Into the Highways and Hedges

by F. F. Montrésor

  CHAPTER II.

  She has tied a knot with her tongue that she'll not undo with her teeth.

  Caulderwell Farm is built on the edge of the "flats". All round it, inthe days of which I write, was unreclaimed land--broad salt marshes,where the water crept slowly up at high tide, oozing between the rankgrass and the sand banks, where the wild ducks nested and the frogscroaked. Fresh-water springs there were too, making tender greensplotches in the midst of the redder salt-fed vegetation, and deep blackpools, that only the wind and the rain and the shy water-birds visitedfrom one year's end to the other.

  From the windows that face south the silver streak of salt water couldbe seen five miles as the crow flies across the marshes,--a lonely seabreaking on no cheerful child-haunted beach, but rolling in in long greywaves over the soft reed-tufted sand, where the rime clung in crustedserpentine ridges, and where bits of timber and shells got caught amongthe weeds, till the waves carried them back again.

  A lonely country, whose lover's salt kisses left her the more barren.

  The grey walls of the solitary house stood sturdily square to every windthat blew; the bit of cultivated ground was dyked all round, and the oneroad across the marsh led straight to the house door, and therestopped, for beyond the farm was no man's land.

  The Thorpes had lived here from generation to generation. They boastedthat the marsh ague never touched them, and that their cattle never gotlost in the "mosses". They had always been noted for a particular breedof horses, for which they got a sale at the annual horse fair at N----;for the gift of "bone setting," which had appeared in the family againand again; and for a certain obstinate originality, a "way of theirown," which the first Thorpe had exemplified in his choice of a home.That good man was popularly supposed to have had a hard tussle with themarsh devil (who was peculiar to the soil, and was an unclean spiritwith a head like a horse), over the building of the house. Apparently hehad worsted his adversary thoroughly; for Caulderwell Farm still stands,and was three hundred years old when Margaret--who had been MargaretDeane--first made its acquaintance. Daughters had been scarce in thefarm. In that respect also the Thorpe family had showed a decidedpeculiarity. Of the children born to it by far the larger proportion hadbeen boys; and the few girls who had had the temerity to open their eyesin that wind-circled house had generally died before maturity.

  Barnabas Thorpe's father had had no sisters, and his wife had broughthim sons only.

  He had been ambitious as a young man, separated as he was from thepeople about him by his new-fangled ideas, his greater education, andthe touch of something that appeared very like genius in his youth, andlike madness in his old age; the "something" that had been alwayscropping up afresh in each succeeding generation.

  It seemed likely that his sons might be sent to college, and rise to thelevel of gentlefolk; but nothing of the sort happened. On the contrary,the family fortunes fell back; a sort of melancholy blight seemed tohave infected the man; he lost interest and energy; the tide of hisambition turned and ebbed, as that quiet creeping sea turned and ebbedfrom the pools outside.

  People said that the two calamities of his life had soured him, that hehad never been the same after the death of his wife, and that theaccident that had made his first-born, his favourite son, grow updeformed in body, had given a morbid twist to the father's mind.

  It may have been so; but it is more probable that the "twist" was therebefore,--born with him as surely as the colour of his eyes, and theshape of his head, and that it was only accentuated by circumstances.

  His wife had died in childbirth; and, out of his passionate and extremegrief, grew, hardly controllable, an aversion for the innocent cause ofit.

  Tom Thorpe "fathered" his brother to the best of his ability, and kepthim out of his real father's sight. Barnabas grew up sturdy and strong;a lover of "out-of-door" pursuits; a hater of books; a child possessedof immense animal spirits, noisy, and rather unruly, who played truantfrom school whenever he could, and took the consequent thrashingscarelessly; a lad with a violent temper and a kind heart; who neverpuzzled his brains about anything, and was popular in spite of beingslightly overbearing and obstinate, as all his forbears had been; a manwho became a wanderer on the face of the earth, and startled every onewho had known him by the suddenness and power of his "conversion".

  He had been fifteen years in that service, to which he had given heartand life, when Margaret first saw him.

  During that time he had come back to the farm at intervals, drawn by anovermastering longing for his native marshes; and, possibly, by astrong though undemonstrative affection for Tom. He had always returned,as he had gone, alone; until the night when he had brought home hiswife.

  It was late October. In the south, the trees still clung to their redand gold glories, and there was mellowness in the air, the afterglow ofdeparting summer; but here, in the north, winter had already claimedpossession, and had cut short brusquely the tender leave-takings of thewarm weather.

