 Chapter 1 of The Woodlanders This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by James O'Connor The Woodlanders by Thomas Hoddy Chapter 1 For old association or other reasons should trace the forsaken coach road running almost in a meridional line from Bristol to the south shore of England would find himself during the latter half of his journey in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands interspersed with apple orchards. Here the trees timber or fruit-bearing as the case may be make the wayside hedges ragged by their drip and shade stretching over the road with easeful horizontality as if they found the unsubstantial air and adequate support for their limbs. At one place where a hill is crossed the largest of the woods shows itself bisected by the highway as the head of thick hair is bisected by the white line of its potting. The spot is lonely. The leonomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree that is not reached by mere dales or dounds and bespeaks a tomb-like stillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools. The contrast of what is with what might be probably accounts for this. To step for instance at the place under notice from the hedge of the plantation joining pale thoroughfare and pause amid its emptiness for a moment was to exchange by the act of a single stride the simple absence of human companionship for an incubus of the forelaw. At this spot on the lowering evening of a bygone winter's day there stood a man who had entered upon the scene much in the aforesaid manner into the road from a style had by he though by no means had chosen vessel for impressions was temporarily influenced by some such feeling of being suddenly more alone than before he had emerged upon the highway. It could be seen by a glance at his rather finical style of dress that he did not belong to the country proper and from his heir after a while there might be a sombre beauty in the scenery music in the breeze and a worn procession of coaching ghosts in the sentiment of this old turnpike road he was mainly puzzled about the way the dead men's work that had been expended in climbing that hill the blistered souls that had trodden it and the tears that had wetted it were not his concern for fate had given him time for any but practical things he looked north and south and mechanically prodded the ground with his walking stick a closer glance at his face corroborated the testimony of his clothes it was self-complacent yet there was small apparent ground for such complacence nothing irradiated it to the eye of the magician in character if not to the ordinary observer the expression enthroned there was absolute submission to and belief in a little assortment of forms and habitudes at first not a soul appeared who could enlighten him as he desired or seemed likely to appear that night but presently a slight noise of laboring wheels and the steady dig of a horse's shoe tips became audible and there loomed in the notch of the hill and plantation that the road formed here at the summit a carrier's van drawn by a single horse when it got nearer he said with some relief to himself to his Mrs. Dolleries this will help me the vehicle was half full of passengers mostly women he held up his stick at its approach and the woman who was driving drew rain I've been trying to find a short way to little him-talk this last half hour, Mrs. Dolleries he said, but though I've been to Great Hintock and Hintock House half a dozen times I am at fault about the small village you can help me I dare say she assured him that she could that as she went to Great Hintock her van passed near it that it was only up the lane that branched out of the lane into which she was about to turn just ahead though continued Mrs. Dolleries this is such a little small place that as a town gentleman you'd need have a candle and lantern to find it if you don't know where it is be dad, I wouldn't live there if they'd pay me to now at Great Hintock you do see the world a bit he mounted and sat beside her with his feet outside where they were ever an anon brushed over by the horse's tail this van, driven and owned by Mrs. Dolleries was rather a movable attachment of the roadway than an extraneous object to those who knew it well the old horse whose hair was of the roughness and color of heather whose leg joints, shoulders, and hooves were distorted by harness and drudgery from coldhood though if all had their rights he ought symmetrical in outline to have been picking the herbage of some eastern plain instead of tugging here had trodden this road almost daily for twenty years even his subjection was not made congruous throughout for the harness being too short his tail was not drawn through the proper so that the breaching slipped awkwardly to one side he knew every subtle incline of the seven or eight miles of ground between Hintock and Sheraton Abbas the market town to which he journeyed as accurately as any surveyor could have learned it by a dumpy level the vehicle had a square black tilt which nodded with the motion of the wheels and at a point in it over the driver's head was a hook to which the reins were hitched at times when they formed a catenary curve from the horse's shoulders somewhere about the axles was a loose chain whose only known purpose was to clink as it went Mrs. Dollary having to hop up and down many times in the service of her passengers or especially in windy weather shot leggings under her gown for modesty's sake and instead of a bonnet a felt hat tied down with a handkerchief to God against an earache to which she was frequently subject in the rear of the van was a glass window which she cleaned with her pocket handkerchief every market day before starting looking at the van from the back the spectator could thus see through its interior a square piece of the same sky and landscape that he saw without but intruded on by the profiles of the seated passengers who as they rumbled onward their lips moving and heads nodding and animated private converse remained in happy unconsciousness that their mannerisms and facial peculiarities were sharply defined to the public eye this hour of coming home from market was the happy one if not the happiest of the week for them snugly ensconced under the tilt they could forget the sorrows of the world without and survey life and recapitulate the incidents of the day with placent smiles the passengers in the back part formed a group to themselves and while the newcomer spoke to the proprietress they indulged in a confidential chat about him as about other people which the noise of the van rendered inaudible to himself and Mrs. Dolary sitting fallen Tisbaba Perkholm he that's got the waxen woman in his window at the top of Abbey Street said one what business can bring him from his shop out here at this time and not a journeyman haircutter but a master Baba that's left off his pole because it is not genteel they listened to his conversation but Mr. Perkholm though he had nodded and spoken genially seemed indisposed to gratify the curiosity which he had aroused and the unrestrained flow of ideas which had animated the inside of the van before his arrival was checked thence forward thus they rolled on till they turned into a half-invisible little lane whence as it reached the verge of an imminent could be discerned in the dusk about half a mile to the right gardens and orchards sunk in a concave and as it were snipped out of the woodland from this self-contained place rose in stealthy silence tall stems of smoke which the eye of imagination could trace downward to their root on quiet hot stones festooned overhead with hams and flitches it was one of those sequestered spots outside the gates of the world where may usually be found more meditation than action and more passivity than meditation where reasoning proceeds on narrow premises and results in inferences wildly imaginative yet where, from time to time no less than in other places dramas of a grander and unity truly sofoclean are enacted in the real by virtue of the concentrated passions and closely knit interdependence of the lives therein this place was the little hintock of the Master Barber's search the coming night gradually obscured the smoke of the chimneys but the position of the sequestered little world could still be distinguished by a few faint lights winking more or less ineffectually through the leafless boughs and the undissurbed songsters they bore in the form of balls of feathers at roost among them out of the lane followed by the van branched to yet smaller lane at the corner of which the barber alighted Mrs. Dollary's van going on to the lodge of village whose superiority to the despised smaller one as an exemplar of the world's movements was not particularly apparent in its means of approach a very clever and learned young doctor who they say is in league with the devil lives in the place you be going to not because there's anybody foreign to cure there but because tis the middle of his district the observation was flung at the barber by one of the women at parting as a last attempt to get at his errand that way but he made no reply and without further pause the pedestrian plunged towards the outrageous nook and paced cautiously over the dead leaves which nearly buried the road or street of the hamlet as very few people except themselves passed this way after dark a majority of the denizens of Little Hintock deemed window curtains unnecessary and on this account Mr. Perakholm made it his business to stop opposite the casements of each cottage that he came to with a demeanor which showed that he was endeavoring to conjecture from the persons and things he observed within the whereabouts of somebody or other who resided here only the smaller dwellings interested him one or two houses whose size, antiquity, and rambling of pertinences signify that notwithstanding their remoteness they must formally have been, if they were not still inhabited by people of a certain social standing being neglected by him entirely smells of pumice and the hiss of fermenting cider which reached him from the back quarters of other tenements revealed the recent occupation of some of the inhabitants and joined with the scent of decay from the perishing leaves underfoot half a dozen dwellings were passed without result the next which stood opposite a tall tree was in an exceptional state of radiance the flickering brightness from the inside shining up the chimney and making a luminous mist of the emerging smoke the interior as seen through