Chapter 2

‘Don’t make that a reproach against me, dear,’ said he. ‘Why it was just the thought of you made me so happy.’

She looked up at him with an expression of doubt and pain, and as their eyes met he caught one of her hands in both his, and held it.

‘Dear Bertha!’ he said, with a sudden moisture in his eyes. ‘There is nobody so good. There is nobody so lovely.’

She drew away from him again, though some sort of electric influence seemed to come out of him, and draw her strongly to him.

‘I must wait,’ she said. ‘I--I don’t know you well enough. I don’t understand you. You are too light. You are too careless. I don’t know how far I can believe you.’

‘Oh!’ he cried, ‘believe me altogether, dear. I love you with all my heart and soul!’

She moved to the middle of the room, and sheltered herself behind a table which stood there.

‘I hardly know whether you have a heart,’ she answered then. ‘You fancy you feel all you say,’ she added quickly. ‘You feel it for the minute.’

He stood at the other side of the table with brows suddenly grown gloomy.

‘I shall feel it all my life,’ he said. ‘It’s the one thing I’ve ever been in earnest about. I never thought I should feel as I do. If you like to wait, dear, before answering me, I’ll wait just as long as ever you please.’ His gloom was gone, and he was all eagerness and vivacity again. ‘There’s nothing I won’t do for your asking. I’ll cure every fault I’ve got. I’ll be everything you’d like to have me. Try me, darling. Wait and see. But give me only just a little bit of hope. Don’t send me away quite hungry. Tell me you care for me just a little--not as I care for you--I don’t expect that. It doesn’t stand to reason yet awhile you should.’

There she shot one swift glance at him, averting her gaze at once.

‘I won’t say I don’t like you,’ she answered with a candour half rustic, half characteristic of herself ‘But I won’t answer yes or no just yet.’

‘Very well, dear,’ he answered tenderly. ‘You shall have time to know if I’m in earnest, or if I’ve taken nothing more than a passing fancy. Shall I ask you again this day six months?’

‘I won’t promise you an answer then,’ she said. ‘I will answer you when I am certain.’

‘You could care for me, then,’ he urged her, ‘if you were only quite sure I loved you, and always would love you? Why, Bertha, I’d put my hand in that fire to save you from a finger-ache. I’d jump into the Weale there if I thought I could make you happy by doing it. I’d live my whole life your servant for a smile a year.’

His eyes flashed or moistened with every phrase, his gestures were superabundant and intense, and his voice was genuinely tender and impassioned.

His ardent eyes and voice thrilled the girl, and yet she doubted him. There was a fear in her mind which she could not shake away.

People in Beacon Hargate were not rich in opportunities for the study of the acted drama, but Bertha had seen a play or two in the great town hard by, and Lane looked and talked rather too much like a stage lover to her mind. In the unreal life behind the footlights lovers talked with just such a fluency, just such a tender fiery emphasis. In real life John Thistlewood came doggedly a-wooing with a shoulder propped against a doorpost, and had hard work to find a word for himself. If only that one absent element of faith could be imported into the business, Lane Protheroe’s fashion of courting was certain to be infinitely more delightful than John Thistlewood’s, but then the absent element was almost everything. And for poor Bertha the worst part of it seemed that she loved the man she doubted, and could not love the man in whose affection she held the profoundest faith. That the rough, clumsy, and persistent courtier loved her was one of the indisputable facts of life to her. She knew it just as surely as she knew that she was alive. She knew it, and the knowledge hurt her, for she could fancy nothing less hopeful than Thistle-wood’s wooing, and she was without a spark of mere vanity.

‘I think it is because you say so much that I don’t feel quite able to believe it all,’ she said. ‘You feel it when you talk about it, but it seems to me as if you _had_ to talk before you get to feel it.’

His brows bent down over gloomy eyes again, and he folded his arms as he looked at her. Once more poor Bertha thought of the stage lover she had seen, and a long-drawn sigh escaped her.

‘I can’t think it’s all quite real,’ she said, almost desperately.

‘You think I say too much?’ he retorted. ‘It seems to me as if I said too little. It seems to me as if there weren’t any words to speak such thoughts and feelings.’

‘Is that because you don’t value the words? ‘she .’ asked him. ‘Don’t you think that if you felt what the words do mean that they’d seem enough for you?’