  The few trees that there were, little gnarled stunted specimens, hadbeen violently bereft of their leaves, and leaned to one side, adaptingthemselves to the constant bullying of the gales, that swept throughtheir thin knotted branches, and dashed against Caulderwell Farm, as ifin hopes of, at last, laying that stern and sturdy old building low.

  The lonely house looked cold and desolate enough from outside; but theheart of it, the cheerful kitchen where Mr. Thorpe and his son sat, waswarm, even hot, on the coldest of nights.

  The man who planned the farm had made the kitchen the noblest room init. The prim "best parlour," and even the dining-room which no one everused, but which boasted a curiously blazoned ceiling, were nothing incomparison.

  The kitchen was oak-panelled, wide and essentially comfortable, with redbrick floor and huge fireplace fitted with corner seats.

  Candles, smoked hams, and rows of onions hung from the rafters. Thechina, genuine old willow, was piled on the oak dresser; pewter potsgleamed cheerfully in the firelight, though they were muddled up withpipes and fishing tackle in a way that would have made a goodhousewife's heart sink; and the rubicund face of an "old toby" beamedfrom among them,--a sort of presiding genius.

  Two tallow candles stood on the square wooden table in the middle of theroom. The remains of a meal were shoved together at one corner of thetable, and books littered the other side. The candles cast deep eerieshadows, but never flickered; though the wind was tossing against thelozenge-shaped windows in angry gusts. The thick walls of the farm werequite draught-proof, let the storm shriek as it would.

  Mr. Thorpe was walking with long uneven steps up and down the room. Hishands--thin narrow hands--were clasped behind his back, his head pokedforward a little.

  He was a loose-limbed, gaunt man; big-boned, though he stooped so thatit was difficult to guess his real height; his chest seemed to have sunkin, and his shoulders to have become permanently rounded.

  His clothes hung on him as if they had been put on with a pitchfork, andhis silky black beard straggled untidily over his old-fashioned floweredwaistcoat.

  His eyes were deep-set, blue, like his younger son's; but here theresemblance ended, for Mr. Thorpe was olive-complexioned, and hisfeatures were fine and clear cut. His was a more refined face than thepreacher's. Evidently, Barnabas had inherited from his mother's side hisfair skin and curly hair; also, probably, his incapacity for learningand his splendid health.

  Tom Thorpe sat at the table with a pile of books in front of him; hisshadow danced in the firelight, as if cruelly caricaturing the reality.

  He was deformed, hunchbacked, and slightly crippled as well, one legbeing oddly twisted inwards.

  He had an odd face too, with a very big forehead, and rough jet blackhair. He might have been taken for any age, having the sort ofcountenance that looks as if it had never been young, and yet is slow togrow old. In reality he was nearly forty.

  His eyes were a greenish hazel, with curiously big pupils--veryexpressive eyes, that could be as
soft as a woman's, though "softness"was not Tom's ordinary characteristic.

  The mouth showed signs of pain endured silently and frequently; thelines about it were deep, and the lips closed very tightly when he wasnot talking.

  Seated at the other end of the table, engaged in eating her supper,which she did with a kind of injured air, as if every mouthful were painand grief to her, was a prim middle-aged woman, with an appearance offretful, would-be gentility.

  When she had finished, she rose with a stifled sob and seemed about toclear away, but Tom jumped, or rather hopped up, shut his book with abang of suppressed irritation, limped round the table with surprisingcelerity, and took the plates out of her hands.

  "If you are sartain you don't want more, _I'll_ put 'em by," he said.

  "I couldn't eat! not with you reading all the time, and Cousin Thorpewalking up and down like a wild beast in a cage," she murmured, with aquiver in her voice. "It takes all the heart out of one's meal!"

  "But, my good soul, _you_ ain't obliged to read," said Tom, "and I'msure you are welcome to be as many hours over your supper as you like.If you've done, I'll put 'em off the table."

  The corners of her mouth twitched downwards. "It never was cast up at mebefore that I take longer than is fitting over my food," she said; "butto see a person reading the whole of supper, with not a word to throwat one, and never caring what he's eating, no more than if it was dustand ashes, does break one's spirit; but if you think I consume more thanI am entitled to, Tom, or if----"

  "Look 'ee here!" cried Tom, "I never said nothing of the sort. Do youthink I count your mouthfuls? If you dare hint such a thing again, I'llmake you finish the ham before you go to bed." He caught it up by thebone as he spoke, and waved it aloft. Mrs. Tremnell looked terrified;she was always rather afraid of Tom, and could not have seen a joke tosave her life. She retreated hastily from the combat to a far-offcorner, where she produced a black silk workbag, and solaced her soulwith tatting.

  Tom put away the dishes, unwashed, with wonderful celerity, and buriedhimself again in his studies.

