In the olden times of farming, when wheat was really golden, there had been a prosperous homestead much farther down in the valley, and the wheat was stored in this great barn. The homestead was now occupied as a cottage by a labourer, the barn was empty, and the farm thrown together with others and joined to Barnard’s large holding. Like many other deserted buildings, the barn was reputed to be haunted—a sort of partial reputation, for if asked no one could say what shape its spectre took, or what crime it was supposed to be expiating. Standing solitary, its desolation alone seemed to have suggested the idea. The places where man’s footsteps and life have once been retain for years a memory of his presence in the guise of shadowy apparitions.
The swallows had the barn by day, the bats by night; the owls had deserted it—they like mice, and there were no mice where there was no grain. The spot was absolutely solitary; hedges and trees hid the brook and meads; the wood on the hill closed the view in front. A rabbit who had been feeding, and at the sound of Felise’s footsteps hid behind some nettles, finding her to stay quiet, came out again to nibble.
There were songs in the wood, though it was now the heat of the day, and the call of the cuckoo; Felise did not hear. When the heart is full it absorbs the senses to itself—hearing, sight, all are possessed by its passion.
This was the fourth time she had been here. The rod was a mere pretence; her object was to cross his path and meet him, as if by accident. But she had not been successful, though she knew he must be frequently in the fields. She had stayed near where his haymakers were at work, near where others were weeding the arable lands; by the paths, and had not seen him. When weary of waiting about, it had become her custom to resort to the solitude of the deserted barn, and there rest unseen.
Since her resolution was formed that morning at the trout-pool before her swim, she had accomplished nothing. Separated, without word or glance, how was it possible to advance her wishes? Felise’s strong and eager nature was already weary of this slow process of waiting till chance should throw him in her way. Sooner or later, if she persevered in haunting the locality, she must meet him; but how long would it be first?
Time seems so much longer in summer; the morning and the evening are far apart, and there is space between them for such a multitude of feelings, or for the same feeling to repeat itself so often. The long days became very heavy upon her; she could not endure the waiting.
Felise started again from the ancient barn, and instead of returning to the brook followed the foot of the hill beside the wood. Some wheatfields succeeded; after awhile she came round the hill and stepped into a private roadway which led direct to the Manor House. Erect and unfaltering she went straight towards Martial’s residence.
XVI
Ten minutes or so after she had quitted the chestnuts by the barn, Martial himself stepped out from the wood, having waited till he considered she was far enough away not to see him. He followed her at a distance, taking care to keep some hedge, or bush, or other object between them.
The study of this work of art had led him, day after day, on foot down towards Mr. Goring’s, sometimes as far as the trout-pool, sometimes more openly to the mill. He caught a glimpse of her occasionally in the garden or in the road, as she crossed to visit one or other of her cottagers. Presently he discovered that she was fishing the brook, and as he knew every mead and every hedge it was not at all difficult for him to follow her, and yet remain himself unobserved.
Three times he had followed in this way, watching her motions with an opera-glass when he could not safely approach very near. The movement of her arms, the shape of her figure as she cast the fly, her pose when she leaned against a tree or sat down to rest herself—not the least inclination of her beautiful form escaped him. He forgot himself, he lost himself utterly in the abstraction of his intense observation.
The third time (the fourth to Felise) becoming bolder, Martial contrived to pursue closer than he had hitherto done, and he was able to do this because she walked rapidly and did not look behind her. He now began to notice several things: first, she fished down stream, which is contrary to the maxims of the fly-fisher; next, she walked quickly and near the edge of the brook, while fishermen usually move gently and stand back from the bank; thirdly, she never gave a second cast, and she passed several promising places without a trial—but all these, it was true, might arise from her inexperience of fly-fishing.
But when a boy suddenly rose out of the brook—startling him by so sudden an appearance—and offered him the gut and the three flies which he had waded over and secured. Martial began to think there must be something else beside inexperience in all this.
“Her be fishing without any fly,” said the boy.
Martial walked on cogitating, and by-and-by saw that Felise slackened her pace where two or three footpaths crossed the fields he occupied. There she walked up and down, and seemed to be waiting. She had quite forgotten the fishing; she was waiting—for whom?
He saw now that the fishing was merely a pretence—who would attempt fishing in earnest such brilliant mornings, and the water low, too? She was waiting for someone.
Martial did not care for her in the least; she was nothing to him
