Chapter II

A thousand thorns, and briers, and stings
I have in my poor breast;
Yet ne’er can see that salve which brings
My passion any rest.

HERRICK.

‘WELL, my boy, I be main glad you be come back. There bain’t no place like home, be there?’

As Isaac Sharpe repeated these words for the twentieth time since his nephew’s arrival, he beamed affectionately upon him through the fragrant steam of the bowl of punch specially brewed in his honour, and then, leaning back in his chair, sighed and shook his head.

‘Ye be wonderful like your mother, Richard,’ he said, and sighed again, and groaned, and took another sip of punch, blinking the while, partly from the strength of the decoction and partly because he was overcome by emotion.

Richard, sitting opposite to him, stretched out his legs luxuriously to the warmth of the crackling wood fire, and, removing his pipe from his lips, gazed contentedly round the familiar kitchen, which was now looking its best in the homely radiance.

‘It is good to come back to the dear old place and to find everything exactly the same as ever. You don’t seem to have grown a day older, Uncle Isaac—nothing is changed. I can’t tell you how delightful that is. I had been tormenting myself during the journey with fancying I should find things altered—but, thank Heaven, they are not.’

He glanced brightly at the broad, rubicund face opposite to him, and took his glass from the table.

‘Your health, Uncle! May you live a thousand years, and may you be the same at the end of them!’

He half emptied his glass, and set it down with a cheery laugh.

Isaac drank slowly from his, peering meanwhile at his nephew over the rim.

‘Thank you, my lad,’ he said, replacing it on the table at last. ‘I’m obliged to you, Richard. ’T is kindly meant, but changes, d’ ye see’—here he paused and coughed—‘changes, Richard, is what must be looked for in this here world.’

His colour, always sufficiently ruddy, was now so much heightened, and his face assumed so curiously solemn an expression, that Richard paused with his pipe half-way to his lips and stared at him with amazement and gathering alarm.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said, anxiously. ‘Are n’t you feeling well? You’re looking first-rate.’

‘Never felt better in my life,’ rejoined his uncle in sepulchral tones.

‘Come, that’s all right! You quite frightened me. What do you mean by talking about changes?’

Isaac took a gulp from his tumbler and fixed his round eyes dismally on the young man.

‘There may be sich things as changes for the better,’ he remarked, still in his deepest bass.

‘Don’t believe in ’em,’ cried Richard gaily. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to turn Methody, or Salvationist, or anything of that kind. I like you as you are—and I don’t want you to be any better.’

‘Dear heart alive, what notions the chap d’ take in his head!’ ejaculated the farmer, relaxing into a smile. ‘Nay now, I never thought on sich things; but there’ll be a change in this here house for all that, Richard. I be a-goin’’—here Isaac leaned forward, with a hand on either knee, and fixed his eyes earnestly, almost tragically, on his nephew—‘I be a-goin’, Richard, for to change my state.’

He slowly resumed an upright position, drawing in his breath through dilated nostrils.

‘I be a-goin’, Richard,’ he continued, observing the other’s blank and uncomprehending stare—‘I be a-goin’ to get married.’

‘Bless me!’ exclaimed Richard, taken aback for a moment; then rising from his chair he stepped up to his uncle, and slapped him heartily on the back. ‘Well done!’ he cried. ‘Well done! I give you joy! Upon my life I did n’t think you had so much go in you—you’re a splendid old chap!’

‘Thank ’ee,’ said Isaac, without much enthusiasm. ‘I’m glad you’re not agen it.’

‘Why should I be against it?’ returned Richard hilariously. ‘I’m a little surprised, because I did n’t think that was in your line; but, after all, “Marry in haste and repent at leisure,” the saying goes—your case is the reverse; you have taken your time about marrying, so perhaps it will be all the better for you.’

‘I hope so, I’m sure,’ said the bridegroom-elect, dolefully; adding, as Richard, still laughing, resumed his seat, ‘I thought I’d best tell ’ee at once as there was goin’ to be a change.’

‘Well, well, a change for the better, as you say,’ cried the other. ‘There’ll be two to welcome me when I pay the Down Farm a visit instead of one. I shall find a jolly old aunt as well as a jolly old uncle.’

Isaac took his pipe out of his mouth with a perturbed expression.

‘She bain’t so very old,’ he remarked.

‘No, no—of course not. Neither are you for that matter. May she be an evergreen like yourself!’

‘Thank ’ee, Richard, thank ’ee. I’m glad as you approve o’ my thinking on matrimony.’