‘I know I’m a good-for-nothing beggar,’ he answered, with a sudden air of weary self-loathing and disdain. ‘I know. I’ve got a way of taking everything in deadly earnest for an hour or two. But,’ with a sudden swerve into the track of self-justification, ‘if that makes you think I’m fickle and weak-willed, you’re all wrong, darling. There are some fellows--I know plenty--who go through life like a lot of oysters. They don’t feel anything--they don’t care about anything, or anybody. But, bless your heart, my dear, they never get doubted.’

Bertha took this for a satiric dig at the absent Thistlewood, and spoke up for him, needlessly, as it happened.

‘Still waters run deep, Mr. Protheroe.’

‘Some of ‘em do,’ responded Mr. Protheroe, with profoundest gloom, which lightened suddenly into a smile as bright as sunshine. ‘But some of ‘em don’t run at all. And some of ‘em are as shallow as any puddle you’ll find along the road, only they’re so bemuddled you can’t see to the bottom of ‘em. You can plumb ‘em with your little finger, though, if you don’t mind soiling it.’

Now this innocent generalisation seemed gratuitously offensive to the absent Thistlewood, and chilled Bertha greatly.

‘That may be very true of some people,’ she responded; ‘but it isn’t true of all the quiet people in the world.. And I don’t think, Mr. Protheroe, that the people who make the greatest parade of their feelings are the people who really have the most to speak of.’

‘Why, that’s true, too, of some people,’ returned Protheroe; ‘but there are all sorts in the world, dear. Some say a lot and feel a lot Some feel a lot and say nothing. Some say nothing and feel nothing. It may be a fault with me--I don’t know--but when I start to say a thing I want to say all of it. But surely a feeling isn’t less real because you don’t seem able to express it whatever words you choose.’

‘Where the feeling’s sacred the words are sacred,’ Bertha objected.

‘Tell me what it is you fear about me,’ he besought her, leaning across the table, and searching her face with his eyes. ‘You don’t believe I should have a wandering mind if you said yes, and we should once be married?’

She had laid the book upon the table, and now betook herself to fingering the leaves again.

‘I’ve no right to pick faults in you, or give you lessons, Mr. Protheroe.’

‘Oh yes, you have,’ he answered. ‘All the right in the world. If you’ll take in hand to show me my faults, I’ll take in hand to cure ‘em so far as a man may.’

‘I don’t think you’re fickle,’ said the girl hesitatingly; ‘but I do think you’re shallow, Mr. Protheroe.’

‘Not a bit of it, dear,’ he protested. ‘I’m as deep as Gamck. As for your still waters running deep, it’d be a better proverb to my mind to say deep waters run still--at times. Niagara’s deepish, folks say that have seen it. That’s not to say that I even myself with Niagara, you’ll understand, though ‘tis in my nature to splash about a good deal. But all that apart, Bertha dear, try to make up your mind to take me as I am, and help me to make a man o’ myself.’

At this point back came the farmer’s wife with a clatter of pails in the back kitchen to indicate her arrival in advance. Lane took his leave with a reluctant air, going away much more gravely than he had arrived.

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Fellowes, drawing her knitting from a capacious pocket and falling to work upon it at once, ‘hast sent Number Two about his business?’

Bertha cast an embarrassed look at her and blushed.

‘Mother,’ she said, ‘you seem to find out everything.’

‘Can find my way to the parish church by daylight,’ the elder woman answered with complacency. ‘But you tek care, my wench, whilst thee beest throwin’ all the straight sticks aside, as thee doesn’t pick up a crooked ‘un at the last. Thee hast a fancy for the lad, too, that’s as plain to be seen as the Beacon.’

‘Oh!’ cried Bertha, reddening again. ‘I hope not.’

‘For me, my gell,’ said her mother. ‘For me. And it’s outside my thinkin’ why a maid shouldn’t tek a fancy to him. A lad as is stiddy an’ handsome, and as blithe as sunshine! He’s as fond as a calf into the bargain.’

She liked to hear him praised, and, woman-like, began to depreciate him faintly.

‘I don’t think he’s very solid, mother,’ she said.