  He rightly felt that if a woman were once allowed to have a hand intheir extremely untidy domestic arrangements, she would never rest tillshe had revolutionised everything.

  "Dad an' I'd be tidied out o' the kitchen before we knew where we were,"he reflected; and poor Cousin Tremnell's desire after usefulness wasvigorously snubbed whenever it durst show itself.

  She sniffed over her work every now and then, and Tom glanced upirritably, yet with a suspicion of a smile at the corners of his lips.He was just opening his mouth to speak, this time with overtures ofpeace, when there was a thundering knock at the outer door.

  "Who ever can it be at this time of night?" cried Mrs. Tremnell. And Mr.Thorpe paused in his restless walk.

  "It's Barnabas!" cried Tom, his face lighting up. And he caught up hissticks, and was in the hall unbolting the massive door before the othershad recovered from their surprise.

  They heard his joyful, "Why, lad, I thought it was you!" and then asmothered exclamation of surprise. And then Barnabas came in, bringing awhiff of icy air with him.

  The moisture was hanging from his beard, and dripping from his hat,making little pools on the red bricks. But not even Mrs. Tremnellnoticed that; both she and Mr. Thorpe were staring in utter astonishmentat a third figure,--a slight pale woman, with hair cut short, and bigsad eyes, who followed him into the room silently.

  "Father, this is my wife," said Barnabas Thorpe. "I wrote you a letterabout her, but I doubt you never got it. It's a dirty night, and she's abit weary."

  There was a moment's silence; then the old farmer drew himself up, andheld out his hand to the stranger with a gentle dignity that would havedone credit to the finest gentleman in the land.

  "You are welcome, ma'am," he said. "Will you come to the fire and rest?The storm's bad outside."

  He demanded no explanation then. It was his house, and she his guest--ona night too when he wouldn't have shut out a dog,--that was enough forthe present. All the rest could wait.

  Cousin Tremnell burnt with curiosity; and so did the hunchback, wholooked dismayed as well; but neither of them durst ask anything.

  Cousin Tremnell, indeed, was too much "taken aback," as she would haveexpressed it, to move; but Tom hopped across the room with the kettle,and cast furtive glances at the woman who stood on the hearth slowlyunwinding a heavy shawl, which she let fall at last in a heap at herfeet. She was rather uncanny--like a spirit, or like one of the elves,with golden hair and no backs to them, who dance on the marsh to thedestruction of the unwary, he thought.

  At the second glance he revised that impression: his shrewd eyes toldhim that there was nothing of the temptress about this girl; she did notlook bad; she had never inveigled any one; but, good Lord! what a queerwife to have! How tiny her hands were, and how still she stood; notblushing, nor rolling her fingers in her apron, nor doing any of thethings women generally do when they are nervous; but only lookinggravely into the fire, and waiting patiently. He made the tea and cutthick slices of bread and ham, and then addressed himself directly tothe stranger, being filled with great curiosity to hear her voice.

  "Will 'ee sit down with us?" he said; and looked inquiringly at hisbrother, as though to ask whether this strange wife of his ate or dranklike ordinary mortals.

  Barnabas sat down with good appetite; his wife took her place besidehim, and Mr. Thorpe drew his chair to the table as a mark of respect tohis unexpected guest: he had had his own supper long before.

  Mrs. Tremnell brought her sewing up to the light, though she was tooflustered to work; and Tom hopped round the table offering Barnabas'wife everything he could think of.

  On the whole, and considering the startling way in which Margaret hadbeen introduced into their midst, it was wonderful how well the Thorpesbehaved.

  Meg's own father could not have shown finer courtesy than did thepreacher's.

  She ate her supper with outward composure, if with some inward tremor.Meg had seen so many strange scenes, and found herself in so manystrange places, since the day when she had shut the door for ever on theold life, that she was not now so completely overcome by the position asshe might once have been.

  The preacher was too indifferent to other people's opinions to sufferfrom embarrassment; and, though deeply attached to his home, he had, formany a long year, held himself quite independent in the ordering of hislife.

  Meg noticed that he met his brother's eyes with the reassuring glancethat told of mutual understanding; but that he and his father hadapparently little in common.

  The old man's sharply chiselled and refined features, as well as hisgentler accent, surprised her; and she looked up gratefully when heasked her about their journey.

  "You clip your words like a Londoner," he remarked smiling; but hethought to himself that she was a pretty spoken lass anyhow.

  "I have always lived in London part of the year," said Meg. "We went outof town in July."

  "Why?" asked Tom abruptly.

  Meg looked confused, and silence fell on them.

