hope of more than half a year dashed
away in a moment, he could yet feel that the cruelty of a protest would
be even greater than its inutility.  It was absolutely by his own
contrivance that the situation had been shaped.  Bob, left to himself,
would long ere this have been the husband of another woman.

The rain decreased, and the lovers went on.  John looked after them as
they strolled, aqua-tinted by the weak moon and mist.  Bob had thrust one
of his arms through the rein of the horse, and the other was round Anne's
waist.  When they were lost behind the declivity the trumpet-major came
out, and walked homeward even more slowly than they.  As he went on, his
face put off its complexion of despair for one of serene resolve.  For
the first time in his dealings with friends he entered upon a course of
counterfeiting, set his features to conceal his thought, and instructed
his tongue to do likewise.  He threw fictitiousness into his very gait,
even now, when there was nobody to see him, and struck at stems of wild
parsley with his regimental switch as he had used to do when soldiering
was new to him, and life in general a charming experience.

Thus cloaking his sickly thought, he descended to the mill as the others
had done before him, occasionally looking down upon the wet road to
notice how close Anne's little tracks were to Bob's all the way along,
and how precisely a curve in his course was followed by a curve in hers.
But after this he erected his head and walked so smartly up to the front
door that his spurs rang through the court.

They had all reached home, but before any of them could speak he cried
gaily, 'Ah, Bob, I have been thinking of you!  By God, how are you, my
boy?  No French cut-throats after all, you see.  Here we are, well and
happy together again.'

'A good Providence has watched over us,' said Mrs. Loveday cheerfully.
'Yes, in all times and places we are in God's hand.'

'So we be, so we be!' said the miller, who still shone in all the
fierceness of uniform.  'Well, now we'll ha'e a drop o' drink.'

'There's none,' said David, coming forward with a drawn face.

'What!' said the miller.

'Afore I went to church for a pike to defend my native country from
Boney, I pulled out the spigots of all the barrels, maister; for, thinks
I--damn him!--since we can't drink it ourselves, he shan't have it, nor
none of his men.'

'But you shouldn't have done it till you was sure he'd come!' said the
miller, aghast.

'Chok' it all, I was sure!' said David.  'I'd sooner see churches fall
than good drink wasted; but how was I to know better?'

'Well, well; what with one thing and another this day will cost me a
pretty penny!' said Loveday, bustling off to the cellar, which he found
to be several inches deep in stagnant liquor.  'John, how can I welcome
'ee?' he continued hopelessly, on his return to the room.  'Only go and
see what he's done!'

'I've ladled up a drap wi' a spoon, trumpet-major,' said David.  ''Tisn't
bad drinking, though it do taste a little of the floor, that's true.'

John said that he did not require anything at all; and then they all sat
down to supper, and were very temperately gay with a drop of mild elder-
wine which Mrs. Loveday found in the bottom of a jar.  The trumpet-major,
adhering to the part he meant to play, gave humorous accounts of his
adventures since he had last sat there.  He told them that the season was
to be a very lively one--that the royal family was coming, as usual, and
many other interesting things; so that when he left them to return to
barracks few would have supposed the British army to contain a lighter-
hearted man.

Anne was the only one who doubted the reality of this behaviour.  When
she had gone up to her bedroom she stood for some time looking at the
wick of the candle as if it were a painful object, the expression of her
face being shaped by the conviction that John's afternoon words when he
helped her out of the way of Champion were not in accordance with his
words to-night, and that the dimly-realized kiss during her faintness was
no imaginary one.  But in the blissful circumstances of having Bob at
hand again she took optimist views, and persuaded herself that John would
soon begin to see her in the light of a sister.




XXIX.  A DISSEMBLER


To cursory view, John Loveday seemed to accomplish this with amazing
ease.  Whenever he came from barracks to Overcombe, which was once or
twice a week, he related news of all sorts to her and Bob with infinite
zest, and made the time as happy a one as had ever been known at the
mill, save for himself alone.  He said nothing of Festus, except so far
as to inform Anne that he had expected to see him and been disappointed.
On the evening after the King's arrival at his seaside residence John
appeared again, staying to supper and describing the royal entry, the
many tasteful illuminations and transparencies which had been exhibited,
the quantities of tallow candles burnt for that purpose, and the swarms
of aristocracy who had followed the King thither.

When supper was over Bob went outside the house to shut the shutters,
which had, as was often the case, been left open some time after lights
were kindled within.  John still sat at the table when his brother
approached the window, though the others had risen and retired.  Bob was
struck by seeing through the pane how John's face had changed.  Throughout
the supper-time he had been talking to Anne in the gay tone habitual with
him now, which gave greater strangeness to the gloom of his present
appearance.  He remained in thought for a moment, took a letter from his
breast-pocket, opened it, and, with a tender smile at his weakness,
kissed the writing before restoring it to its place.  The letter was one
that Anne had written to him at Exonbury.

Bob stood perplexed; and then a suspicion crossed his mind that John,
from brotherly goodness, might be feigning a satisfaction with recent
events which he did not feel.  Bob now made a noise with the shutters, at
which the trumpet-major rose and went out, Bob at once following him.

'Jack,' said the sailor ingenuously, 'I'm terribly sorry that I've done
wrong.'

'How?' asked his brother.

'In courting our little Anne.  Well, you see, John, she was in the same
house with me, and somehow or other I made myself her beau.  But I have
been thinking that perhaps you had the first claim on her, and if so,
Jack, I'll make way for 'ee.  I--I don't care for her much, you know--not
so very much, and can give her up very well.  It is nothing serious
between us at all.  Yes, John, you try to get her; I can look elsewhere.'
Bob never knew how much he loved Anne till he found himself making this
speech of renunciation.

'O Bob, you are mistaken!' said the trumpet-major, who was not deceived.
'When I first saw her I admired her, and I admire her now, and like her.
I like her so well that I shall be glad to see you marry her.'

'But,' replied Bob, with hesitation, 'I thought I saw you looking very
sad, as if you were in love; I saw you take out a letter, in short.
That's what it was disturbed me and made me come to you.'

'O, I see your mistake!' said John, laughing forcedly.

At this minute Mrs. Loveday and the miller, who were taking a twilight
walk in the garden, strolled round near to where the brothers stood.  She
talked volubly on events in Budmouth, as most people did at this time.
'And they tell me that the theatre has been painted up afresh,' she was
saying, 'and that the actors have come for the season, with the most
lovely actresses that ever were seen.'

When they had passed by John continued, 'I _am_ in love, Bob; but--not
with Anne.'

'Ah! who is it then?' said the mate hopefully.

'One of the actresses at the theatre,' John replied, with a concoctive
look at the vanishing forms of Mr. and Mrs. Loveday.  'She is a very
lovely woman, you know.  But we won't say anything more about it--it
dashes a man so.'

'O, one of the actresses!' said Bob, with open mouth.

'But don't you say anything about it!' continued the trumpet-major
heartily.  'I don't want it known.'

'No, no--I won't, of course.  May I not know her name?'

'No, not now, Bob.  I cannot tell 'ee,' John answered, and with truth,
for Loveday did not know the name of any actress in the world.

When his brother had gone, Captain Bob hastened off in a state of great
animation to Anne, whom he found on the top of a neighbouring hillock
which the daylight had scarcely as yet deserted.

'You have been a long time coming, sir,' said she, in sprightly tones of
reproach.

'Yes, dearest; and you'll be glad to hear why.  I've found out the whole
mystery--yes--why he's queer, and everything.'

Anne looked startled.

'He's up to the gunnel in love!  We must try to help him on in it, or I
fear he'll go melancholy-mad like.'

'We help him?' she asked faintly.

'He's lost his heart to one of the play-actresses at Budmouth, and I
think she slights him.'

'O, I am so glad!' she exclaimed.

'Glad that his venture don't prosper?'

'O no; glad he's so sensible.  How long is it since that alarm of the
French?'

'Six weeks, honey.  Why do you ask?'

'Men can forget in six weeks, can't they, Bob?'

The impression that John had really kissed her still remained.

'Well, some men might,' observed Bob judicially.  '_I_ couldn't.  Perhaps
John might.  I couldn't forget _you_ in twenty times as long.  Do you
know, Anne, I half thought it was you John cared about; and it was a
weight off my heart when he said he didn't.'

'Did he say he didn't?'

'Yes.  He assured me himself that the only person in the hold of his
heart was this lovely play-actress, and nobody else.'

'How I should like to see her!'

'Yes.  So should I.'

'I would rather it had been one of our own neighbours' girls, whose birth
and breeding we know of; but still, if that is his taste, I hope it will
end well for him.  How very quick he has been!  I certainly wish we could
see her.'

'I don't know so much as her name.  He is very close, and wouldn't tell a
thing about her.'

'Couldn't we get him to go to the theatre with us? and then we could
watch him, and easily find out the right one.  Then we would learn if she
is a good young woman; and if she is, could we not ask her here, and so
make it smoother for him?  He has been very gay lately; that means
budding love: and sometimes between his gaieties he has had melancholy
moments; that means there's difficulty.'

Bob thought her plan a good one, and resolved to put it in practice on
the first available evening.  Anne was very curious as to whether John
did really cherish a new passion, the story having quite surprised her.
Possibly it was true; six weeks had passed since John had shown a single
symptom of the old attachment, and what could not that space of time
effect in the heart of a soldier whose very profession it was to leave
girls behind him?

After this John Loveday did not come to see them for nearly a month, a
neglect which was set down by Bob as an additional proof that his
brother's affections were no longer exclusively centred in his old home.
When at last he did arrive, and the theatre-going was mentioned to him,
the flush of consciousness which Anne expected to see upon his face was
unaccountably absent.

'Yes, Bob; I should very well like to go to the theatre,' he replied
heartily.  'Who is going besides?'

'Only Anne,' Bob told him, and then it seemed to occur to the trumpet-
major that something had been expected of him.  He rose and said
privately to Bob with some confusion, 'O yes, of course we'll go.  As I
am connected with one of the--in short I can get you in for nothing, you
know.  At least let me manage everything.'

'Yes, yes.  I wonder you didn't propose to take us before, Jack, and let
us have a good look at her.'

'I ought to have.  You shall go on a King's night.  You won't want me to
point her out, Bob; I have my reasons at present for asking it?'

'We'll be content with guessing,' said his brother.

When the gallant John was gone, Anne observed, 'Bob, how he is changed!  I
watched him.  He showed no feeling, even when you burst upon him suddenly
with the subject nearest his heart.'

'It must be because his suit don't fay,' said Captain Bob.




XXX.  AT THE THEATRE ROYAL


In two or three days a message arrived asking them to attend at the
theatre on the coming evening, with the added request that they would
dress in their gayest clothes, to do justice to the places taken.
Accordingly, in the course of the afternoon they drove off, Bob having
clothed himself in a splendid suit, recently purchased as an attempt to
bring himself nearer to Anne's style when they appeared in public
together.  As finished off by this dashing and really fashionable attire,
he was the perfection of a beau in the dog-days; pantaloons and boots of
the newest make; yards and yards of muslin wound round his neck, forming
a sort of asylum for the lower part of his face; two fancy waistcoats,
and coat-buttons like circular shaving glasses.  The absurd extreme of
female fashion, which was to wear muslin dresses in January, was at this
time equalled by that of the men, who wore clothes enough in August to
melt them.  Nobody would have guessed from Bob's presentation now that he
had ever been aloft on a dark night in the Atlantic, or knew the hundred
ingenuities that could be performed with a rope's end and a marline-spike
as well as his mother tongue.

It was a day of days.  Anne wore her celebrated celestial blue pelisse,
her Leghorn hat, and her muslin dress with the waist under the arms; the
latter being decorated with excellent Honiton lace bought of the woman
who travelled from that place to Overcombe and its neighbourhood with a
basketful of her own manufacture, and a cushion on which she worked by
the wayside.  John met the lovers at the inn outside the town, and after
stabling the horse they entered the town together, the trumpet-major
informing them that the watering-place had never been so full before,
that the Court, the Prince of Wales, and everybody of consequence was
there, and that an attic could scarcely be got for money.  The King had
gone for a cruise in his yacht, and they would be in time to see him
land.

Then drums and fifes were heard, and in a minute or two they saw Sergeant
Stanner advancing along the street with a firm countenance, fiery poll,
and rigid staring eyes, in front of his recruiting-party.  The sergeant's
sword was drawn, and at intervals of two or three inches along its
shining blade were impaled fluttering one-pound notes, to express the
lavish bounty that was offered.  He gave a stern, suppressed nod of
friendship to our people, and passed by.  Next they came up to a waggon,
bowered over with leaves and flowers, so that the men inside could hardly
be seen.

'Come to see the King, hip-hip hurrah!' cried a voice within, and turning
they saw through the leaves the nose and face of Cripplestraw.  The
waggon contained all Derriman's workpeople.

'Is your master here?' said John.

'No, trumpet-major, sir.  But young maister is coming to fetch us at nine
o'clock, in case we should be too blind to drive home.'

'O! where is he now?'

'Never mind,' said Anne impatiently, at which the trumpet-major
obediently moved on.

By the time they reached the pier it was six o'clock; the royal yacht was
returning; a fact announced by the ships in the harbour firing a salute.
The King came ashore with his hat in his hand, and returned the
salutations of the well-dressed crowd in his old indiscriminate fashion.
While this cheering and waving of handkerchiefs was going on Anne stood
between the two brothers, who protectingly joined their hands behind her
back, as if she were a delicate piece of statuary that a push might
damage.  Soon the King had passed, and receiving the military salutes of
the piquet, joined the Queen and princesses at Gloucester Lodge, the
homely house of red brick in which he unostentatiously resided.

As there was yet some little time before the theatre would open, they
strayed upon the velvet sands, and listened to the songs of the sailors,
one of whom extemporized for the occasion:--

   'Portland Road the King aboard, the King aboard!
   Portland Road the King aboard,
   We weighed and sailed from Portland Road!' {272}

When they had looked on awhile at the combats at single-stick which were
in progress hard by, and seen the sum of five guineas handed over to the
modest gentleman who had broken most heads, they returned to Gloucester
Lodge, whence the King and other members of his family now reappeared,
and drove, at a slow trot, round to the theatre in carriages drawn by the
Hanoverian white horses that were so well known in the town at this date.

When Anne and Bob entered the theatre they found that John had taken
excellent places, and concluded that he had got them for nothing through
the influence of the lady of his choice.  As a matter of fact he had paid
full prices for those two seats, like any other outsider, and even then
had a difficulty in getting them, it being a King's night.  When they
were settled he himself retired to an obscure part of the pit, from which
the stage was scarcely visible.

'We can see beautifully,' said Bob, in an aristocratic voice, as he took
a delicate pinch of snuff, and drew out the magnificent
pocket-handkerchief brought home from the East for such occasions.  'But
I am afraid poor John can't see at all.'

'But we can see him,' replied Anne, 'and notice by his face which of them
it is he is so charmed with.  The light of that corner candle falls right
upon his cheek.'

By this time the King had appeared in his place, which was overhung by a
canopy of crimson satin fringed with gold.  About twenty places were
occupied by the royal family and suite; and beyond them was a crowd of
powdered and glittering personages of fashion, completely filling the
centre of the little building; though the King so frequently patronized
the local stage during these years that the crush was not inconvenient.

The curtain rose and the play began.  To-night it was one of Colman's,
who at this time enjoyed great popularity, and Mr. Bannister supported
the leading character.  Anne, with her hand privately clasped in Bob's,
and looking as if she did not know it, partly watched the piece and
partly the face of the impressionable John who had so soon transferred
his affections elsewhere.  She had not long to wait.  When a certain one
of the subordinate ladies of the comedy entered on the stage the trumpet-
major in his corner not only looked conscious, but started and gazed with
parted lips.

'This must be the one,' whispered Anne quickly.  'See, he is agitated!'

She turned to Bob, but at the same moment his hand convulsively closed
upon hers as he, too, strangely fixed his eyes upon the newly-entered
lady.

'What is it?'

Anne looked from one to the other without regarding the stage at all.  Her
answer came in the voice of the actress who now spoke for the first time.
The accents were those of Miss Matilda Johnson.

One thought rushed into both their minds on the instant, and Bob was the
first to utter it.

'What--is she the woman of his choice after all?'

'If so, it is a dreadful thing!' murmured Anne.

But, as may be imagined, the unfortunate John was as much surprised by
this rencounter as the other two.  Until this moment he had been in utter
ignorance of the theatrical company and all that pertained to it.
Moreover, much as he knew of Miss Johnson, he was not aware that she had
ever been trained in her youth as an actress, and that after lapsing into
straits and difficulties for a couple of years she had been so fortunate
as to again procure an engagement here.

The trumpet-major, though not prominently seated, had been seen by
Matilda already, who had observed still more plainly her old betrothed
and Anne in the other part of the house.  John was not concerned on his
own account at being face to face with her, but at the extraordinary
suspicion that this conjuncture must revive in the minds of his best
beloved friends.  After some moments of pained reflection he tapped his
knee.

'Gad, I won't explain; it shall go as it is!' he said.  'Let them think
her mine.  Better that than the truth, after all.'

Had personal prominence in the scene been at this moment proportioned to
intentness of feeling, the whole audience, regal and otherwise, would
have faded into an indistinct mist of background, leaving as the sole
emergent and telling figures Bob and Anne at one point, the trumpet-major
on the left hand, and Matilda at the opposite corner of the stage.  But
fortunately the deadlock of awkward suspense into which all four had
fallen was terminated by an accident.  A messenger entered the King's box
with despatches.  There was an instant pause in the performance.  The
despatch-box being opened the King read for a few moments with great
interest, the eyes of the whole house, including those of Anne Garland,
being anxiously fixed upon his face; for terrible events fell as
unexpectedly as thunderbolts at this critical time of our history.  The
King at length beckoned to Lord ---, who was immediately behind him, the
play was again stopped, and the contents of the despatch were publicly
communicated to the audience.

Sir Robert Calder, cruising off Finisterre, had come in sight of
Villeneuve, and made the signal for action, which, though checked by the
weather, had resulted in the capture of two Spanish line-of-battle ships,
and the retreat of Villeneuve into Ferrol.

The news was received with truly national feeling, if noise might be
taken as an index of patriotism.  'Rule Britannia' was called for and
sung by the whole house.  But the importance of the event was far from
being recognized at this time; and Bob Loveday, as he sat there and heard
it, had very little conception how it would bear upon his destiny.

This parenthetic excitement diverted for a few minutes the eyes of Bob
and Anne from the trumpet-major; and when the play proceeded, and they
looked back to his corner, he was gone.

'He's just slipped round to talk to her behind the scenes,' said Bob
knowingly.  'Shall we go too, and tease him for a sly dog?'

'No, I would rather not.'

'Shall we go home, then?'

'Not unless her presence is too much for you?'

'O--not at all.  We'll stay here.  Ah, there she is again.'

They sat on, and listened to Matilda's speeches which she delivered with
such delightful coolness that they soon began to considerably interest
one of the party.

'Well, what a nerve the young woman has!' he said at last in tones of
admiration, and gazing at Miss Johnson with all his might.  'After all,
Jack's taste is not so bad.  She's really deuced clever.'

'Bob, I'll go home if you wish to,' said Anne quickly.

'O no--let us see how she fleets herself off that bit of a scrape she's
playing at now.  Well, what a hand she is at it, to be sure!'

Anne said no more, but waited on, supremely uncomfortable, and almost
tearful.  She began to feel that she did not like life particularly well;
it was too complicated: she saw nothing of the scene, and only longed to
get away, and to get Bob away with her.  At last the curtain fell on the
final act, and then began the farce of 'No Song no Supper.'  Matilda did
not appear in this piece, and Anne again inquired if they should go home.
This time Bob agreed, and taking her under his care with redoubled
affection, to make up for the species of coma which had seized upon his
heart for a time, he quietly accompanied her out of the house.

When they emerged upon the esplanade, the August moon was shining across
the sea from the direction of St. Aldhelm's Head.  Bob unconsciously
loitered, and turned towards the pier.  Reaching the end of the promenade
they surveyed the quivering waters in silence for some time, until a long
dark line shot from behind the promontory of the Nothe, and swept forward
into the harbour.

'What boat is that?' said Anne.

'It seems to be some frigate lying in the Roads,' said Bob carelessly, as
he brought Anne round with a gentle pressure of his arm and bent his
steps towards the homeward end of the town.

Meanwhile, Miss Johnson, having finished her duties for that evening,
rapidly changed her dress, and went out likewise.  The prominent position
which Anne and Captain Bob had occupied side by side in the theatre, left
her no alternative but to suppose that the situation was arranged by Bob
as a species of defiance to herself; and her heart, such as it was,
became proportionately embittered against him.  In spite of the rise in
her fortunes, Miss Johnson still remembered--and always would
remember--her humiliating departure from Overcombe; and it had been to
her even a more grievous thing that Bob had acquiesced in his brother's
ruling than that John had determined it.  At the time of setting out she
was sustained by a firm faith that Bob would follow her, and nullify his
brother's scheme; but though she waited Bob never came.

She passed along by the houses facing the sea, and scanned the shore, the
footway, and the open road close to her, which, illuminated by the
slanting moon to a great brightness, sparkled with minute facets of
crystallized salts from the water sprinkled there during the day.  The
promenaders at the further edge appeared in dark profiles; and beyond
them was the grey sea, parted into two masses by the tapering braid of
moonlight across the waves.