The elder woman smiled at the transparent artifice, and refused to be entrapped by it.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘Lane’s a bit of a butterfly, I will say. And Jack Thistlewood’s a bulldog. Mek your ch’ice betwixt ‘em while they’m there to be chose from. Which is it to be? Butterfly or bulldog?’

But Bertha answered nothing.

II

Things may have changed of late years, but in those days the parish churchyard was the great meeting-place for lovers who as yet were undeclared or unaccepted. The youth and the maid were both there for a purpose altogether removed from love-making--the meeting had the advantage of being accidental and certain. It was a tacit assignation which was almost certain to be kept, and even the shyest of sweethearts would dare to walk homewards together a little of the way even in the lightest of summer evenings.

When Sunday morning came, and the one musical bell began to tinkle, Bertha stood before her open bedroom window, tying her bonnet-ribbons at the glass, in the embarrassing certainty that both her lovers would be waiting outside the church to meet her. This certainty was the less to be endured, because Bertha had the sincerest desire to close with heavenly rather than with earthly meditations on a Sunday, but she could no more help being flustered by the thought of Lane Protheroe, and being chilled by the anticipation of Thistlewood’s look of bulldog fidelity, than she could help breathing. The girl’s trouble was that she could not give her heart to the man who commanded her respect, whilst it was drawn fluttering with all manner of electric palpitations towards another whom she thought infinitely less worthy.

There was nothing in the world against Lane Protheroe in any serious sense. Nobody spoke or thought ill of him, or had ground for ill speaking or thinking. But it was generally conceded that he _was_ a butterfly kind of young fellow, and there was a general opinion that he wanted ballast. Rural human nature is full of candour of a sort, and Lane was accustomed to criticism. He took it with a bright carelessness, and in respect to the charge of wanting ballast was apt to answer that ballast was a necessary thing for boats that carried no cargo. Thistlewood was generally admitted to be a well-ballasted personage--a man steady, resolved, serious, entirely trustworthy.

‘John Thistlewood’s word is as good as his bond,’ said one of his admirers one day in his presence.

‘John Thistlewood’s word _is_ his bond,’ said John Thistlewood, ‘as any man’s ought to be.’

People remembered the saying, and quoted it as being characteristic of the man,--a man cut roughly out of the very granite of fidelity.

Surely, thought Bertha, a girl ought to esteem herself happy in being singled out by such a man. The cold surface covered so steady, so lasting a glow. And as for Lane--well, Lane’s heats seemed the merest flashes, intense enough to heat what was near them, but by no means enduring. There was danger that anything which was of a nature to keep on burning might catch fire at him, and when well lit might find that the creating heat had gone out, or had withdrawn itself. She knew herself, by instinct, faithful to the core, and if once she consented to love the man, she would have to go on doing it. That looked likely to be terrible, and she fought against herself continually. And she not only tried not to love the butterfly, but had tried her loyal hardest to love the bulldog. The last chance of success in the second enterprise went out finally when Thistlewood had once so far conquered his clumsy reticence of manner as actually to put his arm about her waist. Then every fibre of her body cried out against him, and she escaped him, shivering and thrilling with a repulsion so strong that it seemed like a crime to her. How dared she feel the touch of so estimable a man to be so hateful? But from that moment the thing was settled beyond a doubt. She could respect John Thistlewood, she could admire the solidity and faithfulness of his character--but, marry him? That was asking for more than nature could agree to.

If Lane had only resembled John a little--ah! there was a glow of certainty called up by that fancy which might have been altogether delicious had the fancy been well grounded. If John had only been a little more like Lane? She was hardly so sure. Obviously, John was not the man for this girl to warm her heart at.

The worst of it was that he would never find or look for another girl, and his long courtship, though it could never endear him, or even make him tolerable as a lover, served at least to have established a sort of claim upon her. The great faithful heart might break if she should throw herself away. The depth of his affection, as she realised it for herself, could only be understood by one capable of an equal passion. She never guessed, or came near to guessing, that her conception of him was the realisation of herself; but it is only great hearts which truly know what great hearts can be, and her profound conception of Thistle-wood’s fidelity was her own best certificate to faithfulness.

The little musical bell went on tinkling as she walked across the fields. It had various rates of movement to indicate to distant worshippers the progress of the time, and she gave a careful ear to its warnings, so regulating her steps as only to enter the churchyard at the last minute.

