“Mr. Melbury is late this morning,” said the bottom-sawyer.
“Yes. ’Twas a dark dawn,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Even when I opened the door, so late as I was, you couldn’t have told poor men from gentlemen, or John from a reasonable-sized object. And I don’t think maister’s slept at all well tonight. He’s anxious about his daughter; and I know what that is, for I’ve cried bucketfuls for my own.”
When the old woman had gone Creedle said,
“He’ll fret his gizzard green if he don’t soon hear from that maid of his. Well, learning is better than houses and lands. But to keep a maid at school till she is taller out of pattens than her mother was in ’em—’tis tempting Providence.”
“It seems no time ago that she was a little playward girl,” said young Timothy Tangs.
“I can mind her mother,” said the hollow-turner. “Always a teuny, delicate piece; her touch upon your hand was as soft and cool as wind. She was inoculated for the smallpox and had it beautifully fine, just about the time that I was out of my apprenticeship—ay, and a long apprenticeship ’twas. I served that master of mine six years and three hundred and fourteen days.”
The hollow-turner pronounced the days with emphasis, as if, considering their number, they were a rather more remarkable fact than the years.
“Mr. Winterborne’s father walked with her at one time,” said old Timothy Tangs. “But Mr. Melbury won her. She was a child of a woman, and would cry like rain if so be he huffed her. Whenever she and her husband came to a puddle in their walks together he’d take her up like a halfpenny doll and put her over without dirting her a speck. And if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding-school, he’ll make her as nesh as her mother was. But here he comes.”
Just before this moment Winterborne had seen Melbury crossing the court from his door. He was carrying an open letter in his hand, and came straight to Winterborne. His gloom of the preceding night had quite gone.
“I’d no sooner made up my mind, Giles, to go and see why Grace didn’t come or write than I get a letter from her—‘Clifton: Wednesday. My dear father,’ says she, ‘I’m coming home tomorrow’ (that’s today), ‘but I didn’t think it worth while to write long beforehand.’ The little rascal, and didn’t she! Now, Giles, as you are going to Sherton market today with your apple-trees, why not join me and Grace there, and we’ll drive home all together?”
He made the proposal with cheerful energy; he was hardly the same man as the man of the small dark hours. Ever it happens that even among the moodiest the tendency to be cheered is stronger than the tendency to be cast down; and a soul’s specific gravity stands permanently less than that of the sea of troubles into which it is thrown.
Winterborne, though not demonstrative, replied to this suggestion with something like alacrity. There was not much doubt that Marty’s grounds for cutting off her hair were substantial enough, if Ambrose’s eyes had been a reason for keeping it on. As for the timber-merchant, it was plain that his invitation had been given solely in pursuance of his scheme for uniting the pair. He had made up his mind to the course as a duty, and was strenuously bent upon following it out.
Accompanied by Winterborne, he now turned towards the door of the spar-house, when his footsteps were heard by the men as aforesaid.
“Well, John, and Lot,” he said, nodding as he entered. “A rimy morning.”
“ ’Tis, sir!” said Creedle, energetically; for, not having as yet been able to summon force sufficient to go away and begin work, he felt the necessity of throwing some into his speech. “I don’t care who the man is, ’tis the rimiest morning we’ve had this fall.”
“I heard you wondering why I’ve kept my daughter so long at boarding-school,” resumed Mr. Melbury, looking up from the letter which he was reading anew by the fire, and turning to them with the suddenness that was a trait in him. “Hey?” he asked, with affected shrewdness. “But you did, you know. Well, now, though it is my own business more than anybody else’s, I’ll tell ye. When I was a boy, another boy—the pa’son’s son—along with a lot of others, asked me ‘Who dragged Whom round the walls of What?’ and I said, ‘Sam Barrett, who dragged his wife in a chair round the tower corner when she went to be churched.’ They laughed at me with such torrents of scorn that I went home ashamed, and couldn’t sleep for shame; and I cried that night till my pillow was wet: till at last I thought to myself there and then—‘They may laugh at me for my ignorance, but that was father’s fault, and none o’ my making, and I must bear it. But they shall never laugh at my children, if I have any: I’ll starve first!’ Thank God, I’ve been able to keep her at school without sacrifice; and her scholarship is such that she stayed on as governess for a time. Let ’em laugh now if they can: Mrs. Charmond herself is not better informed than my girl Grace.”
There was something between high indifference and humble emotion in his delivery, which made it difficult for them to reply. Winterborne’s interest was of a kind which did not show itself in words; listening, he stood by the fire, mechanically stirring the embers with a spar-gad.
“You’ll be, then, ready, Giles?” Melbury continued, awaking from a reverie. “Well, what was the latest news at Shottsford yesterday, Mr. Bawtree?”
“Well, Shottsford is Shottsford still—you can’t victual your carcass there unless you’ve got money; and you can’t buy a cup of genuine there, whether or no. … But