Two forms crossed this line at a startling nearness to her; she marked
them at once as Anne and Bob Loveday.  They were walking slowly, and in
the earnestness of their discourse were oblivious of the presence of any
human beings save themselves.  Matilda stood motionless till they had
passed.

'How I love them!' she said, treading the initial step of her walk
onwards with a vehemence that walking did not demand.

'So do I--especially one,' said a voice at her elbow; and a man wheeled
round her, and looked in her face, which had been fully exposed to the
moon.

'You--who are you?' she asked.

'Don't you remember, ma'am?  We walked some way together towards
Overcombe earlier in the summer.'  Matilda looked more closely, and
perceived that the speaker was Derriman, in plain clothes.  He continued,
'You are one of the ladies of the theatre, I know.  May I ask why you
said in such a queer way that you loved that couple?'

'In a queer way?'

'Well, as if you hated them.'

'I don't mind your knowing that I have good reason to hate them.  You do
too, it seems?'

'That man,' said Festus savagely, 'came to me one night about that very
woman; insulted me before I could put myself on my guard, and ran away
before I could come up with him and avenge myself.  The woman tricks me
at every turn!  I want to part 'em.'

'Then why don't you?  There's a splendid opportunity.  Do you see that
soldier walking along?  He's a marine; he looks into the gallery of the
theatre every night: and he's in connexion with the press-gang that came
ashore just now from the frigate lying in Portland Roads.  They are often
here for men.'

'Yes.  Our boatmen dread 'em.'

'Well, we have only to tell him that Loveday is a seaman to be clear of
him this very night.'

'Done!' said Festus.  'Take my arm and come this way.'  They walked
across to the footway.  'Fine night, sergeant.'

'It is, sir.'

'Looking for hands, I suppose?'

'It is not to be known, sir.  We don't begin till half past ten.'

'It is a pity you don't begin now.  I could show 'ee excellent game.'

'What, that little nest of fellows at the "Old Rooms" in Cove Row?  I
have just heard of 'em.'

'No--come here.'  Festus, with Miss Johnson on his arm, led the sergeant
quickly along the parade, and by the time they reached the Narrows the
lovers, who walked but slowly, were visible in front of them.  'There's
your man,' he said.

'That buck in pantaloons and half-boots--a looking like a squire?'

'Twelve months ago he was mate of the brig Pewit; but his father has made
money, and keeps him at home.'

'Faith, now you tell of it, there's a hint of sea legs about him.  What's
the young beau's name?'

'Don't tell!' whispered Matilda, impulsively clutching Festus's arm.

But Festus had already said, 'Robert Loveday, son of the miller at
Overcombe.  You may find several likely fellows in that neighbourhood.'

The marine said that he would bear it in mind, and they left him.

'I wish you had not told,' said Matilda tearfully.  'She's the worst!'

'Dash my eyes now; listen to that!  Why, you chicken-hearted old stager,
you was as well agreed as I.  Come now; hasn't he used you badly?'

Matilda's acrimony returned.  'I was down on my luck, or he wouldn't have
had the chance!' she said.

'Well, then, let things be.'




XXXI.  MIDNIGHT VISITORS


Miss Garland and Loveday walked leisurely to the inn and called for horse-
and-gig.  While the hostler was bringing it round, the landlord, who knew
Bob and his family well, spoke to him quietly in the passage.

'Is this then because you want to throw dust in the eyes of the Black
Diamond chaps?' (with an admiring glance at Bob's costume).

'The Black Diamond?' said Bob; and Anne turned pale.

'She hove in sight just after dark, and at nine o'clock a boat having
more than a dozen marines on board, with cloaks on, rowed into harbour.'

Bob reflected.  'Then there'll be a press to-night; depend upon it,' he
said.

'They won't know you, will they, Bob?' said Anne anxiously.

'They certainly won't know him for a seaman now,' remarked the landlord,
laughing, and again surveying Bob up and down.  'But if I was you two, I
should drive home-along straight and quiet; and be very busy in the mill
all to-morrow, Mr. Loveday.'

They drove away; and when they had got onward out of the town, Anne
strained her eyes wistfully towards Portland.  Its dark contour, lying
like a whale on the sea, was just perceptible in the gloom as the
background to half-a-dozen ships' lights nearer at hand.

'They can't make you go, now you are a gentleman tradesman, can they?'
she asked.

'If they want me they can have me, dearest.  I have often said I ought to
volunteer.'

'And not care about me at all?'

'It is just that that keeps me at home.  I won't leave you if I can help
it.'

'It cannot make such a vast difference to the country whether one man
goes or stays!  But if you want to go you had better, and not mind us at
all!'

Bob put a period to her speech by a mark of affection to which history
affords many parallels in every age.  She said no more about the Black
Diamond; but whenever they ascended a hill she turned her head to look at
the lights in Portland Roads, and the grey expanse of intervening sea.

Though Captain Bob had stated that he did not wish to volunteer, and
would not leave her if he could help it, the remark required some
qualification.  That Anne was charming and loving enough to chain him
anywhere was true; but he had begun to find the mill-work terribly
irksome at times.  Often during the last month, when standing among the
rumbling cogs in his new miller's suit, which ill became him, he had
yawned, thought wistfully of the old pea-jacket, and the waters of the
deep blue sea.  His dread of displeasing his father by showing anything
of this change of sentiment was great; yet he might have braved it but
for knowing that his marriage with Anne, which he hoped might take place
the next year, was dependent entirely upon his adherence to the mill
business.  Even were his father indifferent, Mrs. Loveday would never
intrust her only daughter to the hands of a husband who would be away
from home five-sixths of his time.

But though, apart from Anne, he was not averse to seafaring in itself, to
be smuggled thither by the machinery of a press-gang was intolerable; and
the process of seizing, stunning, pinioning, and carrying off unwilling
hands was one which Bob as a man had always determined to hold out
against to the utmost of his power.  Hence, as they went towards home, he
frequently listened for sounds behind him, but hearing none he assured
his sweetheart that they were safe for that night at least.  The mill was
still going when they arrived, though old Mr. Loveday was not to be seen;
he had retired as soon as he heard the horse's hoofs in the lane, leaving
Bob to watch the grinding till three o'clock; when the elder would rise,
and Bob withdraw to bed--a frequent arrangement between them since Bob
had taken the place of grinder.

Having reached the privacy of her own room, Anne threw open the window,
for she had not the slightest intention of going to bed just yet.  The
tale of the Black Diamond had disturbed her by a slow, insidious process
that was worse than sudden fright.  Her window looked into the court
before the house, now wrapped in the shadow of the trees and the hill;
and she leaned upon its sill listening intently.  She could have heard
any strange sound distinctly enough in one direction; but in the other
all low noises were absorbed in the patter of the mill, and the rush of
water down the race.

However, what she heard came from the hitherto silent side, and was
intelligible in a moment as being the footsteps of men.  She tried to
think they were some late stragglers from Budmouth.  Alas! no; the tramp
was too regular for that of villagers.  She hastily turned, extinguished
the candle, and listened again.  As they were on the main road there was,
after all, every probability that the party would pass the bridge which
gave access to the mill court without turning in upon it, or even
noticing that such an entrance existed.  In this again she was
disappointed: they crossed into the front without a pause.  The
pulsations of her heart became a turmoil now, for why should these men,
if they were the press-gang, and strangers to the locality, have supposed
that a sailor was to be found here, the younger of the two millers
Loveday being never seen now in any garb which could suggest that he was
other than a miller pure, like his father?  One of the men spoke.

'I am not sure that we are in the right place,' he said.

'This is a mill, anyhow,' said another.

'There's lots about here.'

'Then come this way a moment with your light.'

Two of the group went towards the cart-house on the opposite side of the
yard, and when they reached it a dark lantern was opened, the rays being
directed upon the front of the miller's waggon.

'"Loveday and Son, Overcombe Mill,"' continued the man, reading from the
waggon.  '"Son," you see, is lately painted in.  That's our man.'

He moved to turn off the light, but before he had done so it flashed over
the forms of the speakers, and revealed a sergeant, a naval officer, and
a file of marines.

Anne waited to see no more.  When Bob stayed up to grind, as he was doing
to-night, he often sat in his room instead of remaining all the time in
the mill; and this room was an isolated chamber over the bakehouse, which
could not be reached without going downstairs and ascending the
step-ladder that served for his staircase.  Anne descended in the dark,
clambered up the ladder, and saw that light strayed through the chink
below the door.  His window faced towards the garden, and hence the light
could not as yet have been seen by the press-gang.

'Bob, dear Bob!' she said, through the keyhole.  'Put out your light, and
run out of the back-door!'

'Why?' said Bob, leisurely knocking the ashes from the pipe he had been
smoking.

'The press-gang!'

'They have come?  By God! who can have blown upon me?  All right,
dearest.  I'm game.'

Anne, scarcely knowing what she did, descended the ladder and ran to the
back-door, hastily unbolting it to save Bob's time, and gently opening it
in readiness for him.  She had no sooner done this than she felt hands
laid upon her shoulder from without, and a voice exclaiming, 'That's how
we doos it--quite an obleeging young man!'

Though the hands held her rather roughly, Anne did not mind for herself,
and turning she cried desperately, in tones intended to reach Bob's ears:
'They are at the back-door; try the front!'

But inexperienced Miss Garland little knew the shrewd habits of the
gentlemen she had to deal with, who, well used to this sort of pastime,
had already posted themselves at every outlet from the premises.

'Bring the lantern,' shouted the fellow who held her.  'Why--'tis a girl!
I half thought so--Here is a way in,' he continued to his comrades,
hastening to the foot of the ladder which led to Bob's room.

'What d'ye want?' said Bob, quietly opening the door, and showing himself
still radiant in the full dress that he had worn with such effect at the
Theatre Royal, which he had been about to change for his mill suit when
Anne gave the alarm.

'This gentleman can't be the right one,' observed a marine, rather
impressed by Bob's appearance.

'Yes, yes; that's the man,' said the sergeant.  'Now take it quietly, my
young cock-o'-wax.  You look as if you meant to, and 'tis wise of ye.'

'Where are you going to take me?' said Bob.

'Only aboard the Black Diamond.  If you choose to take the bounty and
come voluntarily, you'll be allowed to go ashore whenever your ship's in
port.  If you don't, and we've got to pinion ye, you will not have your
liberty at all.  As you must come, willy-nilly, you'll do the first if
you've any brains whatever.'

Bob's temper began to rise.  'Don't you talk so large, about your
pinioning, my man.  When I've settled--'

'Now or never, young blow-hard,' interrupted his informant.

'Come, what jabber is this going on?' said the lieutenant, stepping
forward.  'Bring your man.'

One of the marines set foot on the ladder, but at the same moment a shoe
from Bob's hand hit the lantern with well-aimed directness, knocking it
clean out of the grasp of the man who held it.  In spite of the darkness
they began to scramble up the ladder.  Bob thereupon shut the door, which
being but of slight construction, was as he knew only a momentary
defence.  But it gained him time enough to open the window, gather up his
legs upon the sill, and spring across into the apple-tree growing
without.  He alighted without much hurt beyond a few scratches from the
boughs, a shower of falling apples testifying to the force of his leap.

'Here he is!' shouted several below who had seen Bob's figure flying like
a raven's across the sky.

There was stillness for a moment in the tree.  Then the fugitive made
haste to climb out upon a low-hanging branch towards the garden, at which
the men beneath all rushed in that direction to catch him as he dropped,
saying, 'You may as well come down, old boy.  'Twas a spry jump, and we
give ye credit for 't.'

The latter movement of Loveday had been a mere feint.  Partly hidden by
the leaves he glided back to the other part of the tree, from whence it
was easy to jump upon a thatch-covered out-house.  This intention they
did not appear to suspect, which gave him the opportunity of sliding down
the slope and entering the back door of the mill.

'He's here, he's here!' the men exclaimed, running back from the tree.

By this time they had obtained another light, and pursued him closely
along the back quarters of the mill.  Bob had entered the lower room,
seized hold of the chain by which the flour-sacks were hoisted from story
to story by connexion with the mill-wheel, and pulled the rope that hung
alongside for the purpose of throwing it into gear.  The foremost
pursuers arrived just in time to see Captain Bob's legs and shoe-buckles
vanishing through the trap-door in the joists overhead, his person having
been whirled up by the machinery like any bag of flour, and the trap
falling to behind him.

'He's gone up by the hoist!' said the sergeant, running up the ladder in
the corner to the next floor, and elevating the light just in time to see
Bob's suspended figure ascending in the same way through the same sort of
trap into the second floor.  The second trap also fell together behind
him, and he was lost to view as before.

It was more difficult to follow now; there was only a flimsy little
ladder, and the men ascended cautiously.  When they stepped out upon the
loft it was empty.

'He must ha' let go here,' said one of the marines, who knew more about
mills than the others.  'If he had held fast a moment longer, he would
have been dashed against that beam.'

They looked up.  The hook by which Bob had held on had ascended to the
roof, and was winding round the cylinder.  Nothing was visible elsewhere
but boarded divisions like the stalls of a stable, on each side of the
stage they stood upon, these compartments being more or less heaped up
with wheat and barley in the grain.

'Perhaps he's buried himself in the corn.'

The whole crew jumped into the corn-bins, and stirred about their yellow
contents; but neither arm, leg, nor coat-tail was uncovered.  They
removed sacks, peeped among the rafters of the roof, but to no purpose.
The lieutenant began to fume at the loss of time.

'What cursed fools to let the man go!  Why, look here, what's this?'  He
had opened the door by which sacks were taken in from waggons without,
and dangling from the cat-head projecting above it was the rope used in
lifting them.  'There's the way he went down,' the officer continued.
'The man's gone.'

Amidst mumblings and curses the gang descended the pair of ladders and
came into the open air; but Captain Bob was nowhere to be seen.  When
they reached the front door of the house the miller was standing on the
threshold, half dressed.

'Your son is a clever fellow, miller,' said the lieutenant; 'but it would
have been much better for him if he had come quiet.'

'That's a matter of opinion,' said Loveday.

'I have no doubt that he's in the house.'

'He may be; and he may not.'

'Do you know where he is?'

'I do not; and if I did I shouldn't tell.'

'Naturally.'

'I heard steps beating up the road, sir,' said the sergeant.

They turned from the door, and leaving four of the marines to keep watch
round the house, the remainder of the party marched into the lane as far
as where the other road branched off.  While they were pausing to decide
which course to take, one of the soldiers held up the light.  A black
object was discernible upon the ground before them, and they found it to
be a hat--the hat of Bob Loveday.

'We are on the track,' cried the sergeant, deciding for this direction.

They tore on rapidly, and the footsteps previously heard became audible
again, increasing in clearness, which told that they gained upon the
fugitive, who in another five minutes stopped and turned.  The rays of
the candle fell upon Anne.

'What do you want?' she said, showing her frightened face.

They made no reply, but wheeled round and left her.  She sank down on the
bank to rest, having done all she could.  It was she who had taken down
Bob's hat from a nail, and dropped it at the turning with the view of
misleading them till he should have got clear off.




XXXII.  DELIVERANCE


But Anne Garland was too anxious to remain long away from the centre of
operations.  When she got back she found that the press-gang were
standing in the court discussing their next move.

'Waste no more time here,' the lieutenant said.  'Two more villages to
visit to-night, and the nearest three miles off.  There's nobody else in
this place, and we can't come back again.'

When they were moving away, one of the private marines, who had kept his
eye on Anne, and noticed her distress, contrived to say in a whisper as
he passed her, 'We are coming back again as soon as it begins to get
light; that's only said to deceive 'ee.  Keep your young man out of the
way.'

They went as they had come; and the little household then met together,
Mrs. Loveday having by this time dressed herself and come down.  A long
and anxious discussion followed.

'Somebody must have told upon the chap,' Loveday remarked.  'How should
they have found him out else, now he's been home from sea this
twelvemonth?'

Anne then mentioned what the friendly marine had told her; and fearing
lest Bob was in the house, and would be discovered there when daylight
came, they searched and called for him everywhere.

'What clothes has he got on?' said the miller.

'His lovely new suit,' said his wife.  'I warrant it is quite spoiled!'

'He's got no hat,' said Anne.

'Well,' said Loveday, 'you two go and lie down now and I'll bide up; and
as soon as he comes in, which he'll do most likely in the course of the
night, I'll let him know that they are coming again.'

Anne and Mrs. Loveday went to their bedrooms, and the miller entered the
mill as if he were simply staying up to grind.  But he continually left
the flour-shoot to go outside and walk round; each time he could see no
living being near the spot.  Anne meanwhile had lain down dressed upon
her bed, the window still open, her ears intent upon the sound of
footsteps and dreading the reappearance of daylight and the gang's
return.  Three or four times during the night she descended to the mill
to inquire of her stepfather if Bob had shown himself; but the answer was
always in the negative.

At length the curtains of her bed began to reveal their pattern, the
brass handles of the drawers gleamed forth, and day dawned.  While the
light was yet no more than a suffusion of pallor, she arose, put on her
hat, and determined to explore the surrounding premises before the men
arrived.  Emerging into the raw loneliness of the daybreak, she went upon
the bridge and looked up and down the road.  It was as she had left it,
empty, and the solitude was rendered yet more insistent by the silence of
the mill-wheel, which was now stopped, the miller having given up
expecting Bob and retired to bed about three o'clock.  The footprints of
the marines still remained in the dust on the bridge, all the heel-marks
towards the house, showing that the party had not as yet returned.

While she lingered she heard a slight noise in the other direction, and,
turning, saw a woman approaching.  The woman came up quickly, and, to her
amazement, Anne recognized Matilda.  Her walk was convulsive, face pale,
almost haggard, and the cold light of the morning invested it with all
the ghostliness of death.  She had plainly walked all the way from
Budmouth, for her shoes were covered with dust.

'Has the press-gang been here?' she gasped.  'If not they are coming!'

'They have been.'

'And got him--I am too late!'

'No; they are coming back again.  Why did you--'

'I came to try to save him.  Can we save him?  Where is he?'

Anne looked the woman in the face, and it was impossible to doubt that
she was in earnest.

'I don't know,' she answered.  'I am trying to find him before they
come.'

'Will you not let me help you?' cried the repentant Matilda.

Without either objecting or assenting Anne turned and led the way to the
back part of the homestead.

Matilda, too, had suffered that night.  From the moment of parting with
Festus Derriman a sentiment of revulsion from the act to which she had
been a party set in and increased, till at length it reached an intensity
of remorse which she could not passively bear.  She had risen before day
and hastened thitherward to know the worst, and if possible hinder
consequences that she had been the first to set in train.

After going hither and thither in the adjoining field, Anne entered the
garden.  The walks were bathed in grey dew, and as she passed observantly
along them it appeared as if they had been brushed by some foot at a much
earlier hour.  At the end of the garden, bushes of broom, laurel, and yew
formed a constantly encroaching shrubbery, that had come there almost by
chance, and was never trimmed.  Behind these bushes was a garden-seat,
and upon it lay Bob sound asleep.

The ends of his hair were clotted with damp, and there was a foggy film
upon the mirror-like buttons of his coat, and upon the buckles of his
shoes.  His bunch of new gold seals was dimmed by the same insidious
dampness; his shirt-frill and muslin neckcloth were limp as seaweed.  It
was plain that he had been there a long time.  Anne shook him, but he did
not awake, his breathing being slow and stertorous.

'Bob, wake; 'tis your own Anne!' she said, with innocent earnestness; and
then, fearfully turning her head, she saw that Matilda was close behind
her.

'You needn't mind me,' said Matilda bitterly.  'I am on your side now.
Shake him again.'

Anne shook him again, but he slept on.  Then she noticed that his
forehead bore the mark of a heavy wound.

'I fancy I hear something!' said her companion, starting forward and
endeavouring to wake Bob herself.  'He is stunned, or drugged!' she said;
'there is no rousing him.'

Anne raised her head and listened.  From the direction of the eastern
road came the sound of a steady tramp.  'They are coming back!' she said,
clasping her hands.  'They will take him, ill as he is!  He won't open
his eyes--no, it is no use!  O, what shall we do?'

Matilda did not reply, but running to the end of the seat on which Bob
lay, tried its weight in her arms.

'It is not too heavy,' she said.  'You take that end, and I'll take this.
We'll carry him away to some place of hiding.'

Anne instantly seized the other end, and they proceeded with their burden
at a slow pace to the lower garden-gate, which they reached as the tread
of the press-gang resounded over the bridge that gave access to the mill
court, now hidden from view by the hedge and the trees of the garden.

'We will go down inside this field,' said Anne faintly.

'No!' said the other; 'they will see our foot-tracks in the dew.  We must
go into the road.'

'It is the very road they will come down when they leave the mill.'

'It cannot be helped; it is neck or nothing with us now.'

So they emerged upon the road, and staggered along without speaking,
occasionally resting for a moment to ease their arms; then shaking him to
arouse him, and finding it useless, seizing the seat again.  When they
had gone about two hundred yards Matilda betrayed signs of exhaustion,
and she asked, 'Is there no shelter near?'

'When we get to that little field of corn,' said Anne.

'It is so very far.  Surely there is some place near?'

She pointed to a few scrubby bushes overhanging a little stream, which
passed under the road near this point.