  "The upper circles vacate town at the close of the opera," said CousinTremnell. She was privately wondering whether the stranger had been inservice, and rather hoped she had. She herself, driven by stress ofcircumstances, had been maid in a very "good family" for some months.She knew that the Thorpes looked down on her for it; and, while she feltherself their superior in gentility and manners, she was yet notstrong-minded enough for her self-respect to be unruffled by theiropinion.

  "We've naught to do wi' upper circles, and doan't want to have," saidTom. "I'm going to see about your room. Will 'ee come, lad?"

  He limped off with marvellous quickness.

  Barnabas pushed back his chair, and followed him.

  Mr. Thorpe got up too; and resumed the restless pace up and down thathad been broken into by his new daughter-in-law's advent. She sattwisting the ring on her thin finger, and wondering whether the preacherwas telling the whole st
ory now, and what his brother thought of it. Asit happened, she was not left long in doubt on that score.

  The tap of Tom's sticks sounded again along the stone passage; he wastalking eagerly; when he almost reached the door, she heard his finaldictum: "E--eh, lad! Now, I doan't know on my soul which was th' biggestfule, you or she!"

  * * * * *

  So Meg was brought to Barnabas Thorpe's kin; and, sitting alone in herroom, looked over the wide marshes that were to become familiar to her;and knew herself a stranger in a strange land.

  It was two months since she had become his wife in name; and the twomonths' experience had made its mark on her,--a mark so deep that shebelieved herself to be hardly recognisable--a different womanaltogether.

  Her face had sharpened in outline, and deepened in expression; thegirlish beauty of colour had faded, and she had cut off her abundantsoft hair.

  They had travelled from village to village, the girl sometimes walking,sometimes getting a lift in passing carts, never owning to weariness, orpain, or discomfort; but living, apparently, on the preacher'spreaching.

  Her zeal had outstripped his, burning like a devouring flame. She hadsung at meetings; she had gone with him everywhere unshrinkingly; shehad given away the very food she should have eaten. And the man hadwatched her; first with amazement, then with an overgrowing sense ofuneasiness; never quite understanding what revelations of good and evilhe had brought her face to face with, or how desperately she wasclinging to her religious faith, as a child, frightened in the dark,clings to its father's hand.

  Meg had been not only innocent, but more ignorant of some phases of evilthan would have been possible in a woman of the preacher's own class.Her brain had nearly reeled with the shock of new experiences; herhorror at much she had seen and heard had often kept her awake when herbody was tired out; and when she slept, her sleep had been haunted withdreams that exhausted her as much as wakefulness. The supernatural grewvery real to her then; she was happy only when Barnabas was praying orpreaching; she was feverishly eager, growing bigger eyed and thinner dayby day.

  As for her companion, he had made up his mind to do his best for thelass, who was his wife in name only, and whom he had thought to takethrough the world, guarding her as he would have guarded a youngersister; but, as day followed day, and week succeeded week, the "doingfor her" cost him more--both in heart and mind; and, even in pocket!

  He was a clever workman; and, though nothing would have induced him totake money for his faith healing, he had fewer scruples where his knackof bone setting was concerned.

  He gave Margaret every comfort he could think of, but became more andmore uneasily conscious with the flight of time that the physicalhardships of her life were telling on her, and that he did not know howto prevent it; that there was something unnatural about her fervour,but that that, too, was beyond him.

  He had got into a habit of watching her, and of taking note of her ways,silently as a rule, because, being accustomed to solitude, he was asilent man in ordinary intercourse.

  For any thought he took for her she thanked him, with a gentlegraciousness that was inherited from her father; but which seemed to hercompanion to belong only to this girl, and to have the curious qualityof making his heart beat faster.

  He was disconcerted when she cut off her hair; and she was surprisedthat he should even notice the loss. She was apt to be surprised inthose days if Barnabas behaved like an ordinary mortal.

  Then a change had come over them both--a strain in their relations, evertightening, impossible to break through, impalpable, and, finally,unbearable.

  The woman was aware of it first, and tried to ignore it. She sang, andprayed, and worked with even increased ardour. She was over-taxing herpoor body, that was so unequally yoked; and she knew, and ratherrejoiced at the fact.

  Possibly, at the bottom of her heart, she felt that _that_ was one wayof escape from a difficulty that lay in wait for her, unfaced as yet,and "impossible".

  It had been in the evening, after a long day's walk, that the difficultyhad stalked boldly out of its corner.

  They had arrived late at an inn; and Meg, too tired to eat, had exertedherself to amuse a fretful child, who was sitting beside her on a bench.