‘Why, matrimony’s the best thing going,’ said Richard, still gaily, yet with an undercurrent of something curiously like tenderness. ‘Every grief is lessened by half, and every joy is doubled. Always a bright cheery face at the fireside, always a kind true hand in yours—a woman’s wit to point out where the man has been at fault.’

‘Ah,’ interrupted his uncle, with a groan, ‘they be willin’ enough to do that!’

‘Always ready to comfort you when you are in trouble,’ went on the young man without heeding him, ‘ready to advise you when you are in a difficulty—the best of companions, the most faithful of friends, the kindest of helpmates—that’s a wife!’

The farmer was gazing across at him with bewilderment mixed with delight.

‘Well said, Richard,—very well said! Ye be wonderful quick wi’ your tongue. If that’s the way ye feel about wedlock you ought to be lookin’ out for a wife o’ your own.’

‘Nonsense, Uncle Isaac. Why, I have n’t a penny. I shall have hard work to keep myself to begin with.’

‘Come, come, we mid be able to manage summat. I’ve a notion in my head. Ye be a-goin’ to take up farm-work agen, ye tell me; well, an’ as I says to you: Why not work on the farm where ye was brought up, and why not take wage from your own flesh and blood instead of lookin’ to strangers for ’t?’

‘There’s no one I should like to work for better than you, Uncle Isaac—you know that.’

‘I do know it, Richard. I d’ know it very well. “But,” says you to me, “I must have somewheres to live,” says you.’

‘No, I don’t, Uncle Isaac! I say nothing of the kind,’ put in the young man hastily. ‘If you intended to remain a bachelor it would be a different matter, but—’

‘I’m not axing you to live wi’ me,’ returned Isaac, throwing out his hand in a lordly manner. ‘If I was a-goin’ to keep single it ’ud come nat’ral enough, but my new missus—Well, ’t is this way. She have got a house of her own, and she’s anxious for me to live over there along o’ her.’

‘I see,’ said Richard, looking rather astonished, however.

‘’Ees, I were agen it at first, but I come round to it arter. So I reckoned to let this here house to somebody—one of the men, p’r’aps; but now has you’ve a-comed back, Richard, my boy, there bain’t nobody I’d like to see livin’ here so much as yourself. My notion ’ud be for you to settle down wi’ a wife to do for you and keep the place tidy, and work this here farm under me. My hands ’ull be pretty full, and I’ll be glad o’ your help. _She’s_ got a biggish place to manage, and I’ll be glad to think as there’s somebody here as I can rely on. Well, what do you say?’

‘What do I say?’ cried Richard, stammering with joy. ‘What can I say? I don’t know how to thank you!’

‘Well,’ said the farmer jovially; ‘and now, what about the missus? ’Ave ’ee got your eye on anyone as ’ud suit?’

‘Why,’ began Richard eagerly; he paused, and then continued laughingly, ‘you must give me a little time, you know. I’ve only been a few days in England.’

‘That’s true. I’m glad to think, my lad, as you don’t want to take a wife from abroad. Nay, don’t ye go travellin’ for a wife. Take my word for ’t, the best is often to be picked up close at hand. Not always, though,’ he continued, reflectively. ‘Poor Elias Fiander—ye mind ’Lias Fiander? He went travellin’ all the way to Dorchester to buy a turmit-hoin’ machine, and it was there, nigh upon eighteen miles off, as he come across his last missus. But you know her,’ he went on with animation—‘aye, now as I call it to mind, you were a-tellin’ me how you drove her back to-day. Ah, sure, so ye did.’

‘Yes,’ said Richard quickly; ‘yes, I told you all about that.’

‘Ah, so ye did. ’Twere funny how you come across her. I be pleased to think as ye’ve met. She were a good missus to Elias—she were, indeed—and a good missus to one man is like to be a good one to another.’

Richard caught his breath and leaned forward; his face was flushed, his eyes shining.

‘Why do you say this to me now?’ he said eagerly.

His uncle removed his pipe from his mouth, took a sip of punch, and then looked at him solemnly.

‘Because, Richard, my boy, ’t is but nat’ral I should talk of her, seein’ as we be goin’ to be man an’ wife so soon.’

‘What do you mean?’ cried Richard, almost violently. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Why,’ returned Isaac, raising his voice to a kind of mild roar, ‘you have n’t been listenin’ to me. I’ve been a-talkin’ about Mrs. Fiander—’Lias’s widow. I be a-goin’ to get married to she!’