'They are not thick enough,' said Anne.

'Let us take him under the bridge,' said Matilda.  'I can go no further.'

Entering the opening by which cattle descended to drink, they waded into
the weedy water, which here rose a few inches above their ankles.  To
ascend the stream, stoop under the arch, and reach the centre of the
roadway, was the work of a few minutes.

'If they look under the arch we are lost,' murmured Anne.

'There is no parapet to the bridge, and they may pass over without
heeding.'

They waited, their heads almost in contact with the reeking arch, and
their feet encircled by the stream, which was at its summer lowness now.
For some minutes they could hear nothing but the babble of the water over
their ankles, and round the legs of the seat on which Bob slumbered, the
sounds being reflected in a musical tinkle from the hollow sides of the
arch.  Anne's anxiety now was lest he should not continue sleeping till
the search was over, but start up with his habitual imprudence, and
scorning such means of safety, rush out into their arms.

A quarter of an hour dragged by, and then indications reached their ears
that the re-examination of the mill had begun and ended.  The well-known
tramp drew nearer, and reverberated through the ground over their heads,
where its volume signified to the listeners that the party had been
largely augmented by pressed men since the night preceding.  The gang
passed the arch, and the noise regularly diminished, as if no man among
them had thought of looking aside for a moment.

Matilda broke the silence.  'I wonder if they have left a watch behind?'
she said doubtfully.

'I will go and see,' said Anne.  'Wait till I return.'

'No; I can do no more.  When you come back I shall be gone.  I ask one
thing of you.  If all goes well with you and him, and he marries
you--don't be alarmed; my plans lie elsewhere--when you are his wife tell
him who helped to carry him away.  But don't mention my name to the rest
of your family, either now or at any time.'

Anne regarded the speaker for a moment, and promised; after which she
waded out from the archway.

Matilda stood looking at Bob for a moment, as if preparing to go, till
moved by some impulse she bent and lightly kissed him once.

'How can you!' cried Anne reproachfully.  When leaving the mouth of the
arch she had bent back and seen the act.

Matilda flushed.  'You jealous baby!' she said scornfully.

Anne hesitated for a moment, then went out from the water, and hastened
towards the mill.

She entered by the garden, and, seeing no one, advanced and peeped in at
the window.  Her mother and Mr. Loveday were sitting within as usual.

'Are they all gone?' said Anne softly.

'Yes.  They did not trouble us much, beyond going into every room, and
searching about the garden, where they saw steps.  They have been lucky
to-night; they have caught fifteen or twenty men at places further on; so
the loss of Bob was no hurt to their feelings.  I wonder where in the
world the poor fellow is!'

'I will show you,' said Anne.  And explaining in a few words what had
happened, she was promptly followed by David and Loveday along the road.
She lifted her dress and entered the arch with some anxiety on account of
Matilda; but the actress was gone, and Bob lay on the seat as she had
left him.

Bob was brought out, and water thrown upon his face; but though he moved
he did not rouse himself until some time after he had been borne into the
house.  Here he opened his eyes, and saw them standing round, and
gathered a little consciousness.

'You are all right, my boy!' said his father.  'What hev happened to ye?
Where did ye get that terrible blow?'

'Ah--I can mind now,' murmured Bob, with a stupefied gaze around.  'I
fell in slipping down the topsail halyard--the rope, that is, was too
short--and I fell upon my head.  And then I went away.  When I came back
I thought I wouldn't disturb ye: so I lay down out there, to sleep out
the watch; but the pain in my head was so great that I couldn't get to
sleep; so I picked some of the poppy-heads in the border, which I once
heard was a good thing for sending folks to sleep when they are in pain.
So I munched up all I could find, and dropped off quite nicely.'

'I wondered who had picked 'em!' said Molly.  'I noticed they were gone.'

'Why, you might never have woke again!' said Mrs. Loveday, holding up her
hands.  'How is your head now?'

'I hardly know,' replied the young man, putting his hand to his forehead
and beginning to doze again.  'Where be those fellows that boarded us?
With this--smooth water and--fine breeze we ought to get away from 'em.
Haul in--the larboard braces, and--bring her to the wind.'

'You are at home, dear Bob,' said Anne, bending over him, 'and the men
are gone.'

'Come along upstairs: th' beest hardly awake now,' said his father and
Bob was assisted to bed.




XXXIII.  A DISCOVERY TURNS THE SCALE


In four-and-twenty hours Bob had recovered.  But though physically
himself again, he was not at all sure of his position as a patriot.  He
had that practical knowledge of seamanship of which the country stood
much in need, and it was humiliating to find that impressment seemed to
be necessary to teach him to use it for her advantage.  Many neighbouring
young men, less fortunate than himself, had been pressed and taken; and
their absence seemed a reproach to him.  He went away by himself into the
mill-roof, and, surrounded by the corn-heaps, gave vent to
self-condemnation.

'Certainly, I am no man to lie here so long for the pleasure of sighting
that young girl forty times a day, and letting her sight me--bless her
eyes!--till I must needs want a press-gang to teach me what I've forgot.
And is it then all over with me as a British sailor?  We'll see.'

When he was thrown under the influence of Anne's eyes again, which were
more tantalizingly beautiful than ever just now (so it seemed to him),
his intention of offering his services to the Government would wax
weaker, and he would put off his final decision till the next day.  Anne
saw these fluctuations of his mind between love and patriotism, and being
terrified by what she had heard of sea-fights, used the utmost art of
which she was capable to seduce him from his forming purpose.  She came
to him in the mill, wearing the very prettiest of her morning jackets--the
one that only just passed the waist, and was laced so tastefully round
the collar and bosom.  Then she would appear in her new hat, with a
bouquet of primroses on one side; and on the following Sunday she walked
before him in lemon-coloured boots, so that her feet looked like a pair
of yellow-hammers flitting under her dress.

But dress was the least of the means she adopted for chaining him down.
She talked more tenderly than ever; asked him to begin small undertakings
in the garden on her account; she sang about the house, that the place
might seem cheerful when he came in.  This singing for a purpose required
great effort on her part, leaving her afterwards very sad.  When Bob
asked her what was the matter, she would say, 'Nothing; only I am
thinking how you will grieve your father, and cross his purposes, if you
carry out your unkind notion of going to sea, and forsaking your place in
the mill.'

'Yes,' Bob would say uneasily.  'It will trouble him, I know.'

Being also quite aware how it would trouble her, he would again postpone,
and thus another week passed away.

All this time John had not come once to the mill.  It appeared as if Miss
Johnson absorbed all his time and thoughts.  Bob was often seen chuckling
over the circumstance.  'A sly rascal!' he said.  'Pretending on the day
she came to be married that she was not good enough for me, when it was
only that he wanted her for himself.  How he could have persuaded her to
go away is beyond me to say!'

Anne could not contest this belief of her lover's, and remained silent;
but there had more than once occurred to her mind a doubt of its
probability.  Yet she had only abandoned her opinion that John had
schemed for Matilda, to embrace the opposite error; that, finding he had
wronged the young lady, he had pitied and grown to love her.

'And yet Jack, when he was a boy, was the simplest fellow alive,' resumed
Bob.  'By George, though, I should have been hot against him for such a
trick, if in losing her I hadn't found a better!  But she'll never come
down to him in the world: she has high notions now.  I am afraid he's
doomed to sigh in vain!'

Though Bob regretted this possibility, the feeling was not reciprocated
by Anne.  It was true that she knew nothing of Matilda's temporary
treachery, and that she disbelieved the story of her lack of virtue; but
she did not like the woman.  'Perhaps it will not matter if he is doomed
to sigh in vain,' she said.  'But I owe him no ill-will.  I have profited
by his doings, incomprehensible as they are.'  And she bent her fair eyes
on Bob and smiled.

Bob looked dubious.  'He thinks he has affronted me, now I have seen
through him, and that I shall be against meeting him.  But, of course, I
am not so touchy.  I can stand a practical joke, as can any man who has
been afloat.  I'll call and see him, and tell him so.'

Before he started, Bob bethought him of something which would still
further prove to the misapprehending John that he was entirely forgiven.
He went to his room, and took from his chest a packet containing a lock
of Miss Johnson's hair, which she had given him during their brief
acquaintance, and which till now he had quite forgotten.  When, at
starting, he wished Anne goodbye, it was accompanied by such a beaming
face, that she knew he was full of an idea, and asked what it might be
that pleased him so.

'Why, this,' he said, smacking his breast-pocket.  'A lock of hair that
Matilda gave me.'

Anne sank back with parted lips.

'I am going to give it to Jack--he'll jump for joy to get it!  And it
will show him how willing I am to give her up to him, fine piece as she
is.'

'Will you see her to-day, Bob?' Anne asked with an uncertain smile.

'O no--unless it is by accident.'

On reaching the outskirts of the town he went straight to the barracks,
and was lucky enough to find John in his room, at the left-hand corner of
the quadrangle.  John was glad to see him; but to Bob's surprise he
showed no immediate contrition, and thus afforded no room for the
brotherly speech of forgiveness which Bob had been going to deliver.  As
the trumpet-major did not open the subject, Bob felt it desirable to
begin himself.

'I have brought ye something that you will value, Jack,' he said, as they
sat at the window, overlooking the large square barrack-yard.  'I have
got no further use for it, and you should have had it before if it had
entered my head.'

'Thank you, Bob; what is it?' said John, looking absently at an awkward
squad of young men who were drilling in the enclosure.

''Tis a young woman's lock of hair.'

'Ah!' said John, quite recovering from his abstraction, and slightly
flushing.  Could Bob and Anne have quarrelled?  Bob drew the paper from
his pocket, and opened it.

'Black!' said John.

'Yes--black enough.'

'Whose?'

'Why, Matilda's.'

'O, Matilda's!'

'Whose did you think then?'

Instead of replying, the trumpet-major's face became as red as sunset,
and he turned to the window to hide his confusion.

Bob was silent, and then he, too, looked into the court.  At length he
arose, walked to his brother, and laid his hand upon his shoulder.
'Jack,' he said, in an altered voice, 'you are a good fellow.  Now I see
it all.'

'O no--that's nothing,' said John hastily.

'You've been pretending that you care for this woman that I mightn't
blame myself for heaving you out from the other--which is what I've done
without knowing it.'

'What does it matter?'

'But it does matter!  I've been making you unhappy all these weeks and
weeks through my thoughtlessness.  They seemed to think at home, you
know, John, that you had grown not to care for her; or I wouldn't have
done it for all the world!'

'You stick to her, Bob, and never mind me.  She belongs to you.  She
loves you.  I have no claim upon her, and she thinks nothing about me.'

'She likes you, John, thoroughly well; so does everybody; and if I hadn't
come home, putting my foot in it--  That coming home of mine has been a
regular blight upon the family!  I ought never to have stayed.  The sea
is my home, and why couldn't I bide there?'

The trumpet-major drew Bob's discourse off the subject as soon as he
could, and Bob, after some unconsidered replies and remarks, seemed
willing to avoid it for the present.  He did not ask John to accompany
him home, as he had intended; and on leaving the barracks turned
southward and entered the town to wander about till he could decide what
to do.

It was the 3rd of September, but the King's watering-place still retained
its summer aspect.  The royal bathing-machine had been drawn out just as
Bob reached Gloucester Buildings, and he waited a minute, in the lack of
other distraction, to look on.  Immediately that the King's machine had
entered the water a group of florid men with fiddles, violoncellos, a
trombone, and a drum, came forward, packed themselves into another
machine that was in waiting, and were drawn out into the waves in the
King's rear.  All that was to be heard for a few minutes were the slow
pulsations of the sea; and then a deafening noise burst from the interior
of the second machine with power enough to split the boards asunder; it
was the condensed mass of musicians inside, striking up the strains of
'God save the King,' as his Majesty's head rose from the water.  Bob took
off his hat and waited till the end of the performance, which, intended
as a pleasant surprise to George III. by the loyal burghers, was possibly
in the watery circumstances tolerated rather than desired by that
dripping monarch. {303}

Loveday then passed on to the harbour, where he remained awhile, looking
at the busy scene of loading and unloading craft and swabbing the decks
of yachts; at the boats and barges rubbing against the quay wall, and at
the houses of the merchants, some ancient structures of solid stone,
others green-shuttered with heavy wooden bow-windows which appeared as if
about to drop into the harbour by their own weight.  All these things he
gazed upon, and thought of one thing--that he had caused great misery to
his brother John.

The town clock struck, and Bob retraced his steps till he again
approached the Esplanade and Gloucester Lodge, where the morning sun
blazed in upon the house fronts, and not a spot of shade seemed to be
attainable.  A huzzaing attracted his attention, and he observed that a
number of people had gathered before the King's residence, where a brown
curricle had stopped, out of which stepped a hale man in the prime of
life, wearing a blue uniform, gilt epaulettes, cocked hat, and sword, who
crossed the pavement and went in.  Bob went up and joined the group.
'What's going on?' he said.

'Captain Hardy,' replied a bystander.

'What of him?'

'Just gone in--waiting to see the King.'

'But the captain is in the West Indies?'

'No.  The fleet is come home; they can't find the French anywhere.'

'Will they go and look for them again?' asked Bob.

'O yes.  Nelson is determined to find 'em.  As soon as he's refitted
he'll put to sea again.  Ah, here's the King coming in.'

Bob was so interested in what he had just heard that he scarcely noticed
the arrival of the King, and a body of attendant gentlemen.  He went on
thinking of his new knowledge; Captain Hardy was come.  He was doubtless
staying with his family at their small manor-house at Pos'ham, a few
miles from Overcombe, where he usually spent the intervals between his
different cruises.

Loveday returned to the mill without further delay; and shortly
explaining that John was very well, and would come soon, went on to talk
of the arrival of Nelson's captain.

'And is he come at last?' said the miller, throwing his thoughts years
backward.  'Well can I mind when he first left home to go on board the
Helena as midshipman!'

'That's not much to remember.  I can remember it too,' said Mrs. Loveday.

''Tis more than twenty years ago anyhow.  And more than that, I can mind
when he was born; I was a lad, serving my 'prenticeship at the time.  He
has been in this house often and often when 'a was young.  When he came
home after his first voyage he stayed about here a long time, and used to
look in at the mill whenever he went past.  "What will you be next, sir?"
said mother to him one day as he stood with his back to the doorpost.  "A
lieutenant, Dame Loveday," says he.  "And what next?" says she.  "A
commander."  "And next?"  "Next, post-captain."  "And then?"  "Then it
will be almost time to die."  I'd warrant that he'd mind it to this very
day if you were to ask him.'

Bob heard all this with a manner of preoccupation, and soon retired to
the mill.  Thence he went to his room by the back passage, and taking his
old seafaring garments from a dark closet in the wall conveyed them to
the loft at the top of the mill, where he occupied the remaining spare
moments of the day in brushing the mildew from their folds, and hanging
each article by the window to get aired.  In the evening he returned to
the loft, and dressing himself in the old salt suit, went out of the
house unobserved by anybody, and ascended the road towards Captain
Hardy's native village and present temporary home.

The shadeless downs were now brown with the droughts of the passing
summer, and few living things met his view, the natural rotundity of the
elevation being only occasionally disturbed by the presence of a barrow,
a thorn-bush, or a piece of dry wall which remained from some attempted
enclosure.  By the time that he reached the village it was dark, and the
larger stars had begun to shine when he walked up to the door of the old-
fashioned house which was the family residence of this branch of the
South-Wessex Hardys.

'Will the captain allow me to wait on him to-night?' inquired Loveday,
explaining who and what he was.

The servant went away for a few minutes, and then told Bob that he might
see the captain in the morning.

'If that's the case, I'll come again,' replied Bob, quite cheerful that
failure was not absolute.

He had left the door but a few steps when he was called back and asked if
he had walked all the way from Overcombe Mill on purpose.

Loveday replied modestly that he had done so.

'Then will you come in?'  He followed the speaker into a small study or
office, and in a minute or two Captain Hardy entered.

The captain at this time was a bachelor of thirty-five, rather stout in
build, with light eyes, bushy eyebrows, a square broad face, plenty of
chin, and a mouth whose corners played between humour and grimness.  He
surveyed Loveday from top to toe.

'Robert Loveday, sir, son of the miller at Overcombe,' said Bob, making a
low bow.

'Ah!  I remember your father, Loveday,' the gallant seaman replied.
'Well, what do you want to say to me?'  Seeing that Bob found it rather
difficult to begin, he leant leisurely against the mantelpiece, and went
on, 'Is your father well and hearty?  I have not seen him for many, many
years.'

'Quite well, thank 'ee.'

'You used to have a brother in the army, I think?  What was his
name--John?  A very fine fellow, if I recollect.'

'Yes, cap'n; he's there still.'

'And you are in the merchant-service?'

'Late first mate of the brig Pewit.'

'How is it you're not on board a man-of-war?'

'Ay, sir, that's the thing I've come about,' said Bob, recovering
confidence.  'I should have been, but 'tis womankind has hampered me.
I've waited and waited on at home because of a young woman--lady, I might
have said, for she's sprung from a higher class of society than I.  Her
father was a landscape painter--maybe you've heard of him, sir?  The name
is Garland.'

'He painted that view of our village here,' said Captain Hardy, looking
towards a dark little picture in the corner of the room.

Bob looked, and went on, as if to the picture, 'Well, sir, I have found
that--  However, the press-gang came a week or two ago, and didn't get
hold of me.  I didn't care to go aboard as a pressed man.'

'There has been a severe impressment.  It is of course a disagreeable
necessity, but it can't be helped.'

'Since then, sir, something has happened that makes me wish they had
found me, and I have come to-night to ask if I could enter on board your
ship the Victory.'

The captain shook his head severely, and presently observed: 'I am glad
to find that you think of entering the service, Loveday; smart men are
badly wanted.  But it will not be in your power to choose your ship.'

'Well, well, sir; then I must take my chance elsewhere,' said Bob, his
face indicating the disappointment he would not fully express.  ''Twas
only that I felt I would much rather serve under you than anybody else,
my father and all of us being known to ye, Captain Hardy, and our
families belonging to the same parts.'

Captain Hardy took Bob's altitude more carefully.  'Are you a good
practical seaman?' he asked musingly.

'Ay, sir; I believe I am.'

'Active?  Fond of skylarking?'

'Well, I don't know about the last.  I think I can say I am active
enough.  I could walk the yard-arm, if required, cross from mast to mast
by the stays, and do what most fellows do who call themselves spry.'

The captain then put some questions about the details of navigation,
which Loveday, having luckily been used to square rigs, answered
satisfactorily.  'As to reefing topsails,' he added, 'if I don't do it
like a flash of lightning, I can do it so that they will stand blowing
weather.  The Pewit was not a dull vessel, and when we were convoyed home
from Lisbon, she could keep well in sight of the frigate scudding at a
distance, by putting on full sail.  We had enough hands aboard to reef
topsails man-o'-war fashion, which is a rare thing in these days, sir,
now that able seamen are so scarce on trading craft.  And I hear that men
from square-rigged vessels are liked much the best in the navy, as being
more ready for use?  So that I shouldn't be altogether so raw,' said Bob
earnestly, 'if I could enter on your ship, sir.  Still, if I can't, I
can't.'

'I might ask for you, Loveday,' said the captain thoughtfully, 'and so
get you there that way.  In short, I think I may say I will ask for you.
So consider it settled.'

'My thanks to you, sir,' said Loveday.

'You are aware that the Victory is a smart ship, and that cleanliness and
order are, of necessity, more strictly insisted upon there than in some
others?'

'Sir, I quite see it.'

'Well, I hope you will do your duty as well on a line-of-battle ship as
you did when mate of the brig, for it is a duty that may be serious.'

Bob replied that it should be his one endeavour; and receiving a few
instructions for getting on board the guard-ship, and being conveyed to
Portsmouth, he turned to go away.

'You'll have a stiff walk before you fetch Overcombe Mill this dark
night, Loveday,' concluded the captain, peering out of the window.  'I'll
send you in a glass of grog to help 'ee on your way.'

The captain then left Bob to himself, and when he had drunk the grog that
was brought in he started homeward, with a heart not exactly light, but
large with a patriotic cheerfulness, which had not diminished when, after
walking so fast in his excitement as to be beaded with perspiration, he
entered his father's door.

They were all sitting up for him, and at his approach anxiously raised
their sleepy eyes, for it was nearly eleven o'clock.

'There; I knew he'd not be much longer!' cried Anne, jumping up and
laughing, in her relief.  'They have been thinking you were very strange
and silent to-day, Bob; you were not, were you?'

'What's the matter, Bob?' said the miller; for Bob's countenance was
sublimed by his recent interview, like that of a priest just come from
the penetralia of the temple.

'He's in his mate's clothes, just as when he came home!' observed Mrs.
Loveday.

They all saw now that he had something to tell.  'I am going away,' he
said when he had sat down.  'I am going to enter on board a man-of-war,
and perhaps it will be the Victory.'

'Going?' said Anne faintly.

'Now, don't you mind it, there's a dear,' he went on solemnly, taking her
hand in his own.  'And you, father, don't you begin to take it to heart'
(the miller was looking grave).  'The press-gang has been here, and
though I showed them that I was a free man, I am going to show everybody
that I can do my duty.'

Neither of the other three answered, Anne and the miller having their
eyes bent upon the ground, and the former trying to repress her tears.