the window caused him to draw up with a terminative air and watch the house was rather large for a cottage and the door which opened immediately into the living room stood ajar so that a ribbon of light fell through the opening into the dark atmosphere without every now and then a moth decrepit from the late season would flip for a moment across the out coming rays and disappear again into the night end of chapter one recording by James O'Connor Randolph, Massachusetts, September 2009 Chapter 2 of The Woodlanders This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by James O'Connor The Woodlanders by Thomas Hoddy Chapter 2 Soon from which this cheerful blaze proceeded he beheld a girl seated on a willow chair and busily occupied by the light of the fire which was ample and of wood with a billhook in one hand and a leather glove much too large for her on the other she was making spars such as are used by thatchers with great rapidity she wore a leather apron for this purpose which was also much too large for her figure on her left hand lay a bundle of the straight smooth sticks called spargads the raw material of her manufacture on her right a heap of chips and ends the refuse with which the fire was maintained in front a pile of the finished articles to produce them she took up each gad looked critically at it from end to end cut it to length split it into four and sharpened each of the quarters with dexterous blows which brought it to a triangular point precisely resembling that of a bayonet beside her in case she might require more light a brass candlestick stood on a little round table curiously formed of an old coffin stool with a deal top nailed on the white surface of the ladder contrasting oddly with the black carved oak of the substructure the social position of the household in the past was almost as definitively shown by the presence of this article as that of an Esquire or nobleman by his old helmets or shields it had been customary for every well-to-do villager whose tenure was by copy of court roll or in any way more permanent than that of the mere codder to keep a pair of these stools for the use of his own dead but for the last generation or two a feeling of Cui bono had led to the discontinuance of the custom and the stools were frequently made use of in the manner described the young woman laid down the bill-hook for a moment and examined the palm of her right hand which unlike the other was ungloved and showed little hardness or roughness about it the palm was red and blistering as if this present occupation were not frequent enough with her to subdue it to what it worked in as with so many right hands born to manual labor there was nothing in its fundamental shape to bear out the physiological conventionalism that gradations of birth, gentle or mean show themselves primarily in the form of this member nothing but a cast of the dye of destiny had decided that the girl should handle a tool and the fingers which clasped the heavy ash half might have skillfully guided the pencil or swept the string had they only been set to do it in good time the face had the usual fullness of expression which is developed by a life of solitude where the eyes of a multitude beat like waves upon accountants they seem to wear away its individuality but in the still water of privacy every tentacle of feeling and sentiment shoots out invisible luxuriance to be interpreted as readily as a child's look by an intruder in years she was no more than nineteen or twenty but the necessity of taking thought at a too early period of life had forced the provisional curves of her childhood's face to a premature finality thus she had but little pretension to beauty save in one prominent particular her hair its abundance made it almost unmanageable its color was roughly speaking and as seen here by Phyllite brown but careful notice or an observation by day would have revealed that its true shade was a rare and beautiful approximation to Chestnut on this one bright gift of time to the particular victim of his now before us the newcomer's eyes were fixed meanwhile the fingers of his right hand mechanically played over something sticking up from his waistcoat pocket the bows of a pair of scissors whose polish made them feebly responsive to the light within in her present beholder's mind the scene formed by the girlish sparmaker composed itself into a post-Raphaelite picture of extremist quality wherein the girl's hair alone as the focus of observation was depicted with intensity and distinctness and her face, shoulders, hands and figure in general being a blurred mass of unimportant detail lost in haze and obscurity he hesitated no longer but tapped at the door and entered the young woman turned to the crunch of his boots on the extended floor and exclaiming oh, Mr. Perakome, how you frightened me quite lost your color for a moment he replied, you should shut your door then you'd hear folk open it I can't, she said the chimney smoked so Mr. Perakome, you look as unnatural out of your shop as a canary in a thorn hedge surely you have not come out here on my account for? yes, to have your answer about this he touched your head with his cane and she winced do you agree he continued? it is necessary that I should know it once as the lady is soon going away and it takes time to make up don't press me, it worries me I was in hopes you had thought no more of it I cannot pot with it, so there now look here, Maddie, said the barber sitting down on the coffin stool table how much do you get from making me spars? hush, father's upstairs awake and he don't know that I am doing his work well, now tell me, said the man more softly how much do you get? 18 pence a thousand, she said reluctantly who are you making them for? Mr. Malberry, the timber dealer just below here and how many can you make in a day? in a day and a half the night three bundles, that's a thousand and a half two and three pence the barber paused well, look here he continued with the remains of a calculation in his tone which calculation had been the reduction to figures of the probable monetary magnetism necessary to overpower the resistant force of her present purse and the woman's love of comeliness here's a sovereign, a gold sovereign almost new, he held it out between his finger and thumb, that's as much as you'd earn in a week and a half at that rough man's work and it's yours for just letting me snip off what you've got too much of the girl's bosom moved very little why can't the lady send to some other girl who don't value her head not to me, she exclaimed why simpleton, because yaws is the exact shade of her own and tis a shade you can't match by dying but you are not going to refuse me now I've come all the way from Sheridan no purpose I say I won't sell it to you or anybody now listen, and he drew up a little closer beside her the lady is very rich and won't be particular to a few shillings so I will advance to this on my own responsibility I'll make the one sovereign too rather than go back empty handed no, no, no, she cried beginning to be much agitated you are attempting me, Mr. Percoe you go on like the devil to Dr. Faustus in the penny book but I don't want your money and won't agree why did you come? I said when you got me into your shop and urged me so much that I didn't mean to sell my hair the speaker was hot and stern Marty, now harken the lady that wants it wants it badly and between you and me you'd better let her have it it will be bad for you if you don't bad for me? who is she then? the barber held his tongue and the girl repeated the question I am not at liberty to tell you and as she is going abroad soon it makes no difference who she is at all she wants it to go abroad, we? Percoe assented by a nod the girl regarded him reflectively Barbara Percoe she said I know who Tiz is she at the house, Mrs. Charmond that's my secret however if you agree to let me have it I'll tell you in confidence I'll certainly not let you have it unless you tell me the truth it is Mrs. Charmond the barber dropped his voice well, it is you sat in front of her in church the other day and she noticed how exactly your hair matched her own ever since then she's been hankering for it and at last decided to get it as she won't wear it till she goes off abroad she knows nobody will recognize the change I'm commissioned to get it for her and then it is to be made up I shouldn't have vamped all these miles for any less important employer now mind Tiz as much as my business with her is worth if it should be known that I've let out her name but honor between us two Marty and you'll say nothing that would injure me I don't wish to tell upon her, said Marty, coolly but my hair is my own and I'm going to keep it now that's not fair after what I've told you said the nettle barber you see, Marty, as you are in the same parish and in one of her cottages and your father is ill and wouldn't like to turn out it would be as well to oblige her I say that as a friend I won't press you to make up your mind tonight you'll be coming to market tomorrow I dare say and you can call then if you think it over you'll be inclined to bring what I want I know I've nothing more to say, she answered her companion saw from her manner that it was useless to urge her further by speech as you are a trusty young woman, he said I'll put these sovereigns up here for ornament that you may see how handsome they are bring the hand tomorrow or return the sovereigns he stuck them edgewise into the frame of a small mantel looking glass I hope you'll bring it for your sake and mine I should have thought she could have suited herself elsewhere but as it's her fancy it must be indulged if possible if you cut it off yourself mind how you do it so as to keep all the locks one way he showed her how this was to be done but I shan't she replied with laconic indifference I value my looks too much to spoil them she wants my head to get another lover with though if stories are true she's broke the heart of many a noble gentleman already Lord, it's wonderful how you guess things, Marty, said the barber I've had it from them that know that there certainly is some foreign gentleman in her eye however, mind what I ask she's not going to get him through me Paracomb had retired as far as the door he came back, planted his cane on the coffin-stool and looked her in the face Marty, South, he said with deliberate emphasis you've got to lover yourself and that's why you won't let it go she read so intensely as to pass the mild blush that suffices to