‘You!’ exclaimed his nephew in the same loud fierce tone.

‘’Ees,’ bellowed Farmer Sharpe. ‘Have n’t I been a-tellin’ ye this hour and more? Did n’t I say I were a-goin’ to change my state, and did n’t I tell ’ee she’d a house of her own and wanted me to live over there along of her? But your brains was wool-gatherin’—I’ll lay a shillin’ you was a-thinkin’ o’ your own young woman!’ cried Isaac, with a roar of laughter, stretching forward a long arm that he might give his nephew a facetious dig on the nearest available portion of his person.

Richard laughed too, spasmodically, and with a wry face.

‘You’re a sly dog, Uncle Isaac,’ he said. ‘Ah, you’re a cunning old chap—you’ve got your wits about you if mine have gone astray! Yes, and you’ve very good taste too—you’ve picked out the greatest beauty in Dorset.’

‘Except your young woman, eh?’ put in Isaac, with a chuckle and another dig.

‘Except my young woman, of course,’ agreed Richard, laughing again with that odd contortion of the face. ‘But I have n’t found her yet, you know.’

‘My weddin’-day is fixed for the end o’ Ju—ly,’ said his uncle ruminatively. You’ll have to look out for your missus afore that time. I doubt as you and Bithey ’ud scarce get on so very well—I’m used to her, you see, but she’s a cranky old body, and it ’ud never do for ye to settle down wi’out a woman o’ some kind to do for ’ee. We might ha’ the two weddin’s same day: I’d like to know as you was settled when I have to shift.’

‘Thank you kindly, uncle; you’ve always been like a father to me, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for the welcome you’ve given me, and for wanting to do so much for me. But I don’t know about settling down after all—I’ve been a rover so long, you see, I—I might n’t be able to stick to it and then you might be disappointed.’

‘Stuff an’ nonsense! I’ll not hear o’ no objections. Why, Richard, you never were one to blow hot one minute and cold the next. It bain’t half an hour since you said there was naught you wished for so much as to take up farm-work again and live on the old place—did n’t ’ee?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘But nothin’! You’re a-wool-gatherin’—that’s it. Your thoughts is a-wanderin’ off to the new missus.’

‘Is not that to be expected?’ returned his nephew idly.

Resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands he leaned forward, gazing thoughtfully into the fire:

‘I have n’t got over my surprise at your piece of news yet,’ he said, after a pause. ‘I thought you so determined a bachelor.’

‘So I thought myself,’ put in Isaac with a nod.

‘And then—from what I’ve seen of Mrs. Fiander I should never have imagined that she would be the wife you would choose when you did make up your mind to take one.’

‘Why so?’ inquired Isaac, somewhat roughly.

‘She’s so young—forty years younger than you, I should think.’

‘Thirty-nine,’ corrected his uncle succinctly.

‘Then she is so beautiful—so full of life, and spirit, and dash. I can’t imagine how you came to think of her.’

There was a pause, during which Isaac meditatively smoked and rubbed his knees.

‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I did n’t exactly think of it myself, ye see—but I could n’t someways find it in my heart to say No.’

‘To say what?’ cried the young man, dropping his hands and whisking round in his chair.

Isaac gazed at him mildly, and continued to polish his corduroys.

‘To say No,’ he repeated, slightly uplifting his voice, and speaking very slowly and distinctly. ‘I say I could n’t find it i’ my ’eart to—say—No—when she axed me!’

‘She asked you! Do you mean to say that the proposal came from her?’

His uncle nodded.

‘’T war n’t very likely it ’ud ha’ come fro’ me,’ he remarked dispassionately. ‘As I told her at the time, I never was a marryin’ man.’

A silence ensued, during which Richard vainly endeavoured to readjust his ideas. At length he said faintly:

‘And what did she say to that?’

‘She said,’ returned Farmer Sharpe stolidly, ‘that it would n’t be a bad thing for me—“’t is a fine farm,” says she, “and a good business. You could easy work the two farms together,” says she.’

Richard gazed at his uncle with starting eyes and a dropping jaw.

‘But why, in the name of Fortune?’ he ejaculated. ‘I could understand her marrying again—but why you?’

‘She knowed I’d work the farm right, d’ ye see? Things was goin’ wrong all round, and she knowed I understood the work. Ah, I told her myself at the time that she ought to look out for a younger man; but she says, “I don’t want no counter-jumpers,” says she—meanin’ the Branston folks. Ah, there were a good few after her, but she did n’t fancy none o’ them. She thought some was arter the money, and none o’ them knowed anythin’ about dairy-farmin’.’