There sure enough were both John and Lane waiting to pay their morning salutation. Happily, to her own mind, there was time for no more than a mere hand-shaking and a good-morning, and she walked into the church, beautifully tranquil to look at, though she could hardly believe that all the congregation could not guess with what a startled feeling her heart had begun to beat. By and by the influences of the place and the service began to soothe her, though she only succeeded in excluding her lovers by a conscious process of forgetfulness which was not so far removed from memory as it might have been.

The Thistlewood pew was a little to the front on her right, and the Protheroe pew a little to her front on the left, but she kept her eyes so studiously downcast that she got no glimpse of either, until a strange and altogether remarkable feeling of something missing surprised her into looking up. Her eyes went first to the Protheroe pew, and Lane was not there. Then in spite of herself she listened for Thistlewood’s voice in the Responses, and not detecting it, was impelled to look for him. He also was absent, and she began to quake a little. Was it possible they had stayed outside to quarrel? This fear would have been sufficiently serious at any time, but on a Sunday, during church hours, it magnified itself, which fact is in itself enough to prove that though the idea perturbed her she foresaw no very terrible consequences. It would be hateful to be quarrelled over, but both the combatants--if combatants they were to be--would respect her too much to proceed to extremities, and thereby make the quarrel public, and her a target for all tongues.

John and Lane had met in the churchyard pretty early, and whilst there were friends to greet, and to pass the time of day with, things went smoothly enough. But as the churchgoers filed by ones and twos into the building, each began to be aware of a solitude which was peopled only by the disagreeable presence of the other. John, ostentatiously disregardful of his adversary, planted himself at the gate, so as to be before him in his greeting. Lane, rather unusually erect and martial in his walk, marched past him into the village roadway, and there loitered for the same intent. Thistlewood, recognising the meaning of this manouvre, strolled into the roadway, and doggedly planted himself a yard or two beyond the spot where his rival had halted. Lane, with an air to the full as ostentatiously and offensively dis-regardful as the other’s, marched past Thistlewood with half a dozen soldierly-looking strides, and bringing himself to an abrupt halt made a disdainful back at him. Again Thistlewood advanced, but this time he drew himself up a trifle behind his rival, and laid a finger on his shoulder.

‘Well?’ said Protheroe, without turning his head.

‘I shall want a word with thee by and by, my lad,’ Thistlewood said quietly.

‘Have it now,’ replied Lane, settling his shoulders jauntily.

‘There’s time in plenty afore us,’ Thistlewood answered, regarding him with supreme disfavour.

The younger man looked straight before him with an exasperating aspect of indifference.

‘When you like,’ he said.

‘Very well,’ replied Thistlewood. ‘In five minutes’ time from now.’

‘Church time,’ said Lane smilingly, surveying the landscape.

‘Beest that keen set on the sermon?’ John inquired.

‘Don’t know that I am,’ replied the enemy, rising a little on his toes, and then settling his shoulders anew.

‘Five minutes’ time from now.’

The jaunty airs and scornful disregard began to warm Thistlewood’s blood a little.

‘Canst look a man i’ the face when thee talk’st to him? ‘he asked.

‘Yes, bless your heart and soul alive!’ cried Lane, swaggering round and beaming on him.

For half a minute they looked at each other, the one angry, resolute, and lowering, with head bent a little forward, his glance directed upward past his down-drawn brows, the other smiling with seeming sweetness and gaiety.

Thistlewood seemed to restrain himself with something of an effort.

‘We’ll talk together by and by,’ he said, and turning, deliberately walked back into the churchyard.

For a few seconds Lane stood glorying, but on a sudden it occurred to him that his rival was behaving in a more dignified manner than himself, and this was a reflection not to be endured without instant action. So he marched back into the churchyard also, and left John in the foreground. When Bertha appeared her elder lover paid his respects first, and Lane came up afterwards, looking, as she remembered later on, prodigiously gloomy and resolved.

The bell had been silent for a minute, and the curate’s voice had begun to drone within the building. The rivals were alone, and nobody was within sight or earshot.

‘Shall we walk a pace or two, Mr. Protheroe?’ asked John.

Mr. Protheroe, without speaking, sauntered out at the gate, vaulted a stile opposite, and paused in a field pathway. Thistlewood followed, throwing first one leg and then the other over the rail with a sort of laboured deliberation.

