CHAPTER XXVI

A THORN BOUGH

Jack trudged down hill.

The night was not dark. Mrs. Jose had purposely chosen one on which the almanack informed her there would be a moon, so that the young people might not have to return in the dark. She was a considerate woman in all that she undertook.

But nearly all those who were assembled in her barn came from Axmouth, and would go home together. 'However,' said Mrs. Jose, 'a moon won't hurt and is advisable.'

Aloft great white clouds were drifting like icebergs in a polar sea, but below there was little wind. Occasionally, when one of these clouds came before the moon it partially eclipsed it, but was itself transformed into a luminous haze, with a halo about it.

Bindon grounds had been well timbered. Already, the finest trees had been cut down, and the grounds had been curtailed and cut up for the accommodation of cattle. Beneath the trees the shadows were as ink blots, but otherwise the sward was silver. A sufficient dew had fallen to catch the moonlight and be converted by it into pearl.

Jack walked down the road to the gate at the bottom of the descent, where the stream that whispered down the valley hushed for a moment as it dipped under the little bridge before the gate that opened on to the old Roman road which descended as a phosphorescent ribbon to Axmouth from Lyme, a stretch of the Fosse way that led direct from London to Land's End.

But at the gate he halted.

Here, in place of a stately entrance of piers, surmounted with balls, proper to give admission to the domain of a great mansion, was a shabby farmyard gate, for Bindon had been deserted by its gentle owners before the reign of Queen Anne, when park gates of this description came into fashion. On the wooden bar of the gate Jack leaned and considered. He heard men talking as they stood in the road. He could see lights twinkling in the windows of Axmouth.

One long single-sided street constitutes the village of Axmouth. The houses were on the right, on the left the dancing stream, and the distance to the beach was a quarter of a mile. From below the churchyard wall, that was lapped by high tides, a pebble path led to the point at which the ferry crossed. Dench lived on the farther side, but a call would bring him across.

If he walked down that attenuated village street, Jack knew that he would encounter men leaving the tavern, or lounging in conversation in the moonlight, and would run the gauntlet of mothers on their doorsteps awaiting the return of their daughters and curious to ascertain with whom they walked home.

In the clear silver glare he could not expect to escape recognition, and he was certain to be addressed and questioned as to whether he had been at Bindon, whether there were not grand 'goings-on' there; and if he said he had not been one of Mrs. Jose's guests, then he would be questioned as to where he had been, and why he was returning that way. In the humour in which he was, Jack shrank from the ordeal of undergoing so close a catechism. He was disinclined for conversation. Consequently, instead of pursuing his course, he turned back, resolved to repass Bindon, and take the way above the house that led down the shallow combe running parallel with the Axmouth Valley, and which would lead him to a point somewhat nearer the mouth of the river, but equally convenient for the ferry. It was true that by this means he was describing the letter C, but this mattered not. Time was to him of no object, and his limbs were insensible to fatigue. Young couples loitered about outside Bindon in sufficient amorous warmth not to regard December cold, and Jack avoided them by keeping well up the hill slope and under the trees, and by this means regained the road above the house. The road, however, at once dwindled to a path. The downs have of late years been enclosed, and made to grow turnips instead of heather and gorse. It was not so then, consequently the path to the common was not required for wagons and carts, and was weedy and unconsidered. It was closed against the down by fir-poles run across the gap.

There was a thorn-tree here that threw a shadow over the rails. The leaves had been shed, but so dense was the tangle of interlacing boughs and twigs and spines that the shadow was more bewildering and blurring than if it had been a blot.

Jack came upon the extemporised gate abruptly and unexpectedly. He was not thinking of the barrier. His mind was occupied with other matters.

He would have run against the larch-poles, had not some one who leaned against them turned sharply at his tread, confronted him and asked what he was about.

He started back, in surprise, but recovered himself instantly, and said, 'Who are you blocking the way? This is no toll-gate.'

'What are you about, running after me?'

'I――I run after you? Let me know who you are, who supposes such nonsense?'

He saw next moment, for she who had spoken stepped forward into the blaze of silver light.

'Do not come near,' said she. It was Winefred. 'I have plucked a branch of thorn from the tree, and will strike you in the face if you venture.'

'There is no need for a thorn branch when you have a needle in your mouth.'

'Why have you followed me?'

'I did not know that you had left the barn.'

'That is false. You have been watching me.'

'I have been to the Axmouth gate, but I changed my mind and came back.'

'You have been watching me. I saw you. What right have you to stare me out of countenance?'

'A cat may look at a Queen, and a poor lad like me may look at a clawed cat, I reckon.'

'I will not be peered at. At revels, clowns grin through a horse-collar――but to cut grimaces through a slit in a wall is not a Christmas pastime.'

'It is not forbidden to look on at a dance.'

'I will not be stared at like a bearded woman or a spotted boy at a show. Why have you pursued me?'

'I have not pursued you. I will not say that I was not thinking of you as I came along the lane and stumbled on you, for I was.'

'And what, pray, were your thoughts? Here is a penny to pay for them, though I warrant that it is beyond their worth.'

'I was thinking of you. Yes. I saw that you were not enjoying yourself.'

'I was enjoying myself bravely.'