heighten beauty she put the yellow leather glove on one hand took up the hook with the other and sat down doggedly to her work without turning her face to him again he regarded her head for a moment went to the door and with one look back at her depotted on his way homeward Marty pursued her occupation for a few minutes then suddenly laying down the billboard she jumped up and went to the back of the room where she opened the door which disclosed a staircase so whitely scrubbed that the grain of the wood was well nice sodden away by such cleansing at the top she gently approached a bedroom and without entering said Father, do you want anything? a weak voice inside answered in the negative adding, I shall be all right by tomorrow if it were not for the tree the tree again, always the tree oh Father, don't worry so about that you know it can do you no harm who have he had talking to you downstairs? a Sheraton man called nothing to trouble about, she said soothingly Father, she went on can Mrs. Shaman turn us out of our house if she's minded to? turn us out? no nobody can turn us out till my poor soul is turned out of my body to his life hold like Ambrose winter-borns but when my life drops will be hers, not till then his words on this subject so far had been rational and firm enough so he lapsed into his moaning strain and the tree will do it that tree will soon be the death of me nonsense, you know better how can it be? she refrained from further speech and descended to the ground floor again thank heaven then, she said to herself what belongs to me I keep end of chapter 2 recording by James O'Connor Randolph, Massachusetts September 2009 chapter 3 of The Woodlanders this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by James O'Connor The Woodlanders by Thomas Hoddy chapter 3 the lights in the village went out house after house till there only remained two in the darkness one of these came from a residence on the hillside of which there is nothing to say at present the other shown from the window of Maudy South precisely the same outward effect was produced here however by her rising when the clock struck ten and hanging up a thick cloth curtain the door it was necessary to keep a jar in hers as in most cottages because of the smoke but she obviated the effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by hanging a cloth over that also she was one of those people who if they have to work harder than their neighbors prefer to keep the necessity a secret as far as possible and but for the slight sounds of wood splintering which came from within no wayfarer would have perceived that here the cottager did not sleep as elsewhere eleven twelve one o'clock struck the heap of spires grew higher and the pile of chips and ends more bulky even the light on the hill had now been extinguished but still she worked on when the temperature of the night without had fallen so low as to make her chilly she opened a large blue umbrella to wad off the draught from the door the two sovereigns confronted her from the looking-glass in such a manner as to suggest a pair of jaundiced eyes on the watch for an opportunity whenever she sighed for weariness she lifted her gaze towards them but withdrew it quickly stroking her tresses with her fingers for a moment as if to assure herself that they were still secure when the clock struck three she arose and tied up the spire she had last made in a bundle resembling those that lay against the wall she wrapped round her a long red woolen cravat and opened the door the night in all its fullness met her flatly on the threshold like the very brink of an absolute void or the anti-mundane gin and gap believed in by her two-tonne forefathers for her eyes were fresh from the blaze and here there was no street lamp or lantern to form a kindly transition between the inner glare and the outer dark a lingering wind brought to her ear the creaking sound of two overcrowded branches in the neighboring wood which were rubbing each other into wolves and other vocalized sorrows of the trees together with the screech of owls and the fluttering tumble of some awkward wood pigeon ill-balanced on its roosting bow but the pupils of her young eyes soon expanded and she could see well enough for her purpose taking a bundle of spires under each arm and guided by the serrated line of treetops against the sky she went some hundred yards or more down the lane till she reached a long open shed carpeted around with the dead leaves that lay about everywhere night that strange personality which within walls brings ominous introspectiveness and self distrust but under the open sky banishes such subjective anxieties as too trivial for thought inspired Marty South with a less perturbed and brisker manner now she laid the spars on the ground within the shed and returned for more going to and fro till her whole manufactured stock were deposited here this erection was the wagon house of the chief man of business here about Mr. George Melbury the timber, bark, and copseware merchant for whom Marty's father did work of this sort by the peace it formed one of the many rambling outhouses which surrounded his dwelling an equally irregular block of building whose immense chimneys could just be discerned even now the four huge wagons under the shed were built on those ancient lines whose proportions have been ousted by modern patterns their shapes bulging and curving at the base and ends like Trafalgar line of battleships with which venerable hulks indeed these vehicles evidenced a constructed spirit curiously in harmony one was laden with sheep crimps another with hurdles another with ash poles and the fourth at the foot of which she had placed her thatching spars was half full of similar bundles she was pausing a moment with that easeful sense of accomplishment which follows work done that has been a hard struggle in the doing when she heard a woman's voice on the other side of the hedge say anxiously George in a moment the name was repeated with do come indoors what are you doing there the cothouse adjoined the garden and before Marty had moved she saw into the ladder from the timber merchant's back door an elderly woman sheltering a candle with her hand the light from which cast a moving thorn pattern of shade on Marty's face its rays soon fell upon a man whose clothes were roughly thrown on standing in advance of the speaker he was a thin slightly stooping figure with a small nervous mouth and a face cleanly shaven and he walked along the path with his eyes bent on the ground in the pair Marty South recognized her employer Melbury and his wife she was the second Mrs. Melbury the first having died shortly after the birth of the timber merchant's only child it is no use to stay in bed he said as soon as she came up to where he was pacing restlessly about I can't sleep I keep thinking of things and worrying about the girl till I'm quite in a fever of anxiety he went on to say that he could not think why she Marty knew he was speaking of his daughter did not answer his letter she must be ill she must certainly he said no no it is all right George said his wife and she assured him that such things always did appear so gloomy in the nighttime if people allow their minds to run on them that when morning came it was seen that such fears were nothing but shadows Grace is as well as you arrive she declared but he persisted that she did not see all that she did not see as much as he his daughter's not writing was only one part of his worry on account of her he was anxious concerning money affairs which he would never alarm his mind about otherwise the reason he gave was that as she had nobody to depend upon for a provision but himself he wished her when he was gone to be securely out of risk of poverty to this Mrs. Melbury replied that Grace would be sure to marry well and that hints a hundred pounds more or less from him would not make much difference her husband said that that was what she Mrs. Melbury naturally thought but there she was wrong and in that lay the source of his trouble I have a plan in my head about her he said and according to my plan she won't marry a rich man a plan for her not to marry well said his wife surprised well in one sense it is that replied Melbury it is a plan for her to marry a particular person and as he has not so much money as she might expect it might be called as you call it I may not be able to carry it out and even if I do it may not be a good thing for her I want her to marry Giles Winterborn his companion repeated the name well it is all right she said presently he adores the very ground she walks on only he's close and won't show it much party south appeared startled and could not tear herself away yes the timber merchant asserted he knew that well enough Winterborn had been interested in his daughter for years that was what had led him into the notion of their union and he knew that she used to have no objection to him but it was not any difficulty about that which embarrassed him it was that since he had educated her so well and so long and so far above the level of daughters thereabout it was wasting her to give her to a man of no higher standing than the young man in question that's what I have been thinking said Mrs. Melbury well then Lucy now you've hit it answered the timber merchant with feeling there lies my trouble I vowed to let her marry him and to make her as valuable as I could to him by schooling her as many years and as thoroughly as possible I mean to keep my vow I made it because I did his father a terrible wrong and it was a wait on my conscience ever since that time till this scheme of making amends occurred to me through seeing that Giles liked her wronged his father asked Mrs. Melbury yes grievously wronged him said her husband well don't think of it tonight she urged him indoors no no the air cools my head I shall not stay long he was silent a while then he told her as nearly as Marty could gather that his first wife his daughter Grace's mother was first the sweet heart of Winterborn's father who loved her tenderly he the speaker won her away from him by a trick because he wanted to marry her himself he sadly went on to say that the other man's happiness was ruined by it that though he married Winterborn's mother it was but a half-hearted business with him Melbury added that he was afterwards very miserable at what he had done but that is time went on and the children grew up and seemed to be attached to each other he determined to do all he could to right the wrong by letting