'Now don't you grieve, either of you,' he continued; 'nor vex yourselves
that this has happened.  Please not to be angry with me, father, for
deserting you and the mill, where you want me, for I _must go_.  For
these three years we and the rest of the country have been in fear of the
enemy; trade has been hindered; poor folk made hungry; and many rich folk
made poor.  There must be a deliverance, and it must be done by sea.  I
have seen Captain Hardy, and I shall serve under him if so be I can.'

'Captain Hardy?'

'Yes.  I have been to his house at Pos'ham, where he's staying with his
sisters; walked there and back, and I wouldn't have missed it for fifty
guineas.  I hardly thought he would see me; but he did see me.  And he
hasn't forgot you.'

Bob then opened his tale in order, relating graphically the conversation
to which he had been a party, and they listened with breathless
attention.

'Well, if you must go, you must,' said the miller with emotion; 'but I
think it somewhat hard that, of my two sons, neither one of 'em can be
got to stay and help me in my business as I get old.'

'Don't trouble and vex about it,' said Mrs. Loveday soothingly.  'They
are both instruments in the hands of Providence, chosen to chastise that
Corsican ogre, and do what they can for the country in these trying
years.'

'That's just the shape of it, Mrs. Loveday,' said Bob.

'And he'll come back soon,' she continued, turning to Anne.  'And then
he'll tell us all he has seen, and the glory that he's won, and how he
has helped to sweep that scourge Buonaparty off the earth.'

'When be you going, Bob?' his father inquired.

'To-morrow, if I can.  I shall call at the barracks and tell John as I go
by.  When I get to Portsmouth--'

A burst of sobs in quick succession interrupted his words; they came from
Anne, who till that moment had been sitting as before with her hand in
that of Bob, and apparently quite calm.  Mrs. Loveday jumped up, but
before she could say anything to soothe the agitated girl she had calmed
herself with the same singular suddenness that had marked her giving way.
'I don't mind Bob's going,' she said.  'I think he ought to go.  Don't
suppose, Bob, that I want you to stay!'

After this she left the apartment, and went into the little side room
where she and her mother usually worked.  In a few moments Bob followed
her.  When he came back he was in a very sad and emotional mood.  Anybody
could see that there had been a parting of profound anguish to both.

'She is not coming back to-night,' he said.

'You will see her to-morrow before you go?' said her mother.

'I may or I may not,' he replied.  'Father and Mrs. Loveday, do you go to
bed now.  I have got to look over my things and get ready; and it will
take me some little time.  If you should hear noises you will know it is
only myself moving about.'

When Bob was left alone he suddenly became brisk, and set himself to
overhaul his clothes and other possessions in a business-like manner.  By
the time that his chest was packed, such things as he meant to leave at
home folded into cupboards, and what was useless destroyed, it was past
two o'clock.  Then he went to bed, so softly that only the creak of one
weak stair revealed his passage upward.  At the moment that he passed
Anne's chamber-door her mother was bending over her as she lay in bed,
and saying to her, 'Won't you see him in the morning?'

'No, no,' said Anne.  'I would rather not see him!  I have said that I
may.  But I shall not.  I cannot see him again!'

When the family got up next day Bob had vanished.  It was his way to
disappear like this, to avoid affecting scenes at parting.  By the time
that they had sat down to a gloomy breakfast, Bob was in the boat of a
Budmouth waterman, who pulled him alongside the guardship in the roads,
where he laid hold of the man-rope, mounted, and disappeared from
external view.  In the course of the day the ship moved off, set her
royals, and made sail for Portsmouth, with five hundred new hands for the
service on board, consisting partly of pressed men and partly of
volunteers, among the latter being Robert Loveday.




XXXIV.  A SPECK ON THE SEA


In parting from John, who accompanied him to the quay, Bob had said:
'Now, Jack, these be my last words to you: I give her up.  I go away on
purpose, and I shall be away a long time.  If in that time she should
list over towards ye ever so little, mind you take her.  You have more
right to her than I.  You chose her when my mind was elsewhere, and you
best deserve her; for I have never known you forget one woman, while I've
forgot a dozen.  Take her then, if she will come, and God bless both of
ye.'

Another person besides John saw Bob go.  That was Derriman, who was
standing by a bollard a little further up the quay.  He did not repress
his satisfaction at the sight.  John looked towards him with an open gaze
of contempt; for the cuffs administered to the yeoman at the inn had not,
so far as the trumpet-major was aware, produced any desire to avenge that
insult, John being, of course, quite ignorant that Festus had erroneously
retaliated upon Bob, in his peculiar though scarcely soldierly way.
Finding that he did not even now approach him, John went on his way, and
thought over his intention of preserving intact the love between Anne and
his brother.

He was surprised when he next went to the mill to find how glad they all
were to see him.  From the moment of Bob's return to the bosom of the
deep Anne had had no existence on land; people might have looked at her
human body and said she had flitted thence.  The sea and all that
belonged to the sea was her daily thought and her nightly dream.  She had
the whole two-and-thirty winds under her eye, each passing gale that
ushered in returning autumn being mentally registered; and she acquired a
precise knowledge of the direction in which Portsmouth, Brest, Ferrol,
Cadiz, and other such likely places lay.  Instead of saying her own
familiar prayers at night she substituted, with some confusion of
thought, the Forms of Prayer to be used at sea.  John at once noticed her
lorn, abstracted looks, pitied her,--how much he pitied her!--and asked
when they were alone if there was anything he could do.

'There are two things,' she said, with almost childish eagerness in her
tired eyes.

'They shall be done.'

'The first is to find out if Captain Hardy has gone back to his ship; and
the other is--O if you will do it, John!--to get me newspapers whenever
possible.'

After this duologue John was absent for a space of three hours, and they
thought he had gone back to barracks.  He entered, however, at the end of
that time, took off his forage-cap, and wiped his forehead.

'You look tired, John,' said his father.

'O no.'  He went through the house till he had found Anne Garland.

'I have only done one of those things,' he said to her.

'What, already!  I didn't hope for or mean to-day.'

'Captain Hardy is gone from Pos'ham.  He left some days ago.  We shall
soon hear that the fleet has sailed.'

'You have been all the way to Pos'ham on purpose?  How good of you!'

'Well, I was anxious to know myself when Bob is likely to leave.  I
expect now that we shall soon hear from him.'

Two days later he came again.  He brought a newspaper, and what was
better, a letter for Anne, franked by the first lieutenant of the
Victory.

'Then he's aboard her,' said Anne, as she eagerly took the letter.

It was short, but as much as she could expect in the circumstances, and
informed them that the captain had been as good as his word, and had
gratified Bob's earnest wish to serve under him.  The ship, with Admiral
Lord Nelson on board, and accompanied by the frigate Euryalus, was to
sail in two days for Plymouth, where they would be joined by others, and
thence proceed to the coast of Spain.

Anne lay awake that night thinking of the Victory, and of those who
floated in her.  To the best of Anne's calculation that ship of war
would, during the next twenty-four hours, pass within a few miles of
where she herself then lay.  Next to seeing Bob, the thing that would
give her more pleasure than any other in the world was to see the vessel
that contained him--his floating city, his sole dependence in battle and
storm--upon whose safety from winds and enemies hung all her hope.

The morrow was market-day at the seaport, and in this she saw her
opportunity.  A carrier went from Overcombe at six o'clock thither, and
having to do a little shopping for herself she gave it as a reason for
her intended day's absence, and took a place in the van.  When she
reached the town it was still early morning, but the borough was already
in the zenith of its daily bustle and show.  The King was always out-of-
doors by six o'clock, and such cock-crow hours at Gloucester Lodge
produced an equally forward stir among the population.  She alighted, and
passed down the esplanade, as fully thronged by persons of fashion at
this time of mist and level sunlight as a watering-place in the present
day is at four in the afternoon.  Dashing bucks and beaux in cocked hats,
black feathers, ruffles, and frills, stared at her as she hurried along;
the beach was swarming with bathing women, wearing waistbands that bore
the national refrain, 'God save the King,' in gilt letters; the shops
were all open, and Sergeant Stanner, with his sword-stuck bank-notes and
heroic gaze, was beating up at two guineas and a crown, the crown to
drink his Majesty's health.

She soon finished her shopping, and then, crossing over into the old
town, pursued her way along the coast-road to Portland.  At the end of an
hour she had been rowed across the Fleet (which then lacked the
convenience of a bridge), and reached the base of Portland Hill.  The
steep incline before her was dotted with houses, showing the pleasant
peculiarity of one man's doorstep being behind his neighbour's chimney,
and slabs of stone as the common material for walls, roof, floor, pig-
sty, stable-manger, door-scraper, and garden-stile.  Anne gained the
summit, and followed along the central track over the huge lump of
freestone which forms the peninsula, the wide sea prospect extending as
she went on.  Weary with her journey, she approached the extreme
southerly peak of rock, and gazed from the cliff at Portland Bill, or
Beal, as it was in those days more correctly called.

The wild, herbless, weather-worn promontory was quite a solitude, and,
saving the one old lighthouse about fifty yards up the slope, scarce a
mark was visible to show that humanity had ever been near the spot.  Anne
found herself a seat on a stone, and swept with her eyes the tremulous
expanse of water around her that seemed to utter a ceaseless
unintelligible incantation.  Out of the three hundred and sixty degrees
of her complete horizon two hundred and fifty were covered by waves, the
coup d'oeil including the area of troubled waters known as the Race,
where two seas met to effect the destruction of such vessels as could not
be mastered by one.  She counted the craft within her view: there were
five; no, there were only four; no, there were seven, some of the specks
having resolved themselves into two.  They were all small coasters, and
kept well within sight of land.

Anne sank into a reverie.  Then she heard a slight noise on her left
hand, and turning beheld an old sailor, who had approached with a glass.
He was levelling it over the sea in a direction to the south-east, and
somewhat removed from that in which her own eyes had been wandering.  Anne
moved a few steps thitherward, so as to unclose to her view a deeper
sweep on that side, and by this discovered a ship of far larger size than
any which had yet dotted the main before her.  Its sails were for the
most part new and clean, and in comparison with its rapid progress before
the wind the small brigs and ketches seemed standing still.  Upon this
striking object the old man's glass was bent.

'What do you see, sailor?' she asked.

'Almost nothing,' he answered.  'My sight is so gone off lately that
things, one and all, be but a November mist to me.  And yet I fain would
see to-day.  I am looking for the Victory.'

'Why,' she said quickly.

'I have a son aboard her.  He's one of three from these parts.  There's
the captain, there's my son Ned, and there's young Loveday of
Overcombe--he that lately joined.'

'Shall I look for you?' said Anne, after a pause.

'Certainly, mis'ess, if so be you please.'

Anne took the glass, and he supported it by his arm.  'It is a large
ship,' she said, 'with three masts, three rows of guns along the side,
and all her sails set.'

'I guessed as much.'

'There is a little flag in front--over her bowsprit.'

'The jack.'

'And there's a large one flying at her stern.'

'The ensign.'

'And a white one on her fore-topmast.'

'That's the admiral's flag, the flag of my Lord Nelson.  What is her
figure-head, my dear?'

'A coat-of-arms, supported on this side by a sailor.'

Her companion nodded with satisfaction.  'On the other side of that
figure-head is a marine.'

'She is twisting round in a curious way, and her sails sink in like old
cheeks, and she shivers like a leaf upon a tree.'

'She is in stays, for the larboard tack.  I can see what she's been
doing.  She's been re'ching close in to avoid the flood tide, as the wind
is to the sou'-west, and she's bound down; but as soon as the ebb made,
d'ye see, they made sail to the west'ard.  Captain Hardy may be depended
upon for that; he knows every current about here, being a native.'

'And now I can see the other side; it is a soldier where a sailor was
before.  You are _sure_ it is the Victory?'

'I am sure.'

After this a frigate came into view--the Euryalus--sailing in the same
direction.  Anne sat down, and her eyes never left the ships.  'Tell me
more about the Victory,' she said.

'She is the best sailer in the service, and she carries a hundred guns.
The heaviest be on the lower deck, the next size on the middle deck, the
next on the main and upper decks.  My son Ned's place is on the lower
deck, because he's short, and they put the short men below.'

Bob, though not tall, was not likely to be specially selected for
shortness.  She pictured him on the upper deck, in his snow-white
trousers and jacket of navy blue, looking perhaps towards the very point
of land where she then was.

The great silent ship, with her population of blue-jackets, marines,
officers, captain, and the admiral who was not to return alive, passed
like a phantom the meridian of the Bill.  Sometimes her aspect was that
of a large white bat, sometimes that of a grey one.  In the course of
time the watching girl saw that the ship had passed her nearest point;
the breadth of her sails diminished by foreshortening, till she assumed
the form of an egg on end.  After this something seemed to twinkle, and
Anne, who had previously withdrawn from the old sailor, went back to him,
and looked again through the glass.  The twinkling was the light falling
upon the cabin windows of the ship's stern.  She explained it to the old
man.

'Then we see now what the enemy have seen but once.  That was in seventy-
nine, when she sighted the French and Spanish fleet off Scilly, and she
retreated because she feared a landing.  Well, 'tis a brave ship and she
carries brave men!'

Anne's tender bosom heaved, but she said nothing, and again became
absorbed in contemplation.

The Victory was fast dropping away.  She was on the horizon, and soon
appeared hull down.  That seemed to be like the beginning of a greater
end than her present vanishing.  Anne Garland could not stay by the
sailor any longer, and went about a stone's-throw off, where she was
hidden by the inequality of the cliff from his view.  The vessel was now
exactly end on, and stood out in the direction of the Start, her width
having contracted to the proportion of a feather.  She sat down again,
and mechanically took out some biscuits that she had brought, foreseeing
that her waiting might be long.  But she could not eat one of them;
eating seemed to jar with the mental tenseness of the moment; and her
undeviating gaze continued to follow the lessened ship with the fidelity
of a balanced needle to a magnetic stone, all else in her being
motionless.

The courses of the Victory were absorbed into the main, then her topsails
went, and then her top-gallants.  She was now no more than a dead fly's
wing on a sheet of spider's web; and even this fragment diminished.  Anne
could hardly bear to see the end, and yet she resolved not to flinch.  The
admiral's flag sank behind the watery line, and in a minute the very
truck of the last topmast stole away.  The Victory was gone.

Anne's lip quivered as she murmured, without removing her wet eyes from
the vacant and solemn horizon, '"They that go down to the sea in ships,
that do business in great waters--"'

'"These see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep,"' was
returned by a man's voice from behind her.

Looking round quickly, she saw a soldier standing there; and the grave
eyes of John Loveday bent on her.

''Tis what I was thinking,' she said, trying to be composed.

'You were saying it,' he answered gently.

'Was I?--I did not know it. . . .  How came you here?' she presently
added.

'I have been behind you a good while; but you never turned round.'

'I was deeply occupied,' she said in an undertone.

'Yes--I too came to see him pass.  I heard this morning that Lord Nelson
had embarked, and I knew at once that they would sail immediately.  The
Victory and Euryalus are to join the rest of the fleet at Plymouth.  There
was a great crowd of people assembled to see the admiral off; they
cheered him and the ship as she dropped down.  He took his coffin on
board with him, they say.'

'His coffin!' said Anne, turning deadly pale.  'Something terrible, then,
is meant by that!  O, why _would_ Bob go in that ship? doomed to
destruction from the very beginning like this!'

'It was his determination to sail under Captain Hardy, and under no one
else,' said John.  'There may be hot work; but we must hope for the
best.'  And observing how wretched she looked, he added, 'But won't you
let me help you back?  If you can walk as far as Hope Cove it will be
enough.  A lerret is going from there across the bay homeward to the
harbour in the course of an hour; it belongs to a man I know, and they
can take one passenger, I am sure.'

She turned her back upon the Channel, and by his help soon reached the
place indicated.  The boat was lying there as he had said.  She found it
to belong to the old man who had been with her at the Bill, and was in
charge of his two younger sons.  The trumpet-major helped her into it
over the slippery blocks of stone, one of the young men spread his jacket
for her to sit on, and as soon as they pulled from shore John climbed up
the blue-grey cliff, and disappeared over the top, to return to the
mainland by road.

Anne was in the town by three o'clock.  The trip in the stern of the
lerret had quite refreshed her, with the help of the biscuits, which she
had at last been able to eat.  The van from the port to Overcombe did not
start till four o'clock, and feeling no further interest in the gaieties
of the place, she strolled on past the King's house to the outskirts, her
mind settling down again upon the possibly sad fate of the Victory when
she found herself alone.  She did not hurry on; and finding that even now
there wanted another half-hour to the carrier's time, she turned into a
little lane to escape the inspection of the numerous passers-by.  Here
all was quite lonely and still, and she sat down under a willow-tree,
absently regarding the landscape, which had begun to put on the rich
tones of declining summer, but which to her was as hollow and faded as a
theatre by day.  She could hold out no longer; burying her face in her
hands, she wept without restraint.

Some yards behind her was a little spring of water, having a stone margin
round it to prevent the cattle from treading in the sides and filling it
up with dirt.  While she wept, two elderly gentlemen entered unperceived
upon the scene, and walked on to the spring's brink.  Here they paused
and looked in, afterwards moving round it, and then stooping as if to
smell or taste its waters.  The spring was, in fact, a sulphurous one,
then recently discovered by a physician who lived in the neighbourhood;
and it was beginning to attract some attention, having by common report
contributed to effect such wonderful cures as almost passed belief.  After
a considerable discussion, apparently on how the pool might be improved
for better use, one of the two elderly gentlemen turned away, leaving the
other still probing the spring with his cane.  The first stranger, who
wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, came on in the direction of Anne
Garland, and seeing her sad posture went quickly up to her, and said
abruptly, 'What is the matter?'

Anne, who in her grief had observed nothing of the gentlemen's presence,
withdrew her handkerchief from her eyes and started to her feet.  She
instantly recognised her interrogator as the King.

'What, what, crying?' his Majesty inquired kindly.  'How is this!'

'I--have seen a dear friend go away, sir,' she faltered, with downcast
eyes.

'Ah--partings are sad--very sad--for us all.  You must hope your friend
will return soon.  Where is he or she gone?'

'I don't know, your Majesty.'

'Don't know--how is that?'

'He is a sailor on board the Victory.'

'Then he has reason to be proud,' said the King with interest.  'He is
your brother?'

Anne tried to explain what he was, but could not, and blushed with
painful heat.

'Well, well, well; what is his name?'

In spite of Anne's confusion and low spirits, her womanly shrewdness told
her at once that no harm could be done by revealing Bob's name; and she
answered, 'His name is Robert Loveday, sir.'

'Loveday--a good name.  I shall not forget it.  Now dry your cheeks, and
don't cry any more.  Loveday--Robert Loveday.'

Anne curtseyed, the King smiled good-humouredly, and turned to rejoin his
companion, who was afterwards heard to be Dr. ---, the physician in
attendance at Gloucester Lodge.  This gentleman had in the meantime
filled a small phial with the medicinal water, which he carefully placed
in his pocket; and on the King coming up they retired together and
disappeared.  Thereupon Anne, now thoroughly aroused, followed the same
way with a gingerly tread, just in time to see them get into a carriage
which was in waiting at the turning of the lane.

She quite forgot the carrier, and everything else in connexion with
riding home.  Flying along the road rapidly and unconsciously, when she
awoke to a sense of her whereabouts she was so near to Overcombe as to
make the carrier not worth waiting for.  She had been borne up in this
hasty spurt at the end of a weary day by visions of Bob promoted to the
rank of admiral, or something equally wonderful, by the King's special
command, the chief result of the promotion being, in her arrangement of
the piece, that he would stay at home and go to sea no more.  But she was
not a girl who indulged in extravagant fancies long, and before she
reached home she thought that the King had probably forgotten her by that
time, and her troubles, and her lover's name.




XXXV.  A SAILOR ENTERS


The remaining fortnight of the month of September passed away, with a
general decline from the summer's excitements.  The royal family left the
watering-place the first week in October, the German Legion with their
artillery about the same time.  The dragoons still remained at the
barracks just out of the town, and John Loveday brought to Anne every
newspaper that he could lay hands on, especially such as contained any
fragment of shipping news.  This threw them much together; and at these
times John was often awkward and confused, on account of the unwonted
stress of concealing his great love for her.

Her interests had grandly developed from the limits of Overcombe and the
town life hard by, to an extensiveness truly European.  During the whole
month of October, however, not a single grain of information reached her,
or anybody else, concerning Nelson and his blockading squadron off Cadiz.
There were the customary bad jokes about Buonaparte, especially when it
was found that the whole French army had turned its back upon Boulogne
and set out for the Rhine.  Then came accounts of his march through
Germany and into Austria; but not a word about the Victory.

At the beginning of autumn John brought news which fearfully depressed
her.  The Austrian General Mack had capitulated with his whole army.  Then
were revived the old misgivings as to invasion.  'Instead of having to
cope with him weary with waiting, we shall have to encounter This Man
fresh from the fields of victory,' ran the newspaper article.