  She seldom spoke to strangers, but, at that moment, she had experienceda sudden and almost overpowering distaste for her surroundings. The hot,tobacco-reeking room, the smell of food, the noise every one made ineating, the way the men spat on the floor, and the way the woman nexther laughed, affected her with a physical loathing. She foughtdesperately against the sensation, having a nervous fear that, shouldshe once stop talking, and let herself go, she might break downaltogether. Her cheeks flushed with the heat of the room, her eyes shonelike stars, and her tongue went faster and faster. The child stared ather, open-mouthed; the child's mother looked at her ratherinquisitively; but the father, a young mechanic, put down his knife andfork, and tried to draw the stranger's attention to himself.

  All at once Meg was startled by the preacher's pushing back his chairnoisily, and putting a hand on her shoulder.

  "If ye can't eat, there's no call for 'ee to stop here chattering. Ye'dbetter go upstairs," he said.

  His voice sounded a little thick, and his face was flushed, though henever drank anything but water.

  Meg turned and looked at him in utter astonishment; then rose and leftthem without a word.

  It had been nothing to speak of, nothing to make a fuss about, yet whenshe had found herself alone in the tiny room upstairs that he had takenfor her, she had hidden her face in her hands with an indescribablefeeling of shame.

  "What right had this man to speak so to her,--to look at her as if hewere jealous? He might, in his capacity of preacher, have reproved herfor breaking any law in the decalogue, and she would not have beenangry; but this was quite different."

  Alas! it did not bear thinking of. She had given him "right" enough!

  She had felt she could not sit still; the restlessness that had beengrowing on her had made anything more bearable than the quiet of herroom. She had put on her bonnet, and gone down again almost immediately.

  She had found Barnabas leaning against the porch outside; he had heardor felt her approach, and turned the moment she had joined him. Voicesfrom the inn had assailed their ears, in a gust of sound with theopening of the door; and then they had been alone, wrapped in the sweetsolemn night, and Meg's anger and shame had died. After all, they twowere pilgrims together, through a tumultuous and alien world, and shehad been foolish to have been so disturbed. It had always beenwonderfully easy to Meg to look at things from a purely spiritual pointof view.

  "Are you going out again?" she had asked him; and he had answered, withsome constraint, that he was going to catch the lads coming out of thefactory in the town, pointing to where the lights of Nottingham twinkledin the distance.

  "Then I'll come too," Meg had said. "I can start the singing if you wantit; and I always like to hear you speak."

  But, for the first time since she had known him, he had refused hercompanionship, speaking still with the same constrained tone, andwithout looking at her.

  "Ye are just killing yourself, lass; I canna let you do that."

  The girl had evinced much the same half-reproachful wonder that she hadshown when he had objected to the cutting off of her hair.

  "If I am of any service at all," she had said, "you, of all men, shouldnot try to stop me." And at that, the man had stood upright with a laughand a quick passionate gesture, as if he would have stretched out hisarms to her.

  "I, of all men! I, of all men!" he had cried. "Lass, do ye suppose I amno' of flesh and blood, like the others? The Lord has angels enough; let_me_ ha' the woman by my side; I of all men shouldna stay ye. Come thenan' ye want to, Margaret!" And Meg, aghast, had stood for one momentwith frightened eyes; then had turned and fled.

  He had wakened her with a rough shock, and had brought her back to anearth that was no longer only "the road to
Heaven".

  It was a natural thing enough that had befallen the strange pair; onlyMeg, with her eyes fixed on the stars, had never dreamed of itspossibility, and her heart had sunk.

  The next morning the preacher had met her with recovered self-command.

  "I spoke to ye as I shouldna have," he had said gravely. "An' I am'shamed to ha' done it; an' yet it was truth, lass, that it isnapossible to go on as we are. I canna stand by an' see ye get thinner an'weaker afore my eyes. Will ye let me take ye to my own home an' leave yefor a spell wi' my own people? Happen ye'll grow stronger at th' farman' piece on your life again."

  And Meg had acquiesced. She would do as he liked, though he had fallenfrom his pinnacle and was no more an inspired prophet; for what elsecould she do?

  "To piece on her life" would be a puzzling and difficult thing, far moreconfusing than to take the kingdom of Heaven by storm, and die ofover-work and under-feeding, like a saint; but she had no choice.

  While she sat at her window, her thoughts flew back over all that hadhappened, till the remembrance of Tom Thorpe's remark came as a sort ofanti-climax to the painful gravity of her thoughts, and Meg laughedsoftly in the darkness.

  "Which _was_ the bigger fule?"

  Well! if she had been that, there was no need to be a coward as well.The girl straightened herself with a touch of pride and determinationthat was a good sign. "I cut one knot--I'll untie the next," she said;"and live it out as best I can!"