his daughter marry the lad not only that but to give her the best education he could afford so as to make the gift as valuable a one as it lay in his power to bestow I still mean to do it said Melbury Bindu said she but all these things trouble me said he for I feel I am sacrificing her for my own sin and I think of her and often come down here and look at this look at what asked his wife he took the candle from her hand held it to the ground and removed a tile which lay in the garden path it is the track of her shoe that she made when she ran down here the day before she went away all those months ago I covered it up when she was gone and when I come here and look at it I asked myself again why should she be sacrificed to a poor man it is not altogether a sacrifice said the woman he is in love with her and he's honest and upright if she encourages him what can you wish for more I wish for nothing definite but there's a lot of things possible for her why Mrs. Charmond is wanting some refined young lady I hear to go abroad with her as companion or something of the kind she'd jump at grace that's all uncertain better stick to what's sure true true said Melbury and I hope it will be for the best yes let me get him married up as soon as I can so as to have it over and done with he continued looking at the imprint while he added suppose she should be dying and never make a track on this path anymore she'll write soon depend upon it come, it is wrong to stay here and brood so he admitted it but said he could not help it whether she write or no I shall fetch her in a few days and thus speaking he covered the track and proceeded his wife indoors Melbury perhaps was an unlucky man in having within him the sentiment which could indulge in this foolish fondness about the imprint of a daughter's footstep nature does not carry on her government with a view to such feelings and when advancing years render the open hearts of those who possess them dexterous than formally in shutting against the blast they must suffer buffeting at will by rain and storm no less than little celundines but her own existence and not Mr. Melbury's was the center of Marty's consciousness and it was in relation to this that the matter struck her as she slowly withdrew that then is the secret of it all she said and Giles Winterborne is not for me and the less I think of him the better she returned to her cottage the sovereigns were staring at her from the looking glass as she had left them with a preoccupied countenance and with tears in her eyes she got a pair of scissors and began mercilessly cutting off the long locks of her hair arranging and tying them with their points all one way as the barber had directed upon the pale scrub deal of the cotton stool table they stretched like waving and ropey weeds over the washed gravel bed of a clear stream she would not turn again to the little looking glass out of humanity to herself knowing what a deflowered visage would look back at her and almost break her heart she dreaded it as much as did her own ancestral goddess Sif the reflection in the pool after the rape of her locks by Loki the malicious she steadily stuck to business wrapped the hair in a parcel and sealed it up after which she raked out the fire and went to bed having first set up an alarm made of a candle and piece of thread with a stone attached but such a reminder was unnecessary tonight having tossed till about five o'clock Madi heard the sparrows walking down their long holes in the thatch above her sloping ceiling to their orifice at the eaves whereupon she also arose and descended to the ground floor again it was still dark but she began moving about the house in those automatic initiatory acts and touches which represent among housewives the installation of another day while thus engaged she heard the rumbling of Mr. Melbury's wagons and knew that there too the day's toil had begun an armful of gads thrown on the still hot embers caused them to blaze up cheerfully and bring her diminished headgear into sudden prominence as a shadow at this a step approached the door our folks stir here yet in quiet a voice she knew well yes Mr. Winterborn said Madi throwing on a tilt bonnet which completely hid the recent ravages of the scissors come in the door was flung back and there stepped in upon the mat a man not particularly young for a lover nor particularly mature for a person of affairs there was reserve in his glance and restraint upon his mouth he carried a horn lantern which hung upon a swivel and wheeling as it dangled marked grotesque shapes upon the shadier part of the walls he said that he had looked in on his way down to tell her that they did not expect her father to make up his contract if he was not well Mr. Melbury would give him another week and they would go their journey with a short load that day they are done said Madi and lying in the cart house done he repeated your father has not been too ill to work after all then she made some evasive reply I'll show you where they be if you are going down she added they went out and walked together the pattern of the air holes in the top of the lantern were being thrown upon the mist overhead where they appeared of giant size as if reaching the tint shaped sky they had no remarks to make to each other and they uttered none hardly anything could be more isolated or more self-contained than the lies of these two walking here in the lonely anti-lucan hour when gray shades, material and mental are so very gray yet, looked at in a certain way their lonely courses formed no detached design at all but were part of the pattern in the great web of human doings then weaving in both hemispheres from the white sea to Cape Horn the shed was reached and she pointed out the spars winter-born regarded them silently then looked at her now Marty, I believe," he said and shook his head what, that you've done the work yourself don't you tell anybody will you Mr. Winterborn she pleaded by way of answer because I am afraid Mr. Melbury may refuse my work if he knows it is mine but how could you learn to do it, it is a trade trade said she, I'd be bound to learn it in two hours oh no you wouldn't Mrs. Marty Winterborn held down his lantern and examined the cleanly split hazels as they lay Marty he said with dry admiration your father with his forty years of practice never made a spar better than that they are too good for the thatching of houses they are good enough for the furniture but I won't tell, let me look at your hands your poor hands he had a kindly manner of a quietly severe tone and when she seemed reluctant to show her hands he took hold of one and examined it as if it were his own her fingers were blistered they'll get hotter in time she said for her father continues ill I shall have to go on with it now I'll help put him up in wagon Winterborn without speaking set down his lantern lifted her as she was about to stoop over the bundles placed her behind him and began throwing up the bundles himself rather than you should do it I will he said but the men will be here directly why Marty, whatever has happened to your head Lord it has shrunk to nothing it looks an apple upon a gatepost her heart swelled and she could not speak at lince she managed to groan looking on the ground I've made myself ugly and hateful that's what I've done no no he answered you've only cut your hair I see now then why must you need say that about apples and gateposts let me see no no she ran off into the gloom of the sluggish dog he did not attempt to follow her when she reached her father's door she stood on the step and looked back Mr. Melbury's men had arrived and were loading up the spars and their lanterns appeared from the distance at which she stood to have worn circles round them like eyes weary with watching she observed them for a few seconds as they set about harnessing the horses and then went indoors end of chapter three recording by James O'Connor Randolph, Massachusetts, September 2009 Chapter four of The Woodlanders this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Lara Tel Aviv, Israel The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter four there was now a distinct manifestation of mourning in the air and presently the blared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged like a dead-born child the villagers everywhere had already bestowed themselves rising at this time of the year at the far less dreary hour of absolute darkness it had been above an hour earlier before a single bird had untucked his head the twenty lights were struck in as many bedrooms twenty pairs of shutters opened and twenty pairs of eyes stretched to the sky to forecast the weather for the day owls that had been catching mice in their outhouses rabbits that had been eating the winter greens in the gardens and stoats that had been sucking the blood of the rabbits discerning that their human neighbors were on the move discreetly withdrew from publicity and were seen and heard no more that day the daylight revealed the hall of Mr. Malbury's homestead of which the wagon shed had been outlying erection it formed three sides of an open quadrangle and consisted of all sorts of buildings the largest and central one being the dwelling itself the fourth side of the quadrangle was the public road it was a dwelling house of respectable, roomy almost dignified aspect which taken with the fact that there were the remains of other such buildings thereabout indicated that little Hintock had at some time or other been of greater importance than now as its old name of Hintock said Asmond also testified the house was of no marked antiquity yet of well advanced age older than a stale novelty but no canonized antique faded not hurry looking at you from a still distinct middle distance of the early Georgian time an awakening on that account the instincts of reminiscence more decidedly than the remotor and far grandeur memorials which have to speak from the mystery reaches of medievalism the faces, dress, passions, gratitudes and revenues are the great great grandfathers and grandmothers who had been the first to gaze from those rectangular windows and it stood under that keystone doorway could be defined and measured by homely centres of today it was a house in whose reverberations queer old personal tales were yet audible if properly listened for and not as with those of the castle and cluster silent beyond the possibility of echo the garden front remained much as it had always been and there was a porch and an entrance that way but the