But the week which had led off with such a dreary piping was to end in
another key.  On the very day when Mack's army was piling arms at the
feet of its conqueror, a blow had been struck by Bob Loveday and his
comrades which eternally shattered the enemy's force by sea.  Four days
after the receipt of the Austrian news Corporal Tullidge ran into the
miller's house to inform him that on the previous Monday, at eleven in
the morning, the Pickle schooner, Lieutenant Lapenotiere, had arrived at
Falmouth with despatches from the fleet; that the stage-coaches on the
highway through Wessex to London were chalked with the words 'Great
Victory!' 'Glorious Triumph!' and so on; and that all the country people
were wild to know particulars.

On Friday afternoon John arrived with authentic news of the battle off
Cape Trafalgar, and the death of Nelson.  Captain Hardy was alive, though
his escape had been narrow enough, his shoe-buckle having been carried
away by a shot.  It was feared that the Victory had been the scene of the
heaviest slaughter among all the ships engaged, but as yet no returns of
killed and wounded had been issued, beyond a rough list of the numbers in
some of the ships.

The suspense of the little household in Overcombe Mill was great in the
extreme.  John came thither daily for more than a week; but no further
particulars reached England till the end of that time, and then only the
meagre intelligence that there had been a gale immediately after the
battle, and that many of the prizes had been lost.  Anne said little to
all these things, and preserved a superstratum of calmness on her
countenance; but some inner voice seemed to whisper to her that Bob was
no more.  Miller Loveday drove to Pos'ham several times to learn if the
Captain's sisters had received any more definite tidings than these
flying reports; but that family had heard nothing which could in any way
relieve the miller's anxiety.  When at last, at the end of November,
there appeared a final and revised list of killed and wounded as issued
by Admiral Collingwood, it was a useless sheet to the Lovedays.  To their
great pain it contained no names but those of officers, the friends of
ordinary seamen and marines being in those good old days left to discover
their losses as best they might.

Anne's conviction of her loss increased with the darkening of the early
winter time.  Bob was not a cautious man who would avoid needless
exposure, and a hundred and fifty of the Victory's crew had been disabled
or slain.  Anybody who had looked into her room at this time would have
seen that her favourite reading was the office for the Burial of the Dead
at Sea, beginning 'We therefore commit his body to the deep.'  In these
first days of December several of the victorious fleet came into port;
but not the Victory.  Many supposed that that noble ship, disabled by the
battle, had gone to the bottom in the subsequent tempestuous weather; and
the belief was persevered in till it was told in the town and port that
she had been seen passing up the Channel.  Two days later the Victory
arrived at Portsmouth.

Then letters from survivors began to appear in the public prints which
John so regularly brought to Anne; but though he watched the mails with
unceasing vigilance there was never a letter from Bob.  It sometimes
crossed John's mind that his brother might still be alive and well, and
that in his wish to abide by his expressed intention of giving up Anne
and home life he was deliberately lax in writing.  If so, Bob was
carrying out the idea too thoughtlessly by half, as could be seen by
watching the effects of suspense upon the fair face of the victim, and
the anxiety of the rest of the family.

It was a clear day in December.  The first slight snow of the season had
been sifted over the earth, and one side of the apple-tree branches in
the miller's garden was touched with white, though a few leaves were
still lingering on the tops of the younger trees.  A short sailor of the
Royal Navy, who was not Bob, nor anything like him, crossed the mill
court and came to the door.  The miller hastened out and brought him into
the room, where John, Mrs. Loveday, and Anne Garland were all present.

'I'm from aboard the Victory,' said the sailor.  'My name's Jim Cornick.
And your lad is alive and well.'

They breathed rather than spoke their thankfulness and relief, the
miller's eyes being moist as he turned aside to calm himself; while Anne,
having first jumped up wildly from her seat, sank back again under the
almost insupportable joy that trembled through her limbs to her utmost
finger.

'I've come from Spithead to Pos'ham,' the sailor continued, 'and now I am
going on to father at Budmouth.'

'Ah!--I know your father,' cried the trumpet-major, 'old James Cornick.'

It was the man who had brought Anne in his lerret from Portland Bill.

'And Bob hasn't got a scratch?' said the miller.

'Not a scratch,' said Cornick.

Loveday then bustled off to draw the visitor something to drink.  Anne
Garland, with a glowing blush on her face, had gone to the back part of
the room, where she was the very embodiment of sweet content as she
slightly swayed herself without speaking.  A little tide of happiness
seemed to ebb and flow through her in listening to the sailor's words,
moving her figure with it.  The seaman and John went on conversing.

'Bob had a good deal to do with barricading the hawse-holes afore we were
in action, and the Adm'l and Cap'n both were very much pleased at how
'twas done.  When the Adm'l went up the quarter-deck ladder, Cap'n Hardy
said a word or two to Bob, but what it was I don't know, for I was
quartered at a gun some ways off.  However, Bob saw the Adm'l stagger
when 'a was wownded, and was one of the men who carried him to the
cockpit.  After that he and some other lads jumped aboard the French
ship, and I believe they was in her when she struck her flag.  What 'a
did next I can't say, for the wind had dropped, and the smoke was like a
cloud.  But 'a got a good deal talked about; and they say there's
promotion in store for'n.'

At this point in the story Jim Cornick stopped to drink, and a low
unconscious humming came from Anne in her distant corner; the faint
melody continued more or less when the conversation between the sailor
and the Lovedays was renewed.

'We heard afore that the Victory was near knocked to pieces,' said the
miller.

'Knocked to pieces?  You'd say so if so be you could see her!  Gad, her
sides be battered like an old penny piece; the shot be still sticking in
her wales, and her sails be like so many clap-nets: we have run all the
way home under jury topmasts; and as for her decks, you may swab wi' hot
water, and you may swab wi' cold, but there's the blood-stains, and there
they'll bide. . . .  The Cap'n had a narrow escape, like many o' the
rest--a shot shaved his ankle like a razor.  You should have seen that
man's face in the het o' battle, his features were as if they'd been cast
in steel.'

'We rather expected a letter from Bob before this.'

'Well,' said Jim Cornick, with a smile of toleration, 'you must make
allowances.  The truth o't is, he's engaged just now at Portsmouth, like
a good many of the rest from our ship. . . .  'Tis a very nice young
woman that he's a courting of, and I make no doubt that she'll be an
excellent wife for him.'

'Ah!' said Mrs. Loveday, in a warning tone.

'Courting--wife?' said the miller.

They instinctively looked towards Anne.  Anne had started as if shaken by
an invisible hand, and a thick mist of doubt seemed to obscure the
intelligence of her eyes.  This was but for two or three moments.  Very
pale, she arose and went right up to the seaman.  John gently tried to
intercept her, but she passed him by.

'Do you speak of Robert Loveday as courting a wife?' she asked, without
the least betrayal of emotion.

'I didn't see you, miss,' replied Cornick, turning.  'Yes, your brother
hev' his eye on a wife, and he deserves one.  I hope you don't mind?'

'Not in the least,' she said, with a stage laugh.  'I am interested,
naturally.  And what is she?'

'A very nice young master-baker's daughter, honey.  A very wise choice of
the young man's.'

'Is she fair or dark?'

'Her hair is rather light.'

'I like light hair; and her name?'

'Her name is Caroline.  But can it be that my story hurts ye?  If so--'

'Yes, yes,' said John, interposing anxiously.  'We don't care for more
just at this moment.'

'We _do_ care for more!' said Anne vehemently.  'Tell it all, sailor.
That is a very pretty name, Caroline.  When are they going to be
married?'

'I don't know as how the day is settled,' answered Jim, even now scarcely
conscious of the devastation he was causing in one fair breast.  'But
from the rate the courting is scudding along at, I should say it won't be
long first.'

'If you see him when you go back, give him my best wishes,' she lightly
said, as she moved away.  'And,' she added, with solemn bitterness, 'say
that I am glad to hear he is making such good use of the first days of
his escape from the Valley of the Shadow of Death!'  She went away,
expressing indifference by audibly singing in the distance--

   'Shall we go dance the round, the round, the round,
      Shall we go dance the round?'

'Your sister is lively at the news,' observed Jim Cornick.

'Yes,' murmured John gloomily, as he gnawed his lower lip and kept his
eyes fixed on the fire.

'Well,' continued the man from the Victory, 'I won't say that your
brother's intended ha'n't got some ballast, which is very lucky for'n, as
he might have picked up with a girl without a single copper nail.  To be
sure there was a time we had when we got into port!  It was open house
for us all!'  And after mentally regarding the scene for a few seconds
Jim emptied his cup and rose to go.

The miller was saying some last words to him outside the house, Anne's
voice had hardly ceased singing upstairs, John was standing by the
fireplace, and Mrs. Loveday was crossing the room to join her daughter,
whose manner had given her some uneasiness, when a noise came from above
the ceiling, as of some heavy body falling.  Mrs. Loveday rushed to the
staircase, saying, 'Ah, I feared something!' and she was followed by
John.

When they entered Anne's room, which they both did almost at one moment,
they found her lying insensible upon the floor.  The trumpet-major, his
lips tightly closed, lifted her in his arms, and laid her upon the bed;
after which he went back to the door to give room to her mother, who was
bending over the girl with some hartshorn.

Presently Mrs. Loveday looked up and said to him, 'She is only in a
faint, John, and her colour is coming back.  Now leave her to me; I will
be downstairs in a few minutes, and tell you how she is.'

John left the room.  When he gained the lower apartment his father was
standing by the chimney-piece, the sailor having gone.  The trumpet-major
went up to the fire, and, grasping the edge of the high chimney-shelf,
stood silent.

'Did I hear a noise when I went out?' asked the elder, in a tone of
misgiving.

'Yes, you did,' said John.  'It was she, but her mother says she is
better now.  Father,' he added impetuously, 'Bob is a worthless
blockhead!  If there had been any good in him he would have been drowned
years ago!'

'John, John--not too fast,' said the miller.  'That's a hard thing to say
of your brother, and you ought to be ashamed of it.'

'Well, he tries me more than I can bear.  Good God! what can a man be
made of to go on as he does?  Why didn't he come home; or if he couldn't
get leave why didn't he write?  'Tis scandalous of him to serve a woman
like that!'

'Gently, gently.  The chap hev done his duty as a sailor; and though
there might have been something between him and Anne, her mother, in
talking it over with me, has said many times that she couldn't think of
their marrying till Bob had settled down in business with me.  Folks that
gain victories must have a little liberty allowed 'em.  Look at the
Admiral himself, for that matter.'

John continued looking at the red coals, till hearing Mrs. Loveday's foot
on the staircase, he went to meet her.

'She is better,' said Mrs. Loveday; 'but she won't come down again to-
day.'

Could John have heard what the poor girl was moaning to herself at that
moment as she lay writhing on the bed, he would have doubted her mother's
assurance.  'If he had been dead I could have borne it, but this I cannot
bear!'




XXXVI.  DERRIMAN SEES CHANCES


Meanwhile Sailor Cornick had gone on his way as far as the forking roads,
where he met Festus Derriman on foot.  The latter, attracted by the
seaman's dress, and by seeing him come from the mill, at once accosted
him.  Jim, with the greatest readiness, fell into conversation, and told
the same story as that he had related at the mill.

'Bob Loveday going to be married?' repeated Festus.

'You all seem struck of a heap wi' that.'

'No; I never heard news that pleased me more.'

When Cornick was gone, Festus, instead of passing straight on, halted on
the little bridge and meditated.  Bob, being now interested elsewhere,
would probably not resent the siege of Anne's heart by another; there
could, at any rate, be no further possibility of that looming duel which
had troubled the yeoman's mind ever since his horse-play on Anne at the
house on the down.  To march into the mill and propose to Mrs. Loveday
for Anne before John's interest could revive in her was, to this hero's
thinking, excellent discretion.

The day had already begun to darken when he entered, and the cheerful
fire shone red upon the floor and walls.  Mrs. Loveday received him
alone, and asked him to take a seat by the chimney-corner, a little of
the old hankering for him as a son-in-law having permanently remained
with her.

'Your servant, Mrs. Loveday,' he said, 'and I will tell you at once what
I come for.  You will say that I take time by the forelock when I inform
you that it is to push on my long-wished-for alliance wi' your daughter,
as I believe she is now a free woman again.'

'Thank you, Mr. Derriman,' said the mother placably.  'But she is ill at
present.  I'll mention it to her when she is better.'

'Ask her to alter her cruel, cruel resolves against me, on the score
of--of my consuming passion for her.  In short,' continued Festus,
dropping his parlour language in his warmth, 'I'll tell thee what, Dame
Loveday, I want the maid, and must have her.'

Mrs. Loveday replied that that was very plain speaking.

'Well, 'tis.  But Bob has given her up.  He never meant to marry her.
I'll tell you, Mrs. Loveday, what I have never told a soul before.  I was
standing upon Budmouth Quay on that very day in last September that Bob
set sail, and I heard him say to his brother John that he gave your
daughter up.'

'Then it was very unmannerly of him to trifle with her so,' said Mrs.
Loveday warmly.  'Who did he give her up to?'

Festus replied with hesitation, 'He gave her up to John.'

'To John?  How could he give her up to a man already over head and ears
in love with that actress woman?'

'O?  You surprise me.  Which actress is it?'

'That Miss Johnson.  Anne tells me that he loves her hopelessly.'

Festus arose.  Miss Johnson seemed suddenly to acquire high value as a
sweetheart at this announcement.  He had himself felt a nameless
attractiveness in her, and John had done likewise.  John crossed his path
in all possible ways.

Before the yeoman had replied somebody opened the door, and the firelight
shone upon the uniform of the person they discussed.  Festus nodded on
recognizing him, wished Mrs. Loveday good evening, and went out
precipitately.

'So Bob told you he meant to break off with my Anne when he went away?'
Mrs. Loveday remarked to the trumpet-major.  'I wish I had known of it
before.'

John appeared disturbed at the sudden charge.  He murmured that he could
not deny it, and then hastily turned from her and followed Derriman, whom
he saw before him on the bridge.

'Derriman!' he shouted.

Festus started and looked round.  'Well, trumpet-major,' he said blandly.

'When will you have sense enough to mind your own business, and not come
here telling things you have heard by sneaking behind people's backs?'
demanded John hotly.  'If you can't learn in any other way, I shall have
to pull your ears again, as I did the other day!'

'_You_ pull my ears?  How can you tell that lie, when you know 'twas
somebody else pulled 'em?'

'O no, no.  I pulled your ears, and thrashed you in a mild way.'

'You'll swear to it?  Surely 'twas another man?'

'It was in the parlour at the public-house; you were almost in the dark.'
And John added a few details as to the particular blows, which amounted
to proof itself.

'Then I heartily ask your pardon for saying 'twas a lie!' cried Festus,
advancing with extended hand and a genial smile.  'Sure, if I had known
_'twas_ you, I wouldn't have insulted you by denying it.'

'That was why you didn't challenge me, then?'

'That was it!  I wouldn't for the world have hurt your nice sense of
honour by letting 'ee go unchallenged, if I had known!  And now, you see,
unfortunately I can't mend the mistake.  So long a time has passed since
it happened that the heat of my temper is gone off.  I couldn't oblige
'ee, try how I might, for I am not a man, trumpet-major, that can butcher
in cold blood--no, not I, nor you neither, from what I know of 'ee.  So,
willy-nilly, we must fain let it pass, eh?'

'We must, I suppose,' said John, smiling grimly.  'Who did you think I
was, then, that night when I boxed you all round?'

'No, don't press me,' replied the yeoman.  'I can't reveal; it would be
disgracing myself to show how very wide of the truth the mockery of wine
was able to lead my senses.  We will let it be buried in eternal mixens
of forgetfulness.'

'As you wish,' said the trumpet-major loftily.  'But if you ever _should_
think you knew it was me, why, you know where to find me?'  And Loveday
walked away.

The instant that he was gone Festus shook his fist at the evening star,
which happened to lie in the same direction as that taken by the dragoon.

'Now for my revenge!  Duels?  Lifelong disgrace to me if ever I fight
with a man of blood below my own!  There are other remedies for upper-
class souls!. . .  Matilda--that's my way.'

Festus strode along till he reached the Hall, where Cripplestraw appeared
gazing at him from under the arch of the porter's lodge.  Derriman dashed
open the entrance-hurdle with such violence that the whole row of them
fell flat in the mud.

'Mercy, Maister Festus!' said Cripplestraw.  '"Surely," I says to myself
when I see ye a-coming, "surely Maister Festus is fuming like that
because there's no chance of the enemy coming this year after all."'

'Cr-r-ripplestraw!  I have been wounded to the heart,' replied Derriman,
with a lurid brow.

'And the man yet lives, and you wants yer horse-pistols instantly?
Certainly, Maister F---'

'No, Cripplestraw, not my pistols, but my new-cut clothes, my heavy gold
seals, my silver-topped cane, and my buckles that cost more money than he
ever saw!  Yes, I must tell somebody, and I'll tell you, because there's
no other fool near.  He loves her heart and soul.  He's poor; she's tip-
top genteel, and not rich.  I am rich, by comparison.  I'll court the
pretty play-actress, and win her before his eyes.'

'Play-actress, Maister Derriman?'

'Yes.  I saw her this very day, met her by accident, and spoke to her.
She's still in the town--perhaps because of him.  I can meet her at any
hour of the day--  But I don't mean to marry her; not I.  I will court
her for my pastime, and to annoy him.  It will be all the more death to
him that I don't want her.  Then perhaps he will say to me, "You have
taken my one ewe lamb"--meaning that I am the king, and he's the poor
man, as in the church verse; and he'll beg for mercy when 'tis too
late--unless, meanwhile, I shall have tired of my new toy.  Saddle the
horse, Cripplestraw, to-morrow at ten.'

Full of this resolve to scourge John Loveday to the quick through his
passion for Miss Johnson, Festus came out booted and spurred at the time
appointed, and set off on his morning ride.

Miss Johnson's theatrical engagement having long ago terminated, she
would have left the Royal watering-place with the rest of the visitors
had not matrimonial hopes detained her there.  These had nothing whatever
to do with John Loveday, as may be imagined, but with a stout, staid boat-
builder in Cove Row by the quay, who had shown much interest in her
impersonations.  Unfortunately this substantial man had not been quite so
attentive since the end of the season as his previous manner led her to
expect; and it was a great pleasure to the lady to see Mr. Derriman
leaning over the harbour bridge with his eyes fixed upon her as she came
towards it after a stroll past her elderly wooer's house.

'Od take it, ma'am, you didn't tell me when I saw you last that the
tooting man with the blue jacket and lace was yours devoted?' began
Festus.

'Who do you mean?'  In Matilda's ever-changing emotional interests, John
Loveday was a stale and unprofitable personality.

'Why, that trumpet-major man.'

'O!  What of him?'

'Come; he loves you, and you know it, ma'am.'

She knew, at any rate, how to take the current when it served.  So she
glanced at Festus, folded her lips meaningly, and nodded.

'I've come to cut him out.'

She shook her head, it being unsafe to speak till she knew a little more
of the subject.

'What!' said Festus, reddening, 'do you mean to say that you think of him
seriously--you, who might look so much higher?'

'Constant dropping will wear away a stone; and you should only hear his
pleading!  His handsome face is impressive, and his manners are--O, so
genteel!  I am not rich; I am, in short, a poor lady of decayed family,
who has nothing to boast of but my blood and ancestors, and they won't
find a body in food and clothing!--I hold the world but as the world,
Derrimanio--a stage where every man must play a part, and mine a sad
one!'  She dropped her eyes thoughtfully and sighed.

'We will talk of this,' said Festus, much affected.  'Let us walk to the
Look-out.'

She made no objection, and said, as they turned that way, 'Mr. Derriman,
a long time ago I found something belonging to you; but I have never yet
remembered to return it.'  And she drew from her bosom the paper which
Anne had dropped in the meadow when eluding the grasp of Festus on that
summer day.

'Zounds, I smell fresh meat!' cried Festus when he had looked it over.
''Tis in my uncle's writing, and 'tis what I heard him singing on the day
the French didn't come, and afterwards saw him marking in the road.  'Tis
something he's got hid away.  Give me the paper, there's a dear; 'tis
worth sterling gold!'

'Halves, then?' said Matilda tenderly.

'Gad, yes--anything!' replied Festus, blazing into a smile, for she had
looked up in her best new manner at the possibility that he might be
worth the winning.  They went up the steps to the summit of the cliff,
and dwindled over it against the sky.




XXXVII.  REACTION


There was no letter from Bob, though December had passed, and the new
year was two weeks old.  His movements were, however, pretty accurately
registered in the papers, which John still brought, but which Anne no
longer read.  During the second week in December the Victory sailed for
Sheerness, and on the 9th of the following January the public funeral of
Lord Nelson took place in St. Paul's.

Then there came a meagre line addressed to the family in general.  Bob's
new Portsmouth attachment was not mentioned, but he told them he had been
one of the eight-and-forty seamen who walked two-and-two in the funeral
procession, and that Captain Hardy had borne the banner of emblems on the
same occasion.  The crew was soon to be paid off at Chatham, when he
thought of returning to Portsmouth for a few days to see a valued friend.
After that he should come home.

But the spring advanced without bringing him, and John watched Anne
Garland's desolation with augmenting desire to do something towards
consoling her.  The old feelings, so religiously held in check, were
stimulated to rebelliousness, though they did not show themselves in any
direct manner as yet.

The miller, in the meantime, who seldom interfered in such matters, was
observed to look meaningly at Anne and the trumpet-major from day to day;
and by-and-by he spoke privately to John.