‘Now,’ said Lane.

‘We’ll walk on a little bit,’ answered Thistlewood, and there was silence for a minute or two as they strode along the grass. Then when they had reached the shelter of a little copse which hid them from the whole landscape on the church side, John said, ‘Now,’ in turn, and the two halted. Each was paler than common by this time, and Lane’s eyes sparkled, whilst the other’s burned steady with resentment.

‘’Twixt man and man as is willing to come to understand one another, Mr. Protheroe,’ said Thistlewood, ‘a very few words suffices. I’ll have thee nor no man else poaching on my manor.’

‘Well,’ Lane answered, ‘if ever I should arrive at owning a manor, I’d say the same. But I’d be sure of my title-deeds afore I took to warning other men off the ground.’

‘Let’s talk plain English,’ said John, apparently quite untouched by this rejoinder.

‘With all my heart,’ said his rival, ‘the plainer the better.’

‘I find you very much i’ my way,’ Thistlewood began ponderously.

‘I don’t find you a little bit in mine,’ Lane answered.

‘You talk to sting,’ said Thistlewood, with dull dignity. ‘I want to talk so as to be understood. I find you very much i’ my way, as I was saying, and I won’t have you theer.’

‘No?’

‘No!’

‘And how do you mean to set about getting rid of me?’

‘I’ve set about harder jobs than that i’ _my_ time, lad.’

‘Like enough. But how do you mean to set about this one?’

‘All in good time,’ said Thistlewood. ‘Sha’st find out speedily.’

‘Show me now,’ said Lane.

A breach of the peace seemed imminent, but, ‘Afore thee and me comes to that,’ the elder answered, ‘I want thee to have fair warnin’. It’s unbecomin’ in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to marry---- I’m a man as never changed nor halted nor turned aside from anything he set his mind upon. I’ve been courtin’ Miss Fellowes now this three year. It stands to reason as a frivolish young chap like you can mek no count of how a man feels, or of what a man ‘ud do in a like case.’

‘That stands to reason, does it?’ ‘It stands to reason,’ answered Thistlewood. ‘I suppose it stands to reason likewise that I am to stand to one side, and leave the road clear after this?’

‘It’d be the wisest thing you ever did.’ ‘Well, now, Thistlewood, you’ll please understand that, for all so frivolous as I may be, I’m hardly that easy to be swayed. As for who has a right on the ground, it’s a mere piece of impudence to talk about it. That’s neither for me nor you to choose. If ever I get straight “No” I’ll go, but I’ll have it before I go, for that’s a man’s bounden duty to himself.’

‘Understand thyself as bein’ warned away,’ said Thistlewood.

‘Understand thy warning as being laughed at,’ answered Lane. ‘You talk plain English? So will I. You’ve got the wrong pig by the ear. You’re no better than a dog in the manger. You’ve always been spoken of up till now as a man to play fair, but now it strikes me you play very far from fair, and cut a poor figure. As for threats--a man who won’t take a hiding when it’s offered to him--what’s _he_ good for, I should like to know?’

Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Protheroe was true to nature, and spoke with striking emphasis. He was quite red-hot with scorn at the imaginary fellow who would not take the proffered hiding, though a minute earlier, when he had told Thistlewood that he had the wrong pig by the ear, his manner had been marked by a cold and lofty superiority.

‘Beest warned! ‘said Thistlewood, ‘that’s enough.’

‘Not half enough, nor yet a quarter,’ cried Lane, with a bellicose air, not unmixed with swagger. ‘I’ve taught my hands to take care of my head, sir, and they’ll be ready to do it whenever the time occurs. But it always seemed a bit ridiculous to me to talk about fighting beforehand When the fight’s over there _is_ something to talk about.’

‘You seem to be in a hurry for that there hiding,’ said Thistlewood.

‘Hurry’s no word for it,’ the younger man responded, with cheerful alacrity.

‘Very well,’ said the elder, taking off his hat and bestowing it carefully upon the grass, ‘sha’st have it.’

Lane, for his part, threw down his hat, flourished his coat off, dropped it behind him, rolled up his sleeves, and waited whilst Thistlewood made his preparations more slowly. Protheroe set that mellow whistle of his to work on ‘The British Grenadiers,’ and his enemy smiled grimly to think how soon he would silence the music.