principal house door opened on the square yard or quadrangle towards the road formally a regular carriage entrance though the middle of the area was now made use of for stocking timber, faggots, bundles and other products of the wood it was divided from the lane by a lich encoded wall in which hung a pair of gates flanked by pierced out of the perpendicular with a round white ball on top of each the building on the left of the enclosure was a long back direction now used for spa making, sewing, creep framing and copseware manufacturing in general opposite were the wagon sheds where Marty had deposited her spas here Winterbourne had remained after the girls' a prop departure to see that the wagon loads were properly made up Winterbourne was connected with the Malbury family in various ways in addition to the sentimental relationship which arose from his father having been the first Mrs. Malbury's lover Winterbourne's aunt had married and immigrated with the brother of the timber merchant many years before an alliance that was sufficient to place Mr. Winterbourne, though the poorer on a footing of social intimacy with the Malbury's as in most villages, so secluded as this intermarriages were of upspurgian frequency among the inhabitants and there were hardly two houses in Little Hintock unrelated by some matrimonial tie or other for this reason a curious kind of partnership existed between Malbury and the younger men a partnership based upon an unwritten code by which each acted in the way he thought fair towards the other on a give and take principle Malbury, with his timber and cups were business found that the weight of his labour came in winter and spring Winterbourne was in the apple and cider trade and his requirements in cartage and other work came in the autumn of each year hence horses, wagons and in some degree men were handed over to him when the apples began to fall he in return lending his assistance to Malbury in the busiest woodcutting season as now before he had left the shed a boy came from the house to ask him to remain till Mr. Malbury had seen him Winterbourne there upon crossed over to the spa house where two or three men were already at work two of them being travelling spa makers from Whiteheart Lane who when this kind of work began made their appearance regularly and when it was over disappeared in silence till the season came again Firewood was the one thing abundant in Little Hintock and a blaze of gut-cuts made the outhouse gay with its light which vid with that of the day as yet in the hollow shades of the roof could be seen dangling etulate arms of ivy which had crept through the joints of the tiles and were groping in vain for some support their leaves being dwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight others were pushing in with such force at the eaves as to lift from their supports the shelves that were fixed there besides the shinner and journey workers there were also present John Upjohn engaged in a hollow tannery trade who lived hard by all Timothy Tangs and young Timothy Tangs top and bottom sawyers at work in Mr. Malbury's pit outside farmer Botry who kept the cider house and Robert Criddle an old man who worked for Winterbourne and stood warming his hands these later being enticed in by the Rudy blaze though they had no particular business there none of them called for any remark except perhaps Criddle to have completely described him it would have been necessary to write a military memoir for he wore under his smock frock a cast of soldiers jacket that had seen hot service its collar showing just above the flap of a frock also a hunting memoir to include the top boots that he had picked up by chance also chronicles of voyaging and shipwreck for his pocket knife had been given him by a weather-bidden sailor but Criddle carried about with him on his unventful round these silent testimonies of war, sport and adventure and thought nothing of their associations or their stories cop's work as it was called being an occupation which the secondary intelligence of the hands and arms could carry on without requiring the sovereign attention of the head the minds of its professors wandered considerably from the objects before them hence the tales, chronicles and ramifications of family history which were recounted here were of very exhaustive kind and sometimes so interminable as to defy description Winterborne, seeing that Malbury had not arrived stepped back again outside the door and the conversation interrupted by his momentary presence flowed anew reaching his ears as an accompaniment to the regular dripping of fog from the plantation bows around the topic at present handled was a highly popular and frequent one the personal character of Mrs. Charmon the owner of the surrounding woods and groves my brother-in-law told me and I have no reason to doubt it, said Criddle that she'd sit down to her dinner with a frock hardly higher than her elbows oh, you wicked woman he said to himself when he first see her you go to your church and sit and kneel as if your knee-jeans were grist with very saints' anointment and tell of your hear-asked good-lords like a businessman counting money you can eat your victuals such a figure as that whether she is a reformed character by this time I can't say, but I don't care who the man is that's how she went on when my brother-in-law lived there did she do it in her husband's time that I don't know, hardly I should think considering his temper ah, your Criddle through grieved remberance into physical form by slowly resigning his head to obligity and letting his eyes water that man, not if the angels of heaven come down Criddle, he said, shall you do another day's work for me? yes, he'd say anything, anything and would as soon take a wink creature's name in vain as yours and mine well, now I must get these parts home along and tomorrow, thank God, I must see about using them an old woman now entered upon the scene she was Mr. Malbury's servant and passed a great part of the time in crossing the yard between the house door and the sparshad with her, she had come now for fuel she had two facial aspects one of a soft and flexible kind she used indoors when assisting about the parlour or upstairs the other with stiff lines and corners when she was bustling among the men in the spare house or out of doors ah, Grandma Oliver said, down, up, down eat, do, do my heart good to see an old woman like you so depper and steering when I bear in mind that after fifty-one year counts as two did a four but your smoke didn't rise this morning till twenty minutes past seven by my better and that's Lake Grandma Oliver if you was a full-sized man, John people might take notice of your scornful meanings but your growing up was such a script and scanty business that really a woman couldn't feel hurt if you were to spit fire and brimstone itself at her here she added, holding out a spar-gut to one of the workmen from which dangled a long black pudding here's something for thy breakfast and if you want tea you must fetch it from indoors Mr. Melbury's late this morning said the bottom Sawyer yes, towards dark dawn said Mrs. Oliver even when I opened the door so late as I was you couldn't have told poor men from gentlemen or John from a reasonable sized object and I don't think my sister slept at all well tonight he's anxious about his daughter and I know what that is for I've carried bucket-falls of my own when the old woman had gone Crittle said he'll fret his gizzard green if he don't soon hear from that maid of his well, learning is better than houses and lands but to keep her maid at school till she's taller out of patterns than her mother was in him tea's tempting providence it seems no time ago that she was a little playward girl said young Timothy Tangs I can mine her mother said the hollow turner always a tuney delicate piece her touch upon your hand was as soft and cool as wind she was inoculated for smallpox and headed beautifully fine just about the time that I was out of my apprenticeship aye and a longer apprenticeship was I served that master of mine six years and three hundred and fourteen days the hollow turner pronounced the days with emphasis as if considering the number they were a rather more remarkable fact than the years Mr. Winterborn's father walked with her at one time said old Timothy Tangs but Mr. Malbury won her she was a child of a woman and would cry like rain if so be he huffed her whenever she and her husband came to the puddle in their walks together he take her up like a half-penny doll and put her over without dirtying her ass back and if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding school he'll make her as Nash as her mother was but here he comes just before this moment Winterborn had seen Malbury crossing the court from his door he was carrying an open letter in his hand and came straight to Winterborn his gloom of the preceding night had quite gone I'd know sooner made up my mind girls to go and see why Grace didn't come or write then I get a letter from her Clifton Wednesday dear father says she I'm coming home tomorrow that's today but I didn't think it was worthwhile to write long beforehand it's a little rascal and didn't she now girls as you are going to shirt market today with your apple trees why not join me and Grace there and we'll drive home all together he made the proposal with cheerful energy he was hardly the same man as the man of the small dark hours ever it happened that even among the moodiest the tendency to be cheered is stronger than the tendency to be cast down and a soul specific gravity stands permanently less than that of the sea of troubles into which it is thrown Winterborn though not demonstrative replied to this suggestion with something like a lackrity there was not much doubt that Marty's grounds for cutting off her air were substantial enough if from Brose's eyes had been reason for keeping it on as for the timber merchant it was plain that his invitation had been given solely in pursuance of his scheme for uniting the pair he had made up his mind to the course of the duty and was strenuously bent upon following it out accompanied by Winterborn he now turned towards the door of the spa house where his footsteps were heard by the man as aforesaid well John and Latt he said nodding as he entered a rhyming morning to sir said Criddle energetically for not having as yet been able to summon force sufficient to go away and begin work he felt the necessity of throwing some into his speech I don't care who the