'No, you were not. You were vastly unhappy. I saw how your mouth worked. You came away, not because I stared you out of countenance, but because you could no longer restrain your tears.'

'It is false. I came away because I would not be exposed to any rude Peeping Tom.'

'Peeping Jack saw you――naked as Godiva――that is your bruised and wretched soul, that was bare to me. I saw how it suffered.'

She stamped, but said nothing. Her bosom was heaving with passion, but she switched to and fro with the thorn branch as a precaution lest he should approach; then she turned and struck at the improvised gate as though she must strike something; after that, feeling that her courage would give way unless she looked the lad full in the face, she reverted to her former position, fronting him.

'I really do not know what concern one has with the other,' said Jack. 'Stand aside that I may remove the poles; then go through yourself or let me pass.'

But she would not do this, or did not hear his demand. There was something brooding in her mind that must out before they separated.

'Yes,' she said, with suppressed emotion, 'we have a good deal to do with each other. You know what folk say of mother and of me; not that I care――no, not this.' She bit off a piece of the bark from the thorn twig and spat it forth. 'If there had been the smallest foundation in what they say, why did they not set the constables to work and have mother and me arrested and sent to prison?'

'No one has accused _you_ of any crime.'

'But they do charge mother, and that is the same thing. You do. I remember what you said when we met last, on the undercliff. If the money we have now to spend were indeed yours, I would dash it in your face, shower it over your head, strew the ground with it, not keep one farthing. I would strip off my smart clothes and go forth in my old patched gown once more to peddle tapes and thimbles. You believe my mother is wicked? You believe it? Answer me.'

'Nothing, as you say, has been proved.'

'Then you have no right to accuse her. You have no right to believe us capable of having done it――of having one penny which is not justly our own.'

'I do not know what to think. Of one thing I am quite certain――you are blameless.'

'That is as much as saying that my mother is guilty. She could not do it. She could not do it. She would not do it. When did she ever cheat in a matter of a finger's breadth of ribbon. Did not she always sell thirteen for twelve, never eleven, never, never? I know my mother, I have known her since I was a little babe, and I never, never knew her do what was not just and true. She could not be a thief. As for these people around, all but Mrs. Jose, let them chatter and slander and backbite if they will. Let them think evil in their hearts, for their hearts are muddy wells that give forth naught but slime. But you――you should be nobler――better――and yet it is you――O! my mother, my dear innocent mother! my mother who――――'

Her heart swelled to choke her. She bit her lips, fought with herself. She could not speak more, she would have betrayed her weakness by falling into a convulsion of sobs.

'May I undo the barrier?' asked Jack, after a long pause.

Winefred had withdrawn her face into shadow, lest he should see it.

'As you will,' she answered shortly.

Then, as he was engaged in removing the fir-poles, and his back was towards her, she broke forth again in rapid speech.

'I know that you are at the bottom of this league formed against us; you and Olver Dench set all in movement, stir up the hive and send them forth with their stings to fall on mother and me. I know what you do――you represent yourself as a lamb and us as wolves. You feeble, bleating lamb! Baa-aah! Look at me, you say, I have no wool. I have been plucked by them.'

He raised his hand in deprecation.

'Yes,' she said vehemently, 'do not deny it. You are greedy after compassion, and so you represent us as rogues, and when every one points at us and screams out "Thieves!" you come sneaking up to see the effect, and how we bear it, and burst into laughter if we wince. Mother has no deadlier enemy than the ferryman; you know it, and you go lodge with him, and together you two men contrive schemes against us defenceless women. There is not a child but looks at us with fear, as monsters of wickedness; not a woman who does not think we infect the neighbourhood. And then, when we are stung and torn, you creep up to gloat on our tears. You will not stand forward openly; you peep through holes. It gave you pleasure. You chuckled and rubbed your hands because no girl spoke with me, no lad asked me to dance――because there, in a crowd, I was alone――quite alone.' Her bosom tossed like a stormy sea. 'But what care I for being alone? I am glad that I am so in the midst of a rabble of mean and spiteful girls and country clowns.'

'Winefred――――'

'How dare you call me Winefred? I am――――'

'Oh! I forgot. Miss Holwood.'

Then all at once her anger gave way. In a lower tone she said, 'Call me what you will. I do not care. I sold laces and pins and needles――pins at a ha'penny a row. Yes, I am a tramp, a common huckster. Say what you will. I know I am honest, and I know my mother is clear as sea-water. Say what you will, you and that bully Dench. I am alone, and there is none to protect me. Insult me as you choose. It is fine sport for men. They can worry us and do not fear having their fingers bitten. I cannot defend myself against a brute like Dench and a coward like you combined against me.'

'Winefred,' said the young man, 'I also am alone, utterly alone in the world. In that we are alike. But there the likeness ends. I am poor, you are rich. But in my poverty and solitude I thank God I am not as you are, full of malice.'

'Of malice!'

'Of resentment and rage.'

'Have I not a cause? When every one is set against us, when we are worried and baited, can we curl up and take it calmly? The hedgehog can do that because of his prickles. If I were to scream out all would laugh. When I shut my lips you sneer and say I am holding back my tears. Let me through.'

Without another word, without a good-night, but dashing a blow at him, a harmless stroke with the thorn bough, she thrust through the gateway he had made and went forth upon the down.