第12章 THE THREE WOMEN(11)

"Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to understand.""I am glad to hear that your son Mr.Clym is coming home at Christmas, ma'am," said Sam, the turf-cutter."What a dog he used to be for bonfires!""Yes.I believe he is coming," she said.

"He must be a fine fellow by this time," said Fairway.

"He is a man now," she replied quietly.

"'Tis very lonesome for 'ee in the heth tonight, mis'ess," said Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained."Mind you don't get lost.

Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in, and the winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard 'em afore.

Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times.""Is that you, Christian?" said Mrs.Yeobright.

"What made you hide away from me?"

"'Twas that I didn't know you in this light, mis'ess;and being a man of the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that's all.Oftentimes if you could see how terrible down I get in my mind, 'twould make 'ee quite nervous for fear I should die by my hand.""You don't take after your father," said Mrs.Yeobright, looking towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of originality, was dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others had done before.

"Now, Grandfer," said Timothy Fairway, "we are ashamed of ye.A reverent old patriarch man as you be--seventy if a day--to go hornpiping like that by yourself!""A harrowing old man, Mis'ess Yeobright,"said Christian despondingly."I wouldn't live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get away.""'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome Mis'ess Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle," said the besom-woman.

"Faith, and so it would," said the reveller checking himself repentantly."I've such a bad memory, Mis'ess Yeobright, that I forget how I'm looked up to by the rest of 'em.My spirits must be wonderful good, you'll say? But not always.'Tis a weight upon a man to be looked up to as commander, and I often feel it.""I am sorry to stop the talk," said Mrs.Yeobright."But I must be leaving you now.I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my niece's new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and seeing the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice among the rest I came up here to learn what was going on.

I should like her to walk with me, as her way is mine.""Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving," said Olly.

"Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of,"said Fairway."He's only gone back to get his van.

We heard that your niece and her husband were coming straight home as soon as they were married, and we are going down there shortly, to give 'em a song o' welcome.""Thank you indeed," said Mrs.Yeobright.

"But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go with long clothes; so we won't trouble you to wait.""Very well--are you ready, Olly?"

"Yes, ma'am.And there's a light shining from your niece's window, see.It will help to keep us in the path."She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which Fairway had pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.

4 - The Halt on the Turnpike Road Down, downward they went, and yet further down--their descent at each step seeming to outmeasure their advance.

Their skirts were scratched noisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which, though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter weather having as yet arrived to beat them down.

Their Tartarean situation might by some have been called an imprudent one for two unattended women.But these shaggy recesses were at all seasons a familiar surrounding to Olly and Mrs.Yeobright; and the addition of darkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.

"And so Tamsin has married him at last," said Olly, when the incline had become so much less steep that their foot-steps no longer required undivided attention.

Mrs.Yeobright answered slowly, "Yes; at last.""How you will miss her--living with 'ee as a daughter, as she always have.""I do miss her."

Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely, was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with impunity.

This accounted for Mrs.Yeobright's acquiescence in the revival of an evidently sore subject.

"I was quite strook to hear you'd agreed to it, ma'am, that I was," continued the besom-maker.

"You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year this time, Olly.There are a good many sides to that wedding.I could not tell you all of them, even if I tried.""I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your family.Keeping an inn--what is it?

But 'a's clever, that's true, and they say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has come down by being too outwardly given.""I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she should marry where she wished.""Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her, no doubt.'Tis nature.Well, they may call him what they will--he've several acres of heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, and the heth-croppers, and his manners be quite like a gentleman's.And what's done cannot be undone.""It cannot," said Mrs.Yeobright."See, here's the wagon-track at last.Now we shall get along better."The wedding subject was no further dwelt upon;and soon a faint diverging path was reached, where they parted company, Olly first begging her companion to remind Mr.Wildeve that he had not sent her sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his marriage.

The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house, behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs.Yeobright followed the straight track, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn, whither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve from their wedding at Anglebury that day.