man is till the rhyming morning we've had this fall I heard you wondering why I kept my daughter so long at boarding school resumed Mr. Malbury looking up from the letter which he was reading anew by the fire and turning to them with the suddenness that was a trait in him hey he asked with a fact to trudeness but you did you know well now though it is my own business more than anybody else's I'll tell ya when I was a boy another boy the passing son along with a lot of others asked me who dragged whom around the walls of what and I said Sam Barrett who dragged his wife in a chair on the tower corner when she went to be churched they laughed at me with such torrents of scorn that I went home ashamed and couldn't sleep for shame and I cried that night till my pillow was wet till at last I thought to myself there and then they may laugh at me or my ignorance but that was father's fault and none of my making and I must bear it but they shall never laugh at my children if I have any I'll starve first thank God I've been able to keep her at school without sacrifice and her scholarship is such that she stayed on as a governess for a time let them laugh now if they can Mrs. Charm and herself is not better informed than my girl Grace there was something between high indifference and humble emotion in this delivery which made it difficult for them to reply winter born's interest was of a kind which did not show itself in words listening he stood by the fire mechanically steering the ambers with a spark out you'll be then ready girls now Marie continued awaking from a robbery well what was the latest news at Chartsford yesterday Mr. Botry well Chartsford this Chartsford still you can't victual your carcass there unless you've got money and you can't buy a cup of genuine there whether or not but as the saying is go abroad and you'll hear news of home it seems that our new neighbour this young daughter what's his name is a strange, deep pursuing gentleman and there's good reason for supposing he has sold his soul to the wicked one or name it all murmur the timber merchant unimpressed by the news but reminded of other things by the subject of it I've got to meet a gentleman this very morning and yet I've planned to go to Sherton I've asked for the maid I won't praise the doctor's wisdom till I hear what sort of bargain he's made said the top Sawyer he's only an old woman's tale said Botry but it seems that he wanted certain books on some mysterious science or black art and in order that the people hear about should not know anything about his dark readings he ordered them direct from London and not from the Sherton bookseller the parcel was delivered by mistake at the Parsons and he wasn't at home so his wife opened it and went into hysterics when she read them thinking her husband had turned here then and it would be the ruin of the children but when he came he said he knew no more about them than she and found they were this Mr. Fitzpiers property so he wrote beware outside and sent them on by the section he must be a curious young man mused a hollow turner he must said Timothy Thames nonsense said Mr. Malbury authoritatively he's only a gentleman fond of science and philosophy and poetry and in fact every kind of knowledge and being lonely here he passes his time in making such matters his hobby well said old Timothy she's a strange thing about doctors that the worse they be the better they be I mean that if you hear anything of this sort about them 10 to 1 they can cure you as nobody else can true said Bucktree emphatically and for my part I shall take my custom from old Jones and go to this one directly I have anything the matter with me that last medicine old Jones gave me had no taste in it at all Mr. Malbury as became a well informed man did not listen to these recitals being more over preoccupied with the business appointment which had come into his head he walked up and down looking on the floor his usual custom when undecided that stiffness about the arm hip and knee joint which was apparent when he walked was the net product of the diverse sprains and over exertions that had been required of him in handling trees and timber when a young man for he was of the sort called self-made and had worked hard he knew the origin of every one of these cramps that in his left shoulder it come of carrying a pallard and assisted from to come bottom home that in one leg was caused by the crush of an elm against it when they were felling that in the other was from lifting a ball on many a morrow after wearing himself by these prodigious masculine assets he had risen from his bed fresh as usual his lassitude had departed apparently forever and confident in the recuperative power of his youth he had repeated the strains anew but treacherous time had been only hiding ill resorts where they could be guarded against for greater accumulation where they could not in his declining years the store had been unfolded in the form of rheumatism pricks and spasms in every one of which melbury recognized some act which had its consequences been contemporaneously made known he would wisely have abstained from repeating on a summons by grandma Oliver to breakfast he left the shed reaching the kitchen where the family breakfasted in winter to save house labour he sat down by the fire and looked a long time at the pair of dancing shadows cast by each fire iron and dog-knob on the white-wash chimney corner a yellow one from the window and a blue one from the fire I don't quite know what to do today he said to his wife at last I've recollected that I promised to meet mrs. charmant steward in round wood at twelve o'clock and yet I want to go for grace why not let Giles fetch her by himself it'll bring them together all the quicker I could do that but I should like to go myself I always have gone without fail every time, either though it has been a great pleasure to drive into Sherton and wait and see her arrive and perhaps she'll be disappointed if I say away you may be disappointed but I don't think she will if you send Giles said mrs. Melbury dryly very well I'll send him Melbury was often persuaded by the creature of his wife's words when Strania's argument would ever had no effect the second mrs. Melbury was a placid woman who had been a nurse to his child Grace before her mother's death after that melancholy event little Grace had clung to the nurse with much affection and ultimately Melbury in dread less that the only woman who cared for the girl should be induced to leave her persuaded the mild Lucy to marry him the arrangement for it was little more had worked satisfactorily enough Grace had thriven and Melbury had not repented he returned to the spa house and found Giles near at hand to whom he explained the change of plan as she won't arrive till five o'clock you can get your business very well over in time to receive her said melbury the green jig will do for her you'll spin along quicker with that and won't be late upon the road her boxes can be called for by one of the wagons winter born knowing nothing of the timber merchant respiratory aims quietly thought all this to be a kindly chance wishing even more than her father to dispatch his apple tree business the market before Grace's arrival he prepared to start at once melbury was careful that the turnout should be seemly the jig wheels for incense were not always washed during winter time before a journey the muddy roads rendering that labor uses but they were washed today the harness was blacked and when the rather elderly white horse had been put in and winter born was in his seat ready to start Mr. Melbury stepped out with a blacking brush and with his own hands touched over the yellow hooves of the animal see girls he said as he blacked coming from a fashionable school she might feel shocked at the homeliness of home and tease these little things that catch a dainty woman's eye if they are neglected we, leaving here alone don't notice how the whitey brown creeps out of the earth over us but she, fresh from a city why, she'll notice everything that she will said girls and scorn us if we don't mind not scorn us no, no, no that's only words she's still got a girl to do that but when we consider what she knows and what she has seen since she last saw us tease as well to meet her views as nearly as possible why, tease the years since she was in this old place owing to her going abroad in the summer which I agree to thinking it best for her and naturally we should look small just at first I only say just at first Mr. Malbury's tone evinced a certain exhortation in the very sense of that inferiority he affected to deplore for this advanced and refined bane was she not his own all the time not so, girls he felt doubtful perhaps a trifle cynical for that strand was wound into him with the rest he looked at his clothes with misgiving then with indifference it was his custom during planting season to carry a specimen to apple tree to market with him as an advertisement of what he dealt in this had been tied across a jig as it would be left behind in the town it would cause no inconvenience to Miss Grace Malbury coming home he drove away the twigs nodding with each step of the horse and Malbury went indoors before that jig had passed out of sight Mr. Malbury reappeared and shouted after here, girls he said breathlessly following with some raps maybe very chilly tonight and she may want something extra about her and girls he added when the young man having taken the articles put the horse in motion once more tell her that I should have come myself but I had particular business with Mrs. Charman's agent which prevented me don't forget he watched Winterbourne out of sight saying with a jerk a shape into which emotion with him often resolved itself there now I hope the two will bring it to a point and have done with it it is a pity to let such a girl throw herself away upon him a thousand pities and yet it is my duty for his father's sake End of Chapter 4 The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter 5 neither did he observe what was also the fact that though he cherished a true and warm feeling towards Grace Malbury he was not altogether her fool just now it must be remembered that he had not seen her for a year arrived at the entrance to a long flat lane which had taken the spirit out of many a pedestrian in times when with the majority to travel meant to walk he saw before him the trim figure of a young woman in patterns journeying with that steadfast concentration which means purpose and not