His words were short and to the point: Anne was very melancholy; she had
thought too much of Bob.  Now 'twas plain that they had lost him for many
years to come.  Well; he had always felt that of the two he would rather
John married her.  Now John might settle down there, and succeed where
Bob had failed.  'So if you could get her, my sonny, to think less of him
and more of thyself, it would be a good thing for all.'

An inward excitement had risen in John; but he suppressed it and said
firmly--

'Fairness to Bob before everything!'

'He hev forgot her, and there's an end on't.'

'She's not forgot him.'

'Well, well; think it over.'

This discourse was the cause of his penning a letter to his brother.  He
begged for a distinct statement whether, as John at first supposed, Bob's
verbal renunciation of Anne on the quay had been only a momentary
ebullition of friendship, which it would be cruel to take literally; or
whether, as seemed now, it had passed from a hasty resolve to a standing
purpose, persevered in for his own pleasure, with not a care for the
result on poor Anne.

John waited anxiously for the answer, but no answer came; and the silence
seemed even more significant than a letter of assurance could have been
of his absolution from further support to a claim which Bob himself had
so clearly renounced.  Thus it happened that paternal pressure, brotherly
indifference, and his own released impulse operated in one delightful
direction, and the trumpet-major once more approached Anne as in the old
time.

But it was not till she had been left to herself for a full five months,
and the blue-bells and ragged-robins of the following year were again
making themselves common to the rambling eye, that he directly addressed
her.  She was tying up a group of tall flowering plants in the garden:
she knew that he was behind her, but she did not turn.  She had subsided
into a placid dignity which enabled her when watched to perform any
little action with seeming composure--very different from the flutter of
her inexperienced days.

'Are you never going to turn round?' he at length asked good-humouredly.

She then did turn, and looked at him for a moment without speaking; a
certain suspicion looming in her eyes, as if suggested by his perceptible
want of ease.

'How like summer it is getting to feel, is it not?' she said.

John admitted that it was getting to feel like summer: and, bending his
gaze upon her with an earnestness which no longer left any doubt of his
subject, went on to ask--

'Have you ever in these last weeks thought of how it used to be between
us?'

She replied quickly, 'O, John, you shouldn't begin that again.  I am
almost another woman now!'

'Well, that's all the more reason why I should, isn't it?'

Anne looked thoughtfully to the other end of the garden, faintly shaking
her head; 'I don't quite see it like that,' she returned.

'You feel yourself quite free, don't you?'

'_Quite_ free!' she said instantly, and with proud distinctness; her eyes
fell, and she repeated more slowly, 'Quite free.'  Then her thoughts
seemed to fly from herself to him.  'But you are not?'

'I am not?'

'Miss Johnson!'

'O--that woman!  You know as well as I that was all make-up, and that I
never for a moment thought of her.'

'I had an idea you were acting; but I wasn't sure.'

'Well, that's nothing now.  Anne, I want to relieve your life; to cheer
you in some way; to make some amends for my brother's bad conduct.  If
you cannot love me, liking will be well enough.  I have thought over
every side of it so many times--for months have I been thinking it
over--and I am at last sure that I do right to put it to you in this way.
That I don't wrong Bob I am quite convinced.  As far as he is concerned
we be both free.  Had I not been sure of that I would never have spoken.
Father wants me to take on the mill, and it will please him if you can
give me one little hope; it will make the house go on altogether better
if you can think o' me.'

'You are generous and good, John,' she said, as a big round tear bowled
helter-skelter down her face and hat-strings.

'I am not that; I fear I am quite the opposite,' he said, without looking
at her.  'It would be all gain to me--  But you have not answered my
question.'

She lifted her eyes.  'John, I cannot!' she said, with a cheerless smile.
'Positively I cannot.  Will you make me a promise?'

'What is it?'

'I want you to promise first--  Yes, it is dreadfully unreasonable,' she
added, in a mild distress.  'But do promise!'

John by this time seemed to have a feeling that it was all up with him
for the present.  'I promise,' he said listlessly.

'It is that you won't speak to me about this for _ever_ so long,' she
returned, with emphatic kindliness.

'Very good,' he replied; 'very good.  Dear Anne, you don't think I have
been unmanly or unfair in starting this anew?'

Anne looked into his face without a smile.  'You have been perfectly
natural,' she murmured.  'And so I think have I.'

John, mournfully: 'You will not avoid me for this, or be afraid of me?  I
will not break my word.  I will not worry you any more.'

'Thank you, John.  You need not have said worry; it isn't that.'

'Well, I am very blind and stupid.  I have been hurting your heart all
the time without knowing it.  It is my fate, I suppose.  Men who love
women the very best always blunder and give more pain than those who love
them less.'

Anne laid one of her hands on the other as she softly replied, looking
down at them, 'No one loves me as well as you, John; nobody in the world
is so worthy to be loved; and yet I cannot anyhow love you rightly.'  And
lifting her eyes, 'But I do so feel for you that I will try as hard as I
can to think about you.'

'Well, that is something,' he said, smiling.  'You say I must not speak
about it again for ever so long; how long?'

'Now that's not fair,' Anne retorted, going down the garden, and leaving
him alone.

About a week passed.  Then one afternoon the miller walked up to Anne
indoors, a weighty topic being expressed in his tread.

'I was so glad, my honey,' he began, with a knowing smile, 'to see that
from the mill-window last week.'  He flung a nod in the direction of the
garden.

Anne innocently inquired what it could be.

'Jack and you in the garden together,' he continued laying his hand
gently on her shoulder and stroking it.  'It would so please me, my dear
little girl, if you could get to like him better than that weathercock,
Master Bob.'

Anne shook her head; not in forcible negation, but to imply a kind of
neutrality.

'Can't you?  Come now,' said the miller.

She threw back her head with a little laugh of grievance.  'How you all
beset me!' she expostulated.  'It makes me feel very wicked in not
obeying you, and being faithful--faithful to--'  But she could not trust
that side of the subject to words.  'Why would it please you so much?'
she asked.

'John is as steady and staunch a fellow as ever blowed a trumpet.  I've
always thought you might do better with him than with Bob.  Now I've a
plan for taking him into the mill, and letting him have a comfortable
time o't after his long knocking about; but so much depends upon you that
I must bide a bit till I see what your pleasure is about the poor fellow.
Mind, my dear, I don't want to force ye; I only just ask ye.'

Anne meditatively regarded the miller from under her shady eyelids, the
fingers of one hand playing a silent tattoo on her bosom.  'I don't know
what to say to you,' she answered brusquely, and went away.

But these discourses were not without their effect upon the extremely
conscientious mind of Anne.  They were, moreover, much helped by an
incident which took place one evening in the autumn of this year, when
John came to tea.  Anne was sitting on a low stool in front of the fire,
her hands clasped across her knee.  John Loveday had just seated himself
on a chair close behind her, and Mrs. Loveday was in the act of filling
the teapot from the kettle which hung in the chimney exactly above Anne.
The kettle slipped forward suddenly, whereupon John jumped from the chair
and put his own two hands over Anne's just in time to shield them, and
the precious knee she clasped, from the jet of scalding water which had
directed itself upon that point.  The accidental overflow was instantly
checked by Mrs. Loveday; but what had come was received by the devoted
trumpet-major on the back of his hands.

Anne, who had hardly been aware that he was behind her, started up like a
person awakened from a trance.  'What have you done to yourself, poor
John, to keep it off me!' she cried, looking at his hands.

John reddened emotionally at her words, 'It is a bit of a scald, that's
all,' he replied, drawing a finger across the back of one hand, and
bringing off the skin by the touch.

'You are scalded painfully, and I not at all!'  She gazed into his kind
face as she had never gazed there before, and when Mrs. Loveday came back
with oil and other liniments for the wound Anne would let nobody dress it
but herself.  It seemed as if her coyness had all gone, and when she had
done all that lay in her power she still sat by him.  At his departure
she said what she had never said to him in her life before: 'Come again
soon!'

In short, that impulsive act of devotion, the last of a series of the
same tenor, had been the added drop which finally turned the wheel.
John's character deeply impressed her.  His determined steadfastness to
his lode star won her admiration, the more especially as that star was
herself.  She began to wonder more and more how she could have so
persistently held out against his advances before Bob came home to renew
girlish memories which had by that time got considerably weakened.  Could
she not, after all, please the miller, and try to listen to John?  By so
doing she would make a worthy man happy, the only sacrifice being at
worst that of her unworthy self, whose future was no longer valuable.  'As
for Bob, the woman is to be pitied who loves him,' she reflected
indignantly, and persuaded herself that, whoever the woman might be, she
was not Anne Garland.

After this there was something of recklessness and something of
pleasantry in the young girl's manner of making herself an example of the
triumph of pride and common sense over memory and sentiment.  Her
attitude had been epitomized in her defiant singing at the time she
learnt that Bob was not leal and true.  John, as was inevitable, came
again almost immediately, drawn thither by the sun of her first smile on
him, and the words which had accompanied it.  And now instead of going
off to her little pursuits upstairs, downstairs, across the room, in the
corner, or to any place except where he happened to be, as had been her
custom hitherto, she remained seated near him, returning interesting
answers to his general remarks, and at every opportunity letting him know
that at last he had found favour in her eyes.

The day was fine, and they went out of doors, where Anne endeavoured to
seat herself on the sloping stone of the window-sill.

'How good you have become lately,' said John, standing over her and
smiling in the sunlight which blazed against the wall.  'I fancy you have
stayed at home this afternoon on my account.'

'Perhaps I have,' she said gaily--

   '"Do whatever we may for him, dame, we cannot do too much!
      For he's one that has guarded our land."

'And he has done more than that: he has saved me from a dreadful
scalding.  The back of your hand will not be well for a long time, John,
will it?'

He held out his hand to regard its condition, and the next natural thing
was to take hers.  There was a glow upon his face when he did it: his
star was at last on a fair way towards the zenith after its long and
weary declination.  The least penetrating eye could have perceived that
Anne had resolved to let him woo, possibly in her temerity to let him
win.  Whatever silent sorrow might be locked up in her, it was by this
time thrust a long way down from the light.

'I want you to go somewhere with me if you will,' he said, still holding
her hand.

'Yes?  Where is it?'

He pointed to a distant hill-side which, hitherto green, had within the
last few days begun to show scratches of white on its face.  'Up there,'
he said.

'I see little figures of men moving about.  What are they doing?'

'Cutting out a huge picture of the king on horseback in the earth of the
hill.  The king's head is to be as big as our mill-pond and his body as
big as this garden; he and the horse will cover more than an acre.  When
shall we go?'

'Whenever you please,' said she.

'John!' cried Mrs. Loveday from the front door.  'Here's a friend come
for you.'

John went round, and found his trusty lieutenant, Trumpeter Buck, waiting
for him.  A letter had come to the barracks for John in his absence, and
the trumpeter, who was going for a walk, had brought it along with him.
Buck then entered the mill to discuss, if possible, a mug of last year's
mead with the miller; and John proceeded to read his letter, Anne being
still round the corner where he had left her.  When he had read a few
words he turned as pale as a sheet, but he did not move, and perused the
writing to the end.

Afterwards he laid his elbow against the wall, and put his palm to his
head, thinking with painful intentness.  Then he took himself vigorously
in hand, as it were, and gradually became natural again.  When he parted
from Anne to go home with Buck she noticed nothing different in him.

In barracks that evening he read the letter again.  It was from Bob; and
the agitating contents were these:--

   'DEAR JOHN,--I have drifted off from writing till the present time
   because I have not been clear about my feelings; but I have discovered
   them at last, and can say beyond doubt that I mean to be faithful to
   my dearest Anne after all.  The fact is, John, I've got into a bit of
   a scrape, and I've a secret to tell you about it (which must go no
   further on any account).  On landing last autumn I fell in with a
   young woman, and we got rather warm as folks do; in short, we liked
   one another well enough for a while.  But I have got into shoal water
   with her, and have found her to be a terrible take-in.  Nothing in her
   at all--no sense, no niceness, all tantrums and empty noise, John,
   though she seemed monstrous clever at first.  So my heart comes back
   to its old anchorage.  I hope my return to faithfulness will make no
   difference to you.  But as you showed by your looks at our parting
   that you should not accept my offer to give her up--made in too much
   haste, as I have since found--I feel that you won't mind that I have
   returned to the path of honour.  I dare not write to Anne as yet, and
   please do not let her know a word about the other young woman, or
   there will be the devil to pay.  I shall come home and make all things
   right, please God.  In the meantime I should take it as a kindness,
   John, if you would keep a brotherly eye upon Anne, and guide her mind
   back to me.  I shall die of sorrow if anybody sets her against me, for
   my hopes are getting bound up in her again quite strong.  Hoping you
   are jovial, as times go, I am,--Your affectionate brother,

   ROBERT.'

When the cold daylight fell upon John's face, as he dressed himself next
morning, the incipient yesterday's wrinkle in his forehead had become
permanently graven there.  He had resolved, for the sake of that only
brother whom he had nursed as a baby, instructed as a child, and
protected and loved always, to pause in his procedure for the present,
and at least do nothing to hinder Bob's restoration to favour, if a
genuine, even though temporarily smothered, love for Anne should still
hold possession of him.  But having arranged to take her to see the
excavated figure of the king, he started for Overcombe during the day, as
if nothing had occurred to check the smooth course of his love.




XXXVIII.  A DELICATE SITUATION


'I am ready to go,' said Anne, as soon as he arrived.

He paused as if taken aback by her readiness, and replied with much
uncertainty, 'Would it--wouldn't it be better to put it off till there is
less sun?'

The very slightest symptom of surprise arose in her as she rejoined, 'But
the weather may change; or had we better not go at all?'

'O no!--it was only a thought.  We will start at once.'

And along the vale they went, John keeping himself about a yard from her
right hand.  When the third field had been crossed they came upon half-a-
dozen little boys at play.

'Why don't he clasp her to his side, like a man?' said the biggest and
rudest boy.

'Why don't he clasp her to his side, like a man?' echoed all the rude
smaller boys in a chorus.

The trumpet-major turned, and, after some running, succeeded in smacking
two of them with his switch, returning to Anne breathless.  'I am ashamed
they should have insulted you so,' he said, blushing for her.

'They said no harm, poor boys,' she replied reproachfully.

Poor John was dumb with perception.  The gentle hint upon which he would
have eagerly spoken only one short day ago was now like fire to his
wound.

They presently came to some stepping-stones across a brook.  John crossed
first without turning his head, and Anne, just lifting the skirt of her
dress, crossed behind him.  When they had reached the other side a
village girl and a young shepherd approached the brink to cross.  Anne
stopped and watched them.  The shepherd took a hand of the young girl in
each of his own, and walked backward over the stones, facing her, and
keeping her upright by his grasp, both of them laughing as they went.

'What are you staying for, Miss Garland?' asked John.

'I was only thinking how happy they are,' she said quietly; and
withdrawing her eyes from the tender pair, she turned and followed him,
not knowing that the seeming sound of a passing bumble-bee was a
suppressed groan from John.

When they reached the hill they found forty navvies at work removing the
dark sod so as to lay bare the chalk beneath.  The equestrian figure that
their shovels were forming was scarcely intelligible to John and Anne now
they were close, and after pacing from the horse's head down his breast
to his hoof, back by way of the king's bridle-arm, past the bridge of his
nose, and into his cocked-hat, Anne said that she had had enough of it,
and stepped out of the chalk clearing upon the grass.  The trumpet-major
had remained all the time in a melancholy attitude within the rowel of
his Majesty's right spur.

'My shoes are caked with chalk,' she said as they walked downwards again;
and she drew back her dress to look at them.  'How can I get some of it
cleared off?'

'If you was to wipe them in the long grass there,' said John, pointing to
a spot where the blades were rank and dense, 'some of it would come off.'
Having said this, he walked on with religious firmness.

Anne raked her little feet on the right side, on the left side, over the
toe, and behind the heel; but the tenacious chalk held its own.  Panting
with her exertion, she gave it up, and at length overtook him.

'I hope it is right now?' he said, looking gingerly over his shoulder.

'No, indeed!' said she.  'I wanted some assistance--some one to steady
me.  It is so hard to stand on one foot and wipe the other without
support.  I was in danger of toppling over, and so gave it up.'

'Merciful stars, what an opportunity!' thought the poor fellow while she
waited for him to offer help. But his lips remained closed, and she went
on with a pouting smile--

'You seem in such a hurry!  Why are you in such a hurry?  After all the
fine things you have said about--about caring so much for me, and all
that, you won't stop for anything!'

It was too much for John.  'Upon my heart and life, my dea--' he began.
Here Bob's letter crackled warningly in his waistcoat pocket as he laid
his hand asseveratingly upon his breast, and he became suddenly scaled up
to dumbness and gloom as before.

When they reached home Anne sank upon a stool outside the door, fatigued
with her excursion.  Her first act was to try to pull off her shoe--it
was a difficult matter; but John stood beating with his switch the leaves
of the creeper on the wall.

'Mother--David--Molly, or somebody--do come and help me pull off these
dirty shoes!' she cried aloud at last.  'Nobody helps me in anything!'

'I am very sorry,' said John, coming towards her with incredible slowness
and an air of unutterable depression.

'O, I can do without _you_.  David is best,' she returned, as the old man
approached and removed the obnoxious shoes in a trice.

Anne was amazed at this sudden change from devotion to crass
indifference.  On entering her room she flew to the glass, almost
expecting to learn that some extraordinary change had come over her
pretty countenance, rendering her intolerable for evermore.  But it was,
if anything, fresher than usual, on account of the exercise.  'Well!' she
said retrospectively.  For the first time since their acqaintance she had
this week encouraged him; and for the first time he had shown that
encouragement was useless.  'But perhaps he does not clearly understand,'
she added serenely.

When he next came it was, to her surprise, to bring her newspapers, now
for some time discontinued.  As soon as she saw them she said, 'I do not
care for newspapers.'

'The shipping news is very full and long to-day, though the print is
rather small.'

'I take no further interest in the shipping news,' she replied with cold
dignity.

She was sitting by the window, inside the table, and hence when, in spite
of her negations, he deliberately unfolded the paper and began to read
about the Royal Navy she could hardly rise and go away.  With a stoical
mien he read on to the end of the report, bringing out the name of Bob's
ship with tremendous force.

'No,' she said at last, 'I'll hear no more!  Let me read to you.'

The trumpet-major sat down.  Anne turned to the military news, delivering
every detail with much apparent enthusiasm.  'That's the subject _I_
like!' she said fervently.

'But--but Bob is in the navy now, and will most likely rise to be an
officer.  And then--'

'What is there like the army?' she interrupted.  'There is no smartness
about sailors.  They waddle like ducks, and they only fight stupid
battles that no one can form any idea of.  There is no science nor
stratagem in sea-fights--nothing more than what you see when two rams run
their heads together in a field to knock each other down.  But in
military battles there is such art, and such splendour, and the men are
so smart, particularly the horse-soldiers.  O, I shall never forget what
gallant men you all seemed when you came and pitched your tents on the
downs!  I like the cavalry better than anything I know; and the dragoons
the best of the cavalry--and the trumpeters the best of the dragoons!'

'O, if it had but come a little sooner!' moaned John within him.  He
replied as soon as he could regain self-command, 'I am glad Bob is in the
navy at last--he is so much more fitted for that than the
merchant-service--so brave by nature, ready for any daring deed.  I have
heard ever so much more about his doings on board the Victory.  Captain
Hardy took special notice that when he--'

'I don't want to know anything more about it,' said Anne impatiently; 'of
course sailors fight; there's nothing else to do in a ship, since you
can't run away!  You may as well fight and be killed as be killed not
fighting.'

'Still it is his character to be careless of himself where the honour of
his country is concerned,' John pleaded.  'If you had only known him as a
boy you would own it.  He would always risk his own life to save anybody
else's.  Once when a cottage was afire up the lane he rushed in for a
baby, although he was only a boy himself, and he had the narrowest
escape.  We have got his hat now with the hole burnt in it.  Shall I get
it and show it to you?'

'No--I don't wish it.  It has nothing to do with me.'  But as he
persisted in his course towards the door, she added, 'Ah! you are leaving
because I am in your way.  You want to be alone while you read the
paper--I will go at once.  I did not see that I was interrupting you.'
And she rose as if to retreat.

'No, no!  I would rather be interrupted by _you_ than--O, Miss Garland,
excuse me!  I'll just speak to father in the mill, now I am here.'

It is scarcely necessary to state that Anne (whose unquestionable
gentility amid somewhat homely surroundings has been many times insisted
on in the course of this history) was usually the reverse of a woman with
a coming-on disposition; but, whether from pique at his manner, or from
wilful adherence to a course rashly resolved on, or from coquettish
maliciousness in reaction from long depression, or from any other
thing,--so it was that she would not let him go.

'Trumpet-major,' she said, recalling him.

'Yes?' he replied timidly.

'The bow of my cap-ribbon has come untied, has it not?'  She turned and
fixed her bewitching glance upon him.

The bow was just over her forehead, or, more precisely, at the point
where the organ of comparison merges in that of benevolence, according to
the phrenological theory of Gall.  John, thus brought to, endeavoured to
look at the bow in a skimming, duck-and-drake fashion, so as to avoid
dipping his own glance as far as to the plane of his interrogator's eyes.
'It is untied,' he said, drawing back a little.