‘In fact,’ struck in Richard, rising from his chair and beginning to pace hastily about the room, ‘she has proved herself to be a most practical woman. You won’t make away with her money—you won’t allow mismanagement of the business.’

‘Jist so,’ agreed his uncle, sucking vigorously at his partially extinguished pipe.

Richard continued to walk about the room, and presently paused opposite the hearth.

‘Did she make an offer to Elias Fiander too?’ he inquired sharply.

Isaac removed his pipe and stared up at him. The idea was evidently presented to him for the first time.

‘He never telled me so,’ he said. ‘It were made up in a hurry, to be sure. ’Lias had n’t no notion o’ sich a thing when he started off from here. He went arter a turnip-hoer arter her granfer’s death. They sold ’en up, poor old chap, and Rosalie—that’s Mrs. Fiander—had n’t nowhere to go.’

‘Ha!’ remarked Richard sardonically.

‘But I think,’ pursued the farmer, averting his eyes from his nephew’s face and gazing stolidly at the fire—‘I _think_ ’twas ’Lias as axed her. ’Ees, now I can mind he told me so at the time. “Me wantin’ a wife so bad,” says he, “and her bein’ such a good hand at the dairy-work, I thought I’d make sure o’ her,” he says.’

‘She told him, I suppose, that she was a good hand at dairy-work,’ commented Marshall. ‘Yes, I understand the matter now. She is, as I say, a practical woman.’

‘She is—she is,’ agreed Farmer Sharpe warmly. ‘She be a wonderful good manager. Many’s the time I’ve said that. Ah, I reckon I can say I’m in luck.’

Richard murmured something inarticulate and returned to his chair, re-lighting his pipe and beginning to smoke without further remark. On the opposite side of the hearth Isaac ruminated contentedly, without appearing to notice his nephew’s preoccupation, and tumblers and pipes were emptied in almost unbroken silence.

When Richard sought his room that night—the familiar little attic-room which had been his in childhood—his first act after a cursory glance of recognition and approval was to set down his candle on the little deal table and to draw carefully from his pocket a large envelope. Opening this, he took out a print, evidently cut from some illustrated paper, or collection of ‘Pictures of the Year.’ Holding it close to the light, he looked at it intently. Underneath were the words, ‘A Sleeping Beauty,’ followed by the artist’s name. The picture represented a cornfield with a large ‘shock’ of sheaves to the front, beneath which lay the outstretched figure of a girl asleep. Even in this rough reproduction a certain likeness to Rosalie was discernible, and Richard’s fancy supplied the rest. Indeed, as he gazed, he contemplated not only the glowing and highly-finished work of art which had haunted him persistently since he had first beheld it, but the vision of that afternoon—the exquisite face, the lithe, graceful form which had suddenly appeared to him against its background of bloom and sunlit green. He seemed to hear again the blithe young voice which had thrilled him as it prattled at his side; he seemed to see the large eyes lifted a little shyly to his, and then modestly dropped because of his too evident admiration.

He had deemed these things the outward indication of absolute womanly perfection. His young imagination, fired by the unexpected meeting with Rosalie, and further stimulated by his uncle’s chance remarks, had created a marvellous romance before Isaac had pronounced the name of his own future bride. Now the golden glow had vanished, all was flat, and dull, and grey; and, what was worse, he knew his ideal to have been delusive. Young bloom and beauty and fascination meant nothing—Rosalie Fiander was a calculating, mercenary woman, devoid even of feminine reticence. Not content with ‘setting her cap’—odious phrase!—at the man whom she considered best likely to protect her interests, she had actually offered herself to him, haggled over the prospective bargain, weighed with him the gains which must accrue to both. When she was little more than a child she had angled for old Elias Fiander. Well, she was homeless and penniless then, and might from her extreme youth be supposed to know no better, but now in the ripeness of her womanhood, with wealth, liberty, all that she could desire, at her command, she must needs sell herself again! Pah! such a nature must positively be depraved.

With an impetuous movement he held the paper over the candle, but as suddenly snatched it away again, extinguishing the flame with his finger and thumb, and rubbing the burnt edge ruefully:

‘This at least is a thing of beauty,’ he said; ‘why destroy it?’

Then, hastily restoring the print to its wrapper and thrusting it into his pocket again, he muttered: ‘I wish I had never seen her.’