pleasure he was soon near enough to see that she was Marty South click, click, click went the patterns and she did not turn her head she had however become aware before this that the driver of the approaching gig was Giles she had shrunk from being overtaken by him thus but as it was inevitable she had braced herself up for his inspection by closing her lips so as to make her mouth quite unemotional and by throwing an additional firmness to her tread why do you wear patterns Marty the term plate is clean enough although the lanes are muddy they save my boots but 12 miles in patterns to twist your feet off come get up and ride with me she hesitated, removed her patterns knocked the gravel out of him against the wheel and mounted in front of the nodding specimen apple tree she had so arranged her bonnet with a full border and trimmings that her lack of long hair did not much injure her appearance though Giles of course saw that it was gone and may have guessed her motive in parting with it such sales though infrequent being not unheard of in that locality but nature's adornment was still hard by in fact within two feet of him though he did not know it in Marty's basket was a brown paper packet and in the packet the chestnut locks which by reason of the barber's request for secrecy she had not ventured to entrust to other hands Giles asked with some hesitation how her father was getting on he was better she said he would be able to work in a day or two he would be quite well but for his craze about the tree falling on him you know why I don't ask about him as often as you might I suppose said Winterborne, or don't you I think I do because of the houses she nodded yes I am afraid it might seem that my anxiety is about those houses which I should lose by his death more than about him Marty I do feel anxious about the houses since half my income depends upon them but I do likewise care for him and it almost seems wrong that houses should be leased for lives so as to lead to such mixed feelings after my father's death they will be Mrs. Charmonds they'll be hers they're going to keep company with my heir, she thought thus talking they reached the town by no pressure would she ride up the street with him that's the right of another woman, she said with playful malice as she put on her patents I wonder what you're thinking of thank you for the lift and that handsome gig, goodbye he blushed a little, shook his head at her and drove on ahead into the street the churches, the abbey and the other buildings on this clear bright morning having the liney distinctness of architectural drawings as if the original dream and vision of the conceiving master Mason some medieval dillars or their unknown to fame where for a few minutes flashed down through the centuries to an unappreciative age Giles saw their eloquent look on this day of transparency but could not construe it he turned into the in-yard Marty, following the same track, marked promptly to the hairdressers Mr. Perkins Perkin was the chief of his trade in Sherton Abbas he had the patronage of such country offshoots as had been obliged to seek the shelter of small houses in that ancient town of the local clergy and so on for some of whom he had made wigs while others among them had compensated for neglecting him in their lifetime by patronising him when they were dead and letting him shave their corpses on the strength of all this he had taken down his pole and called himself perquair to the aristocracy nevertheless this sort of support did not quite fill his children's mouths and they had to be filled so behind this house there was a little yard reached by a passage from the back street and in that yard was a pole and under the pole a shop of quite another description than the ornamental one in the front street here on Saturday nights from seven till ten he took an almost innumerable succession of tuppances from the farm-labours who flocked thither in crowds from the country and thus he lived Marty of course went to the front shop and handed a packet to him silently Thank you, said the barber quite joyfully I hardly expected it after what you said last night She turned aside while the tear welled up and stood in each eye at this reminder Nothing of what I told you He whispered, there being others in the shop but I can trust you I see She had now reached the end of this distressing business and went listlessly along the street to attend to other errands These occupied her till four o'clock at which time she recrossed the marketplace It was impossible to avoid rediscovering winter-borne every time she passed that way for standing as he always did that this season of the year with his specimen apple tree in the midst the boughs rose above the heads of the crowd and brought a delightful suggestion of orchards among the crowded buildings there When her eye fell upon him for the last time he was standing somewhat apart holding the tree like an ensign and looking on the ground instead of pushing his bodgeos as he ought to have been doing He was in fact not a very successful seller either of his trees or of a cider his habit of speaking his mind when he spoke at all hesitating against this branch of his business While she regarded him he suddenly lifted his eyes in the direction away from Marty his face simultaneously kindling with recognition and surprise She followed his gaze and saw walking across him a flexible young creature in whom she had perceived the features of her she had known as Miss Grace Melbury but now looking glorified and refined above her formal level Winter-borne being fixed to the spot by his apple tree with the dance to meet her he held out his spare hand with his hat in it and with some embarrassment he held her coming on tiptoe through the mud to the middle of the square where he stood Miss Melbury's arrival so early was, as Marty could say, unexpected by Giles which accounted for his not being ready to receive her indeed her father had named five o'clock for her probable time for which reason that hour had been looming out all of the day in his forward perspective like an important edifice on a plane now here she was come he knew not how and his arranged welcome stultified his face became gloomy at her necessity for stepping into the road and more still at a little look of embarrassment which appeared on hers at having to perform a meeting with him under an apple tree ten feet high in the middle of the marketplace having an occasion to take off the nude gloves she had bought to come home then she held out to him a hand graduating from pink at the tips of the fingers to white at the palm and the reception formed a scene with a tree over their heads which was not by any means an ordinary one in shirt and abyss streets nevertheless the greeting on her looks and lips was of a restrained type which perhaps was not unnatural for true it was that Giles Winterborne, well-attired and well-mannered as he was for a yeoman, looked rough beside her it had sometimes dimly occurred to him in his ruminating silence at little Hintock that external phenomena such as aloneness or height or colour of a hat the fold of a coat, the make of a boot or the chance, attitude or occupation of a limb at the instant of view may have a great influence upon feminine opinion of a man's worth so frequently founded on non-essentials but a certain causticity of mental tone towards himself and the world in general had prevented today, as always any enthusiastic action and the strength of that reflection and her momentary instinct of reserve at first sight of him was the penalty he paid for his laxness he gave away the tree to a bystander as soon as he could find one who would accept the cumbersome gift and the twain moved on toward the inn at which he had put up Marty made as if to step forward for the pleasure of being recognised by Miss Mallory but abruptly checking herself, she glided behind the carrier's van saying dryly, no, we bink wanted ear and critically regarded Winterborn's companion it would have been very difficult to describe Grace Melbury with precision either now or at any time nay, from the highest point of view to precisely describe a human being the focus of the universe, how impossible but apart from transcendentalism there never probably lived a person who was in herself more completely a reductio ad absurdum of attempts to appraise a woman even externally, by items of face and figure speaking generally it may be said that she was sometimes beautiful that other times not beautiful according to the state of her health and spirits in simple caporial presentment she was of a fair and clear complexion rather pale than pink slim and billed and elastic in movement her look expected tendency to wait for others thoughts before uttering her own possibly also to wait for others deeds before her own doing in her small, delicate mouth which had perhaps hardly settled down to its matured curves there was a gentlest that might hinder sufficient self-assertion for her own good she had well formed eyebrows which had her portrait been painted would probably have been done in prouts or van dyke brown there was nothing remarkable in her dress just now beyond the natural fitness and style that was recent for the streets of Sherton but indeed had it been the reverse and quite striking it would have meant just as little for there can hardly be anything less connected with a woman's personality than drapery which she has neither designed, manufactured, cut, sold or even seen except by a glance of approval when told that such and such a shape and colour must be had because it has been decided by others as imperative at that particular time what people therefore saw of her in a cursory view was very little in truth mainly something that was not she the woman herself was a shadowy, conjectural creature who had little to do with the outlines presented to Sherton eyes a shape in the gloom whose true description could only be approximated by putting together a movement now and a glance then in that patient and long-continued attendedness which nothing but watchful loving-kindness ever troubles to give there was a little delay in their setting out from the town and Marty South took advantage of it a hastened forward with a view of escaping them on the way lest they should feel compelled to spoil their tether-tether by asking her to ride she walked fast and one third of the journey was done and the evening rapidly darkening before she perceived any sign of them behind her then while ascending a hill she dimly