She came nearer, and asked, 'Will you tie it for me, please?'

As there was no help for it, he nerved himself and assented.  As her head
only reached to his fourth button she necessarily looked up for his
convenience, and John began fumbling at the bow.  Try as he would it was
impossible to touch the ribbon without getting his finger tips mixed with
the curls of her forehead.

'Your hand shakes--ah! you have been walking fast,' she said.

'Yes--yes.'

'Have you almost done it?'  She inquiringly directed her gaze upward
through his fingers.

'No--not yet,' he faltered in a warm sweat of emotion, his heart going
like a flail.

'Then be quick, please.'

'Yes, I will, Miss Garland!  B-B-Bob is a very good fel--'

'Not that man's name to me!' she interrupted.

John was silent instantly, and nothing was to be heard but the rustling
of the ribbon; till his hands once more blundered among the curls, and
then touched her forehead.

'O good God!' ejaculated the trumpet-major in a whisper, turning away
hastily to the corner-cupboard, and resting his face upon his hand.

'What's the matter, John?' said she.

'I can't do it!'

'What?'

'Tie your cap-ribbon.'

'Why not?'

'Because you are so--Because I am clumsy, and never could tie a bow.'

'You are clumsy indeed,' answered Anne, and went away.

After this she felt injured, for it seemed to show that he rated her
happiness as of meaner value than Bob's; since he had persisted in his
idea of giving Bob another chance when she had implied that it was her
wish to do otherwise.  Could Miss Johnson have anything to do with his
firmness?  An opportunity of testing him in this direction occurred some
days later.  She had been up the village, and met John at the mill-door.

'Have you heard the news?  Matilda Johnson is going to be married to
young Derriman.'

Anne stood with her back to the sun, and as he faced her, his features
were searchingly exhibited.  There was no change whatever in them, unless
it were that a certain light of interest kindled by her question turned
to complete and blank indifference.  'Well, as times go, it is not a bad
match for her,' he said, with a phlegm which was hardly that of a lover.

John on his part was beginning to find these temptations almost more than
he could bear.  But being quartered so near to his father's house it was
unnatural not to visit him, especially when at any moment the regiment
might be ordered abroad, and a separation of years ensue; and as long as
he went there he could not help seeing her.

The year changed from green to gold, and from gold to grey, but little
change came over the house of Loveday.  During the last twelve months Bob
had been occasionally heard of as upholding his country's honour in
Denmark, the West Indies, Gibraltar, Malta, and other places about the
globe, till the family received a short letter stating that he had
arrived again at Portsmouth.  At Portsmouth Bob seemed disposed to
remain, for though some time elapsed without further intelligence, the
gallant seaman never appeared at Overcombe.  Then on a sudden John learnt
that Bob's long-talked-of promotion for signal services rendered was to
be an accomplished fact.  The trumpet-major at once walked off to
Overcombe, and reached the village in the early afternoon.  Not one of
the family was in the house at the moment, and John strolled onwards over
the hill towards Casterbridge, without much thought of direction till,
lifting his eyes, he beheld Anne Garland wandering about with a little
basket upon her arm.

At first John blushed with delight at the sweet vision; but, recalled by
his conscience, the blush of delight was at once mangled and slain.  He
looked for a means of retreat.  But the field was open, and a soldier was
a conspicuous object: there was no escaping her.

'It was kind of you to come,' she said, with an inviting smile.

'It was quite by accident,' he answered, with an indifferent laugh.  'I
thought you was at home.'

Anne blushed and said nothing, and they rambled on together.  In the
middle of the field rose a fragment of stone wall in the form of a gable,
known as Faringdon Ruin; and when they had reached it John paused and
politely asked her if she were not a little tired with walking so far.  No
particular reply was returned by the young lady, but they both stopped,
and Anne seated herself on a stone, which had fallen from the ruin to the
ground.

'A church once stood here,' observed John in a matter-of-fact tone.

'Yes, I have often shaped it out in my mind,' she returned.  'Here where
I sit must have been the altar.'

'True; this standing bit of wall was the chancel end.'

Anne had been adding up her little studies of the trumpet-major's
character, and was surprised to find how the brightness of that character
increased in her eyes with each examination.  A kindly and gentle
sensation was again aroused in her.  Here was a neglected heroic man,
who, loving her to distraction, deliberately doomed himself to pensive
shade to avoid even the appearance of standing in a brother's way.

'If the altar stood here, hundreds of people have been made man and wife
just there, in past times,' she said, with calm deliberateness, throwing
a little stone on a spot about a yard westward.

John annihilated another tender burst and replied, 'Yes, this field used
to be a village.  My grandfather could call to mind when there were
houses here.  But the squire pulled 'em down, because poor folk were an
eyesore to him.'

'Do you know, John, what you once asked me to do?' she continued, not
accepting the digression, and turning her eyes upon him.

'In what sort of way?'

'In the matter of my future life, and yours.'

'I am afraid I don't.'

'John Loveday!'

He turned his back upon her for a moment, that she might not see his
face.  'Ah--I do remember,' he said at last, in a dry, small, repressed
voice.

'Well--need I say more?  Isn't it sufficient?'

'It would be sufficient,' answered the unhappy man.  'But--'

She looked up with a reproachful smile, and shook her head.  'That
summer,' she went on, 'you asked me ten times if you asked me once.  I am
older now; much more of a woman, you know; and my opinion is changed
about some people; especially about one.'

'O Anne, Anne!' he burst out as, racked between honour and desire, he
snatched up her hand.  The next moment it fell heavily to her lap.  He
had absolutely relinquished it half-way to his lips.

'I have been thinking lately,' he said, with preternaturally sudden
calmness, 'that men of the military profession ought not to m--ought to
be like St. Paul, I mean.'

'Fie, John; pretending religion!' she said sternly.  'It isn't that at
all.  _It's Bob_!'

'Yes!' cried the miserable trumpet-major.  'I have had a letter from him
to-day.' He pulled out a sheet of paper from his breast.  'That's it!
He's promoted--he's a lieutenant, and appointed to a sloop that only
cruises on our own coast, so that he'll be at home on leave half his
time--he'll be a gentleman some day, and worthy of you!'

He threw the letter into her lap, and drew back to the other side of the
gable-wall.  Anne jumped up from her seat, flung away the letter without
looking at it, and went hastily on.  John did not attempt to overtake
her.  Picking up the letter, he followed in her wake at a distance of a
hundred yards.

But, though Anne had withdrawn from his presence thus precipitately, she
never thought more highly of him in her life than she did five minutes
afterwards, when the excitement of the moment had passed.  She saw it all
quite clearly; and his self-sacrifice impressed her so much that the
effect was just the reverse of what he had been aiming to produce.  The
more he pleaded for Bob, the more her perverse generosity pleaded for
John.  To-day the crisis had come--with what results she had not
foreseen.

As soon as the trumpet-major reached the nearest pen-and-ink he flung
himself into a seat and wrote wildly to Bob:--

   'DEAR ROBERT,--I write these few lines to let you know that if you
   want Anne Garland you must come at once--you must come instantly, and
   post-haste--_or she will be gone_!  Somebody else wants her, and she
   wants him!  It is your last chance, in the opinion of--

   'Your faithful brother and well-wisher,
   'JOHN.

   'P.S.--Glad to hear of your promotion.  Tell me the day and I'll meet
   the coach.'




XXXIX.  BOB LOVEDAY STRUTS UP AND DOWN


One night, about a week later, two men were walking in the dark along the
turnpike road towards Overcombe, one of them with a bag in his hand.

'Now,' said the taller of the two, the squareness of whose shoulders
signified that he wore epaulettes, 'now you must do the best you can for
yourself, Bob.  I have done all I can; but th'hast thy work cut out, I
can tell thee.'

'I wouldn't have run such a risk for the world,' said the other, in a
tone of ingenuous contrition.  'But thou'st see, Jack, I didn't think
there was any danger, knowing you was taking care of her, and keeping my
place warm for me.  I didn't hurry myself, that's true; but, thinks I, if
I get this promotion I am promised I shall naturally have leave, and then
I'll go and see 'em all.  Gad, I shouldn't have been here now but for
your letter!'

'You little think what risks you've run,' said his brother.  'However,
try to make up for lost time.'

'All right.  And whatever you do, Jack, don't say a word about this other
girl.  Hang the girl!--I was a great fool, I know; still, it is over now,
and I am come to my senses.  I suppose Anne never caught a capful of wind
from that quarter?'

'She knows all about it,' said John seriously.

'Knows?  By George, then, I'm ruined!' said Bob, standing stock-still in
the road as if he meant to remain there all night.

'That's what I meant by saying it would be a hard battle for 'ee,'
returned John, with the same quietness as before.

Bob sighed and moved on.  'I don't deserve that woman!' he cried
passionately, thumping his three upper ribs with his fist.

'I've thought as much myself,' observed John, with a dryness which was
almost bitter.  'But it depends on how thou'st behave in future.'

'John,' said Bob, taking his brother's hand, 'I'll be a new man.  I
solemnly swear by that eternal milestone staring at me there that I'll
never look at another woman with the thought of marrying her whilst that
darling is free--no, not if she be a mermaiden of light!  It's a lucky
thing that I'm slipped in on the quarterdeck! it may help me with
her--hey?'

'It may with her mother; I don't think it will make much difference with
Anne.  Still, it is a good thing; and I hope that some day you'll command
a big ship.'

Bob shook his head.  'Officers are scarce; but I'm afraid my luck won't
carry me so far as that.'

'Did she ever tell you that she mentioned your name to the King?'

The seaman stood still again.  'Never!' he said.  'How did such a thing
as that happen, in Heaven's name?'

John described in detail, and they walked on, lost in conjecture.

As soon as they entered the house the returned officer of the navy was
welcomed with acclamation by his father and David, with mild approval by
Mrs. Loveday, and by Anne not at all--that discreet maiden having
carefully retired to her own room some time earlier in the evening.  Bob
did not dare to ask for her in any positive manner; he just inquired
about her health, and that was all.

'Why, what's the matter with thy face, my son?' said the miller, staring.
'David, show a light here.'  And a candle was thrust against Bob's cheek,
where there appeared a jagged streak like the geological remains of a
lobster.

'O--that's where that rascally Frenchman's grenade busted and hit me from
the Redoubtable, you know, as I told 'ee in my letter.'

'Not a word!'

'What, didn't I tell 'ee?  Ah, no; I meant to, but I forgot it.'

'And here's a sort of dint in yer forehead too; what do that mean, my
dear boy?' said the miller, putting his finger in a chasm in Bob's skull.

'That was done in the Indies.  Yes, that was rather a troublesome chop--a
cutlass did it.  I should have told 'ee, but I found 'twould make my
letter so long that I put it off, and put it off; and at last thought it
wasn't worth while.'

John soon rose to take his departure.

'It's all up with me and her, you see,' said Bob to him outside the door.
'She's not even going to see me.'

'Wait a little,' said the trumpet-major.  It was easy enough on the night
of the arrival, in the midst of excitement, when blood was warm, for Anne
to be resolute in her avoidance of Bob Loveday.  But in the morning
determination is apt to grow invertebrate; rules of pugnacity are less
easily acted up to, and a feeling of live and let live takes possession
of the gentle soul.  Anne had not meant even to sit down to the same
breakfast-table with Bob; but when the rest were assembled, and had got
some way through the substantial repast which was served at this hour in
the miller's house, Anne entered.  She came silently as a phantom, her
eyes cast down, her cheeks pale.  It was a good long walk from the door
to the table, and Bob made a full inspection of her as she came up to a
chair at the remotest corner, in the direct rays of the morning light,
where she dumbly sat herself down.

It was altogether different from how she had expected.  Here was she, who
had done nothing, feeling all the embarrassment; and Bob, who had done
the wrong, feeling apparently quite at ease.

'You'll speak to Bob, won't you, honey?' said the miller after a silence.
To meet Bob like this after an absence seemed irregular in his eyes.

'If he wish me to,' she replied, so addressing the miller that no part,
scrap, or outlying beam whatever of her glance passed near the subject of
her remark.

'He's a lieutenant, you know, dear,' said her mother on the same side;
'and he's been dreadfully wounded.'

'Oh?' said Anne, turning a little towards the false one; at which Bob
felt it to be time for him to put in a spoke for himself.

'I am glad to see you,' he said contritely; 'and how do you do?'

'Very well, thank you.'

He extended his hand.  She allowed him to take hers, but only to the
extent of a niggardly inch or so.  At the same moment she glanced up at
him, when their eyes met, and hers were again withdrawn.

The hitch between the two younger members of the household tended to make
the breakfast a dull one.  Bob was so depressed by her unforgiving manner
that he could not throw that sparkle into his stories which their
substance naturally required; and when the meal was over, and they went
about their different businesses, the pair resembled the two Dromios in
seldom or never being, thanks to Anne's subtle contrivances, both in the
same room at the same time.

This kind of performance repeated itself during several days.  At last,
after dogging her hither and thither, leaning with a wrinkled forehead
against doorposts, taking an oblique view into the room where she
happened to be, picking up worsted balls and getting no thanks, placing a
splinter from the Victory, several bullets from the Redoubtable, a strip
of the flag, and other interesting relics, carefully labelled, upon her
table, and hearing no more about them than if they had been pebbles from
the nearest brook, he hit upon a new plan.  To avoid him she frequently
sat upstairs in a window overlooking the garden.  Lieutenant Loveday
carefully dressed himself in a new uniform, which he had caused to be
sent some days before, to dazzle admiring friends, but which he had never
as yet put on in public or mentioned to a soul.  When arrayed he entered
the sunny garden, and there walked slowly up and down as he had seen
Nelson and Captain Hardy do on the quarter-deck; but keeping his right
shoulder, on which his one epaulette was fixed, as much towards Anne's
window as possible.

But she made no sign, though there was not the least question that she
saw him.  At the end of half-an-hour he went in, took off his clothes,
and gave himself up to doubt and the best tobacco.

He repeated the programme on the next afternoon, and on the next, never
saying a word within doors about his doings or his notice.

Meanwhile the results in Anne's chamber were not uninteresting.  She had
been looking out on the first day, and was duly amazed to see a naval
officer in full uniform promenading in the path.  Finding it to be Bob,
she left the window with a sense that the scene was not for her; then,
from mere curiosity, peeped out from behind the curtain.  Well, he was a
pretty spectacle, she admitted, relieved as his figure was by a dense
mass of sunny, close-trimmed hedge, over which nasturtiums climbed in
wild luxuriance; and if she could care for him one bit, which she
couldn't, his form would have been a delightful study, surpassing in
interest even its splendour on the memorable day of their visit to the
town theatre.  She called her mother; Mrs. Loveday came promptly.

'O, it is nothing,' said Anne indifferently; 'only that Bob has got his
uniform.'

Mrs. Loveday peeped out, and raised her hands with delight.  'And he has
not said a word to us about it!  What a lovely epaulette!  I must call
his father.'

'No, indeed.  As I take no interest in him I shall not let people come
into my room to admire him.'

'Well, you called me,' said her mother.

'It was because I thought you liked fine clothes.  It is what I don't
care for.'

Notwithstanding this assertion she again looked out at Bob the next
afternoon when his footsteps rustled on the gravel, and studied his
appearance under all the varying angles of the sunlight, as if fine
clothes and uniforms were not altogether a matter of indifference.  He
certainly was a splendid, gentlemanly, and gallant sailor from end to end
of him; but then, what were a dashing presentment, a naval rank, and
telling scars, if a man was fickle-hearted?  However, she peeped on till
the fourth day, and then she did not peep.  The window was open, she
looked right out, and Bob knew that he had got a rise to his bait at
last.  He touched his hat to her, keeping his right shoulder forwards,
and said, 'Good-day, Miss Garland,' with a smile.

Anne replied, 'Good-day,' with funereal seriousness; and the acquaintance
thus revived led to the interchange of a few words at supper-time, at
which Mrs. Loveday nodded with satisfaction.  But Anne took especial care
that he should never meet her alone, and to insure this her ingenuity was
in constant exercise.  There were so many nooks and windings on the
miller's rambling premises that she could never be sure he would not turn
up within a foot of her, particularly as his thin shoes were almost
noiseless.

One fine afternoon she accompanied Molly in search of elderberries for
making the family wine which was drunk by Mrs. Loveday, Anne, and anybody
who could not stand the rougher and stronger liquors provided by the
miller.  After walking rather a long distance over the down they came to
a grassy hollow, where elder-bushes in knots of twos and threes rose from
an uneven bank and hung their heads towards the south, black and heavy
with bunches of fruit.  The charm of fruit-gathering to girls is enhanced
in the case of elderberries by the inoffensive softness of the leaves,
boughs, and bark, which makes getting into the branches easy and pleasant
to the most indifferent climbers.  Anne and Molly had soon gathered a
basketful, and sending the servant home with it, Anne remained in the
bush picking and throwing down bunch by bunch upon the grass.  She was so
absorbed in her occupation of pulling the twigs towards her, and the
rustling of their leaves so filled her ears, that it was a great surprise
when, on turning her head, she perceived a similar movement to her own
among the boughs of the adjoining bush.

At first she thought they were disturbed by being partly in contact with
the boughs of her bush; but in a moment Robert Loveday's face peered from
them, at a distance of about a yard from her own.  Anne uttered a little
indignant 'Well!' recovered herself, and went on plucking.  Bob thereupon
went on plucking likewise.

'I am picking elderberries for your mother,' said the lieutenant at last,
humbly.

'So I see.'

'And I happen to have come to the next bush to yours.'

'So I see; but not the reason why.'

Anne was now in the westernmost branches of the bush, and Bob had leant
across into the eastern branches of his.  In gathering he swayed towards
her, back again, forward again.

'I beg pardon,' he said, when a further swing than usual had taken him
almost in contact with her.

'Then why do you do it?'

'The wind rocks the bough, and the bough rocks me.'  She expressed by a
look her opinion of this statement in the face of the gentlest breeze;
and Bob pursued: 'I am afraid the berries will stain your pretty hands.'

'I wear gloves.'

'Ah, that's a plan I should never have thought of.  Can I help you?'

'Not at all.'

'You are offended: that's what that means.'

'No,' she said.

'Then will you shake hands?'

Anne hesitated; then slowly stretched out her hand, which he took at
once.  'That will do,' she said, finding that he did not relinquish it
immediately.  But as he still held it, she pulled, the effect of which
was to draw Bob's swaying person, bough and all, towards her, and herself
towards him.

'I am afraid to let go your hand,' said that officer, 'for if I do your
spar will fly back, and you will be thrown upon the deck with great
violence.'

'I wish you to let me go!'

He accordingly did, and she flew back, but did not by any means fall.

'It reminds me of the times when I used to be aloft clinging to a yard
not much bigger than this tree-stem, in the mid-Atlantic, and thinking
about you.  I could see you in my fancy as plain as I see you now.'

'Me, or some other woman!' retorted Anne haughtily.

'No!' declared Bob, shaking the bush for emphasis, 'I'll protest that I
did not think of anybody but you all the time we were dropping down
channel, all the time we were off Cadiz, all the time through battles and
bombardments.  I seemed to see you in the smoke, and, thinks I, if I go
to Davy's locker, what will she do?'

'You didn't think that when you landed after Trafalgar.'

'Well, now,' said the lieutenant in a reasoning tone; 'that was a curious
thing.  You'll hardly believe it, maybe; but when a man is away from the
woman he loves best in the port--world, I mean--he can have a sort of
temporary feeling for another without disturbing the old one, which flows
along under the same as ever.'

'I can't believe it, and won't,' said Anne firmly.

Molly now appeared with the empty basket, and when it had been filled
from the heap on the grass, Anne went home with her, bidding Loveday a
frigid adieu.

The same evening, when Bob was absent, the miller proposed that they
should all three go to an upper window of the house, to get a distant
view of some rockets and illuminations which were to be exhibited in the
town and harbour in honour of the King, who had returned this year as
usual.  They accordingly went upstairs to an empty attic, placed chairs
against the window, and put out the light; Anne sitting in the middle,
her mother close by, and the miller behind, smoking.  No sign of any
pyrotechnic display was visible over the port as yet, and Mrs. Loveday
passed the time by talking to the miller, who replied in monosyllables.
While this was going on Anne fancied that she heard some one approach,
and presently felt sure that Bob was drawing near her in the surrounding
darkness; but as the other two had noticed nothing she said not a word.

All at once the swarthy expanse of southward sky was broken by the blaze
of several rockets simultaneously ascending from different ships in the
roads.  At the very same moment a warm mysterious hand slipped round her
own, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

'O dear!' said Anne, with a sudden start away.

'How nervous you are, child, to be startled by fireworks so far off,'
said Mrs. Loveday.

'I never saw rockets before,' murmured Anne, recovering from her
surprise.

Mrs. Loveday presently spoke again.  'I wonder what has become of Bob?'

Anne did not reply, being much exercised in trying to get her hand away
from the one that imprisoned it; and whatever the miller thought he kept
to himself, because it disturbed his smoking to speak.

Another batch of rockets went up.  'O I never!' said Anne, in a
half-suppressed tone, springing in her chair.  A second hand had with the
rise of the rockets leapt round her waist.

'Poor girl, you certainly must have change of scene at this rate,' said
Mrs. Loveday.

'I suppose I must,' murmured the dutiful daughter.

