The voice seemed to proceed from the belly of the cow called Cherry, but the speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the flank of that motionless beast.
"Hav" anybody seen her?" said another.
There was a negative response from the first. "Though they say she"s a rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty little body enough," she added; and as the milkmaid spoke she turned her face so that she could glance past her cow"s tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, fading woman of thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest.
"Years younger than he, they say," continued the second, with also a glance of reflectiveness in the same direction.
Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge"s wedding, but the first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, ""Tis hard for _she_," signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid.
"O no," said the second. "He ha"n"t spoke to Rhoda Brook for years."
When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a many-forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set upright in the earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority then dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin woman who had not spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain went away up the field also.
Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high above the water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon Heath, whose dark countenance was visible in the distance as they drew nigh to their home.
"They"ve just been saying down in barton that your father brings his young wife home from Anglebury tomorrow," the woman observed. "I shall want to send you for a few things to market, and you"ll be pretty sure to meet "em."
"Yes, mother," said the boy. "Is father married then?"
"Yes.... You can give her a look, and tell me what"s she"s like, if you do see her."
"Yes, mother."
"If she"s dark or fair, and if she"s tall--as tall as I. And if she seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has been always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of the lady on her, as I expect she do."
"Yes."
They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It was built of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains into channels and depressions that left none of the original flat face visible; while here and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like a bone protruding through the skin.
She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf laid together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot ashes with her breath till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek, and made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome, seem handsome anew.
"Yes," she resumed, "see if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice if her hands be white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever done housework, or are milker"s hands like mine."
The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not observing that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the beech-backed chair.
_The Young Wife_
The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers homeward-bound from the former market-town, who trot all the rest of the way, walk their horses up this short incline.
The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig, with a lemon-coloured body and red wheels, was spinning westward along the level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver was a yeoman in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his face being toned to that bluish-vermilion hue which so often graces a thriving farmer"s features when returning home after successful dealings in the town.
Beside him sat a woman, many years his junior--almost, indeed, a girl.
Her face too was fresh in colour, but it was of a totally different quality--soft and evanescent, like the light under a heap of rose-petals.
Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road; and the long white riband of gravel that stretched before them was empty, save of one small scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved itself into the figure of a boy, who was creeping on at a snail"s pace, and continually looking behind him--the heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for, if not the reason of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party slowed at the bottom of the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was only a few yards in front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one hand on his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer"s wife as though he would read her through and through, pacing along abreast of the horse.
The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, and contour distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy"s persistent presence, did not order him to get out of the way; and thus the lad preceded them, his hard gaze never leaving her, till they reached the top of the ascent, when the farmer trotted on with relief in his lineaments--having taken no outward notice of the boy whatever.
"How that poor lad stared at me!" said the young wife.
"Yes, dear; I saw that he did."
"He is one of the village, I suppose?"
"One of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile or two off."
"He knows who we are, no doubt?"
"O yes. You must expect to be stared at just at first, my pretty Gertrude."
"I do,--though I think the poor boy may have looked at us in the hope we might relieve him of his heavy load, rather than from curiosity."
"O no," said her husband off-handedly. "These country lads will carry a hundredweight once they get it on their backs; besides his pack had more size than weight in it. Now, then, another mile and I shall be able to show you our house in the distance--if it is not too dark before we get there." The wheels spun round, and particles flew from their periphery as before, till a white house of ample dimensions revealed itself, with farm-buildings and ricks at the back.
Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and turning up a by-lane some mile and half short of the white farmstead, ascended towards the leaner pastures, and so on to the cottage of his mother.
She had reached home after her day"s milking at the outlying dairy, and was washing cabbage at the door-way in the declining light. "Hold up the net a moment," she said, without preface, as the boy came up.
He flung down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage-net, and as she filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on, "Well, did you see her?"
"Yes; quite plain."
"Is she ladylike?"
"Yes; and more. A lady complete."
"Is she young?"
"Well, she"s growed up, and her ways be quite a woman"s."
"Of course. What colour is her hair and face?"
"Her hair is lightish, and her face as comely as a live doll"s."
"Her eyes, then, are not dark like mine?"
"No--of a bluish turn, and her mouth is very nice and red; and when she smiles, her teeth show white."
"Is she tall?" said the woman sharply.
"I couldn"t see. She was sitting down."
"Then do you go to Holmstoke church tomorrow morning: she"s sure to be there. Go early and notice her walking in, and come home and tell me if she"s taller than I."
"Very well, mother. But why don"t you go and see for yourself?"
"I go to see her! I wouldn"t look up at her if she were to pa.s.s my window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What did he say or do?"
"Just the same as usual."