saw their vehicle drawing near the lowest part of the incline their heads slightly bent towards each other drawn together no doubt by their souls as the heads of a pair of horses well in hand are drawn in by the rain she walked still faster but between these and herself there was a carriage, apparently a brawn coming in the same direction with lighted lamps when it overtook her which was not soon on the count of her pace the scene was much darker and the lights glared in her eyes sufficiently to hide the details of the equivage it occurred to Marty that she might take hold behind this carriage and so keep along with it to save herself the mortification of being overtaken and picked up for pity's sake by the coming pair accordingly as the carriage drew abreast of her and climbing the long ascent she walked close to the wheels the rays of the nearest lamp penetrating her very pores she had only just dropped behind when the carriage stopped and to her surprise the coachman asked her over her shoulder if she would ride what made the question more surprising was that it came in obedience to an order from the interior of the vehicle Marty gladly ascended for she was weary, very weary after working all night and keeping a foot all day she mounted beside the coachman wondering why this good fortune had happened to her he was rather a great man in aspect and she did not like to inquire of him for some time at last she said, who has been so kind as to ask me to ride? Mrs. Charmond replied her statue-esque companion Marty was stirred by the name so closely connected with her last night's experiences Mrs. Horkeridge she whispered, yes she's inside Marty reflected and perceived that Mrs. Charmond must have recognised her plodding up the hill under the blaze of the lamp recognised probably her stubbly pawl since she had kept away her face and thought that those stubbles were the result of her own desire Marty's self was not so very wrong inside the carriage a pair of bright eyes looked from a ripely handsome face and though behind those bright eyes was a mind of unfathomed mysteries beneath them there beat a heart capable of quick extemporary warmth a heart which could indeed be passionately and imprudently warm on certain occasions at present after recognising the girl she had acted on mere impulse possibly feeling gratified at the annuded appearance which signified the success of her agent in obtaining what she had required it is wonderful that she should ask me observed a magisterial coachman presently who had never known her due before as a rule she takes no interest in village folk at all Marty said no more but occasionally turned ahead to see if she could get a glimpse of the Olympian creature who as the coachman had truly observed hardly ever descended from her clouds into the temp of the parishioners but she could discern nothing of the lady she also looked for Miss Melbury and Winterboard the nose of their horse sometimes came quite near to the back of Mrs. Charmond's carriage but they never attempted to pass it until the latter conveyance turned towards the park gate when they sped by here the carriage drew up that the gate might be opened and in the momentary silence Marty heard a gentle oral sound soft as a breeze what's that? she whispered Mrs. Yawning why should she Yawn? oh because she's been used to such wonderfully good life and finds it duller she'll soon be off again on account of it so rich and so powerful and yet to Yawn the girl murmured then things don't fay with she any more than with me Marty now alighted the lamp began shone upon her and as the carriage rolled on a soft voice said from the interior good night good night man said Marty but she had not been able to see the woman who began so greatly to interest her the second person of her own sex who had operated strongly on her mind that day End of Chapter 5 The Woodlanders Chapter 6 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information on the volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Tye Hines The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter 6 Meanwhile Winterbourne and Grace Melbury had also undergone their little experiences of the same homeward journey as he drove off with her out of the town the glances of people fell upon them the younger thinking that Mr. Winterbourne was in a pleasant place and wondering in what relation he stood towards her Winterbourne himself was unconscious of this occupied solely with the idea of having her in charge he did not notice much with an outward eye neither observing how she was dressed nor the effect of the picture they together composed in the landscape the conversation was in briefest phrase for some time Grace being somewhat disconcerted through not having understood till they were about to start that Giles was to be her sole conductor in place of her father when they were in the open country he spoke Don't brownies fan-buildings look strange to you now did we move bodily from the hollow where the old ones stood to the top of the hill she admitted that they did though she should not have seen any difference in them if he had not pointed it out they had a good crop of bittersweet they couldn't grind them all nodding towards an orchard where some heaps of apples had been left lying ever since the in-gathering she said yes but looking at another orchard where you're looking at John Appletree's you know bittersweet you're used to well enough I am afraid I have forgotten and it is getting too dark to distinguish Winterborne did not continue it seemed as if the knowledge and interest which had formally moved Grace's mind had quite died away from her he wondered whether the special attributes of his image in the past had evaporated like these other things however that might be the fact that present was merely this that where he was seeing John Appletree's fan-buildings she was beholding a far remotor scene a scene no less innocent and simple indeed but much contrasting a broad lawn in the fashionable suburb of a fast city the evergreen leaves shining in the evening sun amid which bounding girls gracefully clad in artistic arrangements of blue, brown, red, black and white were playing games with laughter and chat in all the pride of life the notes of a piano and harp trembling in the air from the open windows adjoining moreover there were girls and this was a fact which Grace Melbury's delicate femininity could not lose sight of whose parents Giles would have addressed with a deferential sir or madam beside this vision scene the homely farm says did not quite hold their own from her present 20-year point of survey for all his woodland sequestration Giles knew the primitive simplicity of the subject he had started and now sounded a deeper note it was very odd what we said to each other years ago I often think of it I mean I was saying that if we liked each other when you were 20 and I 25 we'd that was Giles' tattle hmm said Giles suddenly I mean we were young she said more considerably that gruff manner of his in making inquiries reminded her that he was unaltered in much yes I beg your pardon Miss Melbury your father sent me to meet you today I know it and I'm glad of it he seemed satisfied with her tone and went on at that time you were sitting beside me in the back of your father's covered car when we were coming home from gypsy all the party being squeezed in together is tight as sheep in an auction pen it got darker and darker and I said I forget the exact words I put my arm around your waist and there you let it stay till your father sitting in front suddenly stopped telling his story to fire my bollion to light his pipe the flash shone into the car and showed us all up distinctly my arm flew from your waist like lightning yet not so quickly but that some of them had seen and laughed at us yet your father to our amazement instead of being angry was my little milk and seemed quite pleased have you forgotten all that nor haven't you she owned that you remember it very well now that he mentioned the circumstances but goodness I must have been in short frock she said come now Miss Melbury that won't do short frocks indeed you know better as well as I Grace thereupon declared that she would not argue with an old friend she valued so highly as she valued him saying the words with easy elusiveness that will be polite at all costs it might possibly be true she added that she was getting on in girlhood when that event took place but if it were so then she was virtually no less than an old woman now so far did the time seem removed from her present do you ever look at things philosophically instead of personally she asked I can't say that I do Giles answered his eyes lingering far ahead upon a dark spot which proved to be a brawl I think you may sometimes with advantage said she look at yourself as a pitcher drifting on the stream with other pitchers and consider what contrivances are most desirable for avoiding cracks in general and not only for saving your poor one shall I tell you all about Bath or Cheltenham or places on the continent that I visited last summer knew all my heart then she described places and persons in such terms as might have been used for that purpose by any woman to any man within the four seas so entirely absent from that description was everything especially a pertaining to her own existence when she had done she said gaily now do you tell me in return what has happened in Hintox since I've been away anything to keep the conversation away from her or me said Giles within him it was true cultivation had so far advanced in the soil of Miss Melry's mind as a leader to talk by rote of anything save of that she knew well and had the greatest interest in developing that is to say herself he had not proceeded far with this somewhat bold narration when they drew near the carriage that had been preceding for some time Miss Melry inquired if he knew whose carriage it was Winterborne although he had seen it had not taken it into account on examination he said it was Mrs. Charmans Grace watched the vehicle and its easy roll seemed to feel more nearly akin to it than to the one she was in proof we can polish off the mileage as well as they come to that said Winterborne reading her mind and rising to emulation that what it bespoke he whipped on the horse this it was which had brought the nose of Mr. Melry's old grey close to the back of Mrs. Charmans much eclipsing vehicle there is Marty South sitting down with the coachman he said discerning her by her dress ah poor Marty I must ask