For some minutes nothing further occurred to disturb Anne's serenity.
Then a slow, quiet 'a-hem' came from the obscurity of the apartment.

'What, Bob?  How long have you been there?' inquired Mrs. Loveday.

'Not long,' said the lieutenant coolly.  'I heard you were all here, and
crept up quietly, not to disturb ye.'

'Why don't you wear heels to your shoes like Christian people, and not
creep about so like a cat?'

'Well, it keeps your floors clean to go slip-shod.'

'That's true.'

Meanwhile Anne was gently but firmly trying to pull Bob's arm from her
waist, her distressful difficulty being that in freeing her waist she
enslaved her hand, and in getting her hand free she enslaved her waist.
Finding the struggle a futile one, owing to the invisibility of her
antagonist, and her wish to keep its nature secret from the other two,
she arose, and saying that she did not care to see any more, felt her way
downstairs.  Bob followed, leaving Loveday and his wife to themselves.

'Dear Anne,' he began, when he had got down, and saw her in the candle-
light of the large room.  But she adroitly passed out at the other door,
at which he took a candle and followed her to the small room.  'Dear
Anne, do let me speak,' he repeated, as soon as the rays revealed her
figure.  But she passed into the bakehouse before he could say more;
whereupon he perseveringly did the same.  Looking round for her here he
perceived her at the end of the room, where there were no means of exit
whatever.

'Dear Anne,' he began again, setting down the candle, 'you must try to
forgive me; really you must.  I love you the best of anybody in the wide,
wide world.  Try to forgive me; come!'  And he imploringly took her hand.

Anne's bosom began to surge and fall like a small tide, her eyes
remaining fixed upon the floor; till, when Loveday ventured to draw her
slightly towards him, she burst out crying.  'I don't like you, Bob; I
don't!' she suddenly exclaimed between her sobs.  'I did once, but I
don't now--I can't, I can't; you have been very cruel to me!'  She
violently turned away, weeping.

'I have, I have been terribly bad, I know,' answered Bob,
conscience-stricken by her grief.  'But--if you could only forgive me--I
promise that I'll never do anything to grieve 'ee again.  Do you forgive
me, Anne?'

Anne's only reply was crying and shaking her head.

'Let's make it up.  Come, say we have made it up, dear.'

She withdrew her hand, and still keeping her eyes buried in her
handkerchief, said 'No.'

'Very well, then!' exclaimed Bob, with sudden determination.  'Now I know
my doom!  And whatever you hear of as happening to me, mind this, you
cruel girl, that it is all your causing!'  Saying this he strode with a
hasty tread across the room into the passage and out at the door,
slamming it loudly behind him.

Anne suddenly looked up from her handkerchief, and stared with round wet
eyes and parted lips at the door by which he had gone.  Having remained
with suspended breath in this attitude for a few seconds she turned
round, bent her head upon the table, and burst out weeping anew with
thrice the violence of the former time.  It really seemed now as if her
grief would overwhelm her, all the emotions which had been suppressed,
bottled up, and concealed since Bob's return having made themselves a
sluice at last.

But such things have their end; and left to herself in the large, vacant,
old apartment, she grew quieter, and at last calm.  At length she took
the candle and ascended to her bedroom, where she bathed her eyes and
looked in the glass to see if she had made herself a dreadful object.  It
was not so bad as she had expected, and she went downstairs again.

Nobody was there, and, sitting down, she wondered what Bob had really
meant by his words.  It was too dreadful to think that he intended to go
straight away to sea without seeing her again, and frightened at what she
had done she waited anxiously for his return.




XL.  A CALL ON BUSINESS


Her suspense was interrupted by a very gentle tapping at the door, and
then the rustle of a hand over its surface, as if searching for the latch
in the dark.  The door opened a few inches, and the alabaster face of
Uncle Benjy appeared in the slit.

'O, Squire Derriman, you frighten me!'

'All alone?' he asked in a whisper.

'My mother and Mr. Loveday are somewhere about the house.'

'That will do,' he said, coming forward.  'I be wherrited out of my life,
and I have thought of you again--you yourself, dear Anne, and not the
miller.  If you will only take this and lock it up for a few days till I
can find another good place for it--if you only would!'  And he
breathlessly deposited the tin box on the table.

'What, obliged to dig it up from the cellar?'

'Ay; my nephew hath a scent of the place--how, I don't know! but he and a
young woman he's met with are searching everywhere.  I worked like a wire-
drawer to get it up and away while they were scraping in the next cellar.
Now where could ye put it, dear?  'Tis only a few documents, and my will,
and such like, you know.  Poor soul o' me, I'm worn out with running and
fright!'

'I'll put it here till I can think of a better place,' said Anne, lifting
the box.  'Dear me, how heavy it is!'

'Yes, yes,' said Uncle Benjy hastily; 'the box is iron, you see.  However,
take care of it, because I am going to make it worth your while.  Ah, you
are a good girl, Anne.  I wish you was mine!'

Anne looked at Uncle Benjy.  She had known for some time that she
possessed all the affection he had to bestow.

'Why do you wish that?' she said simply.

'Now don't ye argue with me.  Where d'ye put the coffer?'

'Here,' said Anne, going to the window-seat, which rose as a flap,
disclosing a boxed receptacle beneath, as in many old houses.

''Tis very well for the present,' he said dubiously, and they dropped the
coffer in, Anne locking down the seat, and giving him the key.  'Now I
don't want ye to be on my side for nothing,' he went on.  'I never did
now, did I?  This is for you.'  He handed her a little packet of paper,
which Anne turned over and looked at curiously.  'I always meant to do
it,' continued Uncle Benjy, gazing at the packet as it lay in her hand,
and sighing.  'Come, open it, my dear; I always meant to do it!'

She opened it and found twenty new guineas snugly packed within.

'Yes, they are for you.  I always meant to do it!' he said, sighing
again.

'But you owe me nothing!' returned Anne, holding them out.

'Don't say it!' cried Uncle Benjy, covering his eyes.  'Put 'em away. . . .
Well, if you _don't_ want 'em--But put 'em away, dear Anne; they are
for you, because you have kept my counsel.  Good-night t'ye.  Yes, they
are for you.'

He went a few steps, and turning back added anxiously, 'You won't spend
'em in clothes, or waste 'em in fairings, or ornaments of any kind, my
dear girl?'

'I will not,' said Anne.  'I wish you would have them.'

'No, no,' said Uncle Benjy, rushing off to escape their shine.  But he
had got no further than the passage when he returned again.

'And you won't lend 'em to anybody, or put 'em into the bank--for no bank
is safe in these troublous times?. . .  If I was you I'd keep them
_exactly_ as they be, and not spend 'em on any account.  Shall I lock
them into my box for ye?'

'Certainly,' said she; and the farmer rapidly unlocked the window-bench,
opened the box, and locked them in.

''Tis much the best plan,' he said with great satisfaction as he returned
the keys to his pocket.  'There they will always be safe, you see, and
you won't be exposed to temptation.'

When the old man had been gone a few minutes, the miller and his wife
came in, quite unconscious of all that had passed.  Anne's anxiety about
Bob was again uppermost now, and she spoke but meagrely of old Derriman's
visit, and nothing of what he had left.  She would fain have asked them
if they knew where Bob was, but that she did not wish to inform them of
the rupture.  She was forced to admit to herself that she had somewhat
tried his patience, and that impulsive men had been known to do dark
things with themselves at such times.

They sat down to supper, the clock ticked rapidly on, and at length the
miller said, 'Bob is later than usual.  Where can he be?'

As they both looked at her, she could no longer keep the secret.

'It is my fault,' she cried; 'I have driven him away!  What shall I do?'

The nature of the quarrel was at once guessed, and her two elders said no
more.  Anne rose and went to the front door, where she listened for every
sound with a palpitating heart.  Then she went in; then she went out: and
on one occasion she heard the miller say, 'I wonder what hath passed
between Bob and Anne.  I hope the chap will come home.'

Just about this time light footsteps were heard without, and Bob bounced
into the passage.  Anne, who stood back in the dark while he passed,
followed him into the room, where her mother and the miller were on the
point of retiring to bed, candle in hand.

'I have kept ye up, I fear,' began Bob cheerily, and apparently without
the faintest recollection of his tragic exit from the house.  'But the
truth on't is, I met with Fess Derriman at the "Duke of York" as I went
from here, and there we have been playing Put ever since, not noticing
how the time was going.  I haven't had a good chat with the fellow for
years and years, and really he is an out and out good comrade--a regular
hearty!  Poor fellow, he's been very badly used.  I never heard the
rights of the story till now; but it seems that old uncle of his treats
him shamefully.  He has been hiding away his money, so that poor Fess
might not have a farthing, till at last the young man has turned, like
any other worm, and is now determined to ferret out what he has done with
it.  The poor young chap hadn't a farthing of ready money till I lent him
a couple of guineas--a thing I never did more willingly in my life.  But
the man was very honourable.  "No; no," says he, "don't let me deprive
ye."  He's going to marry, and what may you think he is going to do it
for?'

'For love, I hope,' said Anne's mother.

'For money, I suppose, since he's so short,' said the miller.

'No,' said Bob, 'for _spite_.  He has been badly served--deuced badly
served--by a woman.  I never heard of a more heartless case in my life.
The poor chap wouldn't mention names, but it seems this young woman has
trifled with him in all manner of cruel ways--pushed him into the river,
tried to steal his horse when he was called out to defend his country--in
short, served him rascally.  So I gave him the two guineas and said, "Now
let's drink to the hussy's downfall!"'

'O!' said Anne, having approached behind him.

Bob turned and saw her, and at the same moment Mr. and Mrs. Loveday
discreetly retired by the other door.

'Is it peace?' he asked tenderly.

'O yes,' she anxiously replied.  'I--didn't mean to make you think I had
no heart.'  At this Bob inclined his countenance towards hers.  'No,' she
said, smiling through two incipient tears as she drew back.  'You are to
show good behaviour for six months, and you must promise not to frighten
me again by running off when I--show you how badly you have served me.'

'I am yours obedient--in anything,' cried Bob.  'But am I pardoned?'

Youth is foolish; and does a woman often let her reasoning in favour of
the worthier stand in the way of her perverse desire for the less worthy
at such times as these?  She murmured some soft words, ending with 'Do
you repent?'

It would be superfluous to transcribe Bob's answer.

Footsteps were heard without.

'O begad; I forgot!' said Bob.  'He's waiting out there for a light.'

'Who?'

'My friend Derriman.'

'But, Bob, I have to explain.'

But Festus had by this time entered the lobby, and Anne, with a hasty
'Get rid of him at once!' vanished upstairs.

Here she waited and waited, but Festus did not seem inclined to depart;
and at last, foreboding some collision of interests from Bob's new
friendship for this man, she crept into a storeroom which was over the
apartment into which Loveday and Festus had gone.  By looking through a
knot-hole in the floor it was easy to command a view of the room beneath,
this being unceiled, with moulded beams and rafters.

Festus had sat down on the hollow window-bench, and was continuing the
statement of his wrongs.  'If he only knew what he was sitting upon,' she
thought apprehensively, 'how easily he could tear up the flap, lock and
all, with his strong arm, and seize upon poor Uncle Benjy's possessions!'
But he did not appear to know, unless he were acting, which was just
possible.  After a while he rose, and going to the table lifted the
candle to light his pipe.  At the moment when the flame began diving into
the bowl the door noiselessly opened and a figure slipped across the room
to the window-bench, hastily unlocked it, withdrew the box, and beat a
retreat.  Anne in a moment recognized the ghostly intruder as Festus
Derriman's uncle.  Before he could get out of the room Festus set down
the candle and turned.

'What--Uncle Benjy--haw, haw!  Here at this time of night?'

Uncle Benjy's eyes grew paralyzed, and his mouth opened and shut like a
frog's in a drought, the action producing no sound.

'What have we got here--a tin box--the box of boxes?  Why, I'll carry it
for 'ee, uncle!--I am going home.'

'N-no-no, thanky, Festus: it is n-n-not heavy at all, thanky,' gasped the
squireen.

'O but I must,' said Festus, pulling at the box.

'Don't let him have it, Bob!' screamed the excited Anne through the hole
in the floor.

'No, don't let him!' cried the uncle.  ''Tis a plot--there's a woman at
the window waiting to help him!'

Anne's eyes flew to the window, and she saw Matilda's face pressed
against the pane.

Bob, though he did not know whence Anne's command proceeded obeyed with
alacrity, pulled the box from the two relatives, and placed it on the
table beside him.

'Now, look here, hearties; what's the meaning o' this?' he said.

'He's trying to rob me of all I possess!' cried the old man.  'My heart-
strings seem as if they were going crack, crack, crack!'

At this instant the miller in his shirt-sleeves entered the room, having
got thus far in his undressing when he heard the noise.  Bob and Festus
turned to him to explain; and when the latter had had his say Bob added,
'Well, all I know is that this box'--here he stretched out his hand to
lay it upon the lid for emphasis.  But as nothing but thin air met his
fingers where the box had been, he turned, and found that the box was
gone, Uncle Benjy having vanished also.

Festus, with an imprecation, hastened to the door, but though the night
was not dark Farmer Derriman and his burden were nowhere to be seen.  On
the bridge Festus joined a shadowy female form, and they went along the
road together, followed for some distance by Bob, lest they should meet
with and harm the old man.  But the precaution was unnecessary: nowhere
on the road was there any sign of Farmer Derriman, or of the box that
belonged to him.  When Bob re-entered the house Anne and Mrs. Loveday had
joined the miller downstairs, and then for the first time he learnt who
had been the heroine of Festus's lamentable story, with many other
particulars of that yeoman's history which he had never before known.  Bob
swore that he would not speak to the traitor again, and the family
retired.

The escape of old Mr. Derriman from the annoyances of his nephew not only
held good for that night, but for next day, and for ever.  Just after
dawn on the following morning a labouring man, who was going to his work,
saw the old farmer and landowner leaning over a rail in a mead near his
house, apparently engaged in contemplating the water of a brook before
him.  Drawing near, the man spoke, but Uncle Benjy did not reply.  His
head was hanging strangely, his body being supported in its erect
position entirely by the rail that passed under each arm.  On
after-examination it was found that Uncle Benjy's poor withered heart had
cracked and stopped its beating from damages inflicted on it by the
excitements of his life, and of the previous night in particular.  The
unconscious carcass was little more than a light empty husk, dry and
fleshless as that of a dead heron found on a moor in January.

But the tin box was not discovered with or near him.  It was searched for
all the week, and all the month.  The mill-pond was dragged, quarries
were examined, woods were threaded, rewards were offered; but in vain.

At length one day in the spring, when the mill-house was about to be
cleaned throughout, the chimney-board of Anne's bedroom, concealing a
yawning fire-place, had to be taken down.  In the chasm behind it stood
the missing deed-box of Farmer Derriman.

Many were the conjectures as to how it had got there. Then Anne
remembered that on going to bed on the night of the collision between
Festus and his uncle in the room below, she had seen mud on the carpet of
her room, and the miller remembered that he had seen footprints on the
back staircase.  The solution of the mystery seemed to be that the late
Uncle Benjy, instead of running off from the house with his box, had
doubled on getting out of the front door, entered at the back, deposited
his box in Anne's chamber where it was found, and then leisurely pursued
his way home at the heels of Festus, intending to tell Anne of his trick
the next day--an intention that was for ever frustrated by the stroke of
death.

Mr. Derriman's solicitor was a Casterbridge man, and Anne placed the box
in his hands.  Uncle Benjy's will was discovered within; and by this
testament Anne's queer old friend appointed her sole executrix of his
said will, and, more than that, gave and bequeathed to the same young
lady all his real and personal estate, with the solitary exception of
five small freehold houses in a back street in Budmouth, which were
devised to his nephew Festus, as a sufficient property to maintain him
decently, without affording any margin for extravagances.  Oxwell Hall,
with its muddy quadrangle, archways, mullioned windows, cracked
battlements, and weed-grown garden, passed with the rest into the hands
of Anne.




XLI.  JOHN MARCHES INTO THE NIGHT


During this exciting time John Loveday seldom or never appeared at the
mill.  With the recall of Bob, in which he had been sole agent, his
mission seemed to be complete.

One mid-day, before Anne had made any change in her manner of living on
account of her unexpected acquisition, Lieutenant Bob came in rather
suddenly.  He had been to Budmouth, and announced to the arrested senses
of the family that the --th Dragoons were ordered to join Sir Arthur
Wellesley in the Peninsula.

These tidings produced a great impression on the household.  John had
been so long in the neighbourhood, either at camp or in barracks, that
they had almost forgotten the possibility of his being sent away; and
they now began to reflect upon the singular infrequency of his calls
since his brother's return.  There was not much time, however, for
reflection, if they wished to make the most of John's farewell visit,
which was to be paid the same evening, the departure of the regiment
being fixed for next day.  A hurried valedictory supper was prepared
during the afternoon, and shortly afterwards John arrived.

He seemed to be more thoughtful and a trifle paler than of old, but
beyond these traces, which might have been due to the natural wear and
tear of time, he showed no signs of gloom.  On his way through the town
that morning a curious little incident had occurred to him.  He was
walking past one of the churches when a wedding-party came forth, the
bride and bridegroom being Matilda and Festus Derriman.  At sight of the
trumpet-major the yeoman had glared triumphantly; Matilda, on her part,
had winked at him slily, as much as to say--.  But what she meant heaven
knows: the trumpet-major did not trouble himself to think, and passed on
without returning the mark of confidence with which she had favoured him.

Soon after John's arrival at the mill several of his friends dropped in
for the same purpose of bidding adieu.  They were mostly the men who had
been entertained there on the occasion of the regiment's advent on the
down, when Anne and her mother were coaxed in to grace the party by their
superior presence; and their well-trained, gallant manners were such as
to make them interesting visitors now as at all times.  For it was a
period when romance had not so greatly faded out of military life as it
has done in these days of short service, heterogeneous mixing, and
transient campaigns; when the esprit de corps was strong, and long
experience stamped noteworthy professional characteristics even on rank
and file; while the miller's visitors had the additional advantage of
being picked men.

They could not stay so long to-night as on that earlier and more cheerful
occasion, and the final adieus were spoken at an early hour.  It was no
mere playing at departure, as when they had gone to Exonbury barracks,
and there was a warm and prolonged shaking of hands all round.

'You'll wish the poor fellows good-bye?' said Bob to Anne, who had not
come forward for that purpose like the rest.  'They are going away, and
would like to have your good word.'

She then shyly advanced, and every man felt that he must make some pretty
speech as he shook her by the hand.

'Good-bye!  May you remember us as long as it makes ye happy, and forget
us as soon as it makes ye sad,' said Sergeant Brett.

'Good-night!  Health, wealth, and long life to ye!' said Sergeant-major
Wills, taking her hand from Brett.

'I trust to meet ye again as the wife of a worthy man,' said Trumpeter
Buck.

'We'll drink your health throughout the campaign, and so good-bye t'ye,'
said Saddler-sergeant Jones, raising her hand to his lips.

Three others followed with similar remarks, to each of which Anne
blushingly replied as well as she could, wishing them a prosperous
voyage, easy conquest, and a speedy return.

But, alas, for that!  Battles and skirmishes, advances and retreats,
fevers and fatigues, told hard on Anne's gallant friends in the coming
time.  Of the seven upon whom these wishes were bestowed, five, including
the trumpet-major, were dead men within the few following years, and
their bones left to moulder in the land of their campaigns.

John lingered behind.  When the others were outside, expressing a final
farewell to his father, Bob, and Mrs. Loveday, he came to Anne, who
remained within.

'But I thought you were going to look in again before leaving?' she said
gently.

'No; I find I cannot.  Good-bye!'

'John,' said Anne, holding his right hand in both hers, 'I must tell you
something.  You were wise in not taking me at my word that day.  I was
greatly mistaken about myself.  Gratitude is not love, though I wanted to
make it so for the time.  You don't call me thoughtless for what I did?'

'My dear Anne,' cried John, with more gaiety than truthfulness, 'don't
let yourself be troubled!  What happens is for the best.  Soldiers love
here to-day and there to-morrow.  Who knows that you won't hear of my
attentions to some Spanish maid before a month is gone by?  'Tis the way
of us, you know; a soldier's heart is not worth a week's purchase--ha,
ha!  Goodbye, good-bye!'

Anne felt the expediency of his manner, received the affectation as real,
and smiled her reply, not knowing that the adieu was for evermore.  Then
with a tear in his eye he went out of the door, where he bade farewell to
the miller, Mrs. Loveday, and Bob, who said at parting, 'It's all right,
Jack, my dear fellow.  After a coaxing that would have been enough to win
three ordinary Englishwomen, five French, and ten Mulotters, she has to-
day agreed to bestow her hand upon me at the end of six months.  Good-bye,
Jack, good-bye!'

The candle held by his father shed its waving light upon John's face and
uniform as with a farewell smile he turned on the doorstone, backed by
the black night; and in another moment he had plunged into the darkness,
the ring of his smart step dying away upon the bridge as he joined his
companions-in-arms, and went off to blow his trumpet till silenced for
ever upon one of the bloody battle-fields of Spain.




Footnotes:


{207}  _Vide_ Preface.

{211}  _Vide_ Preface.

{225}  _Vide_ Preface.

{272}  _Vide_ Preface.

{303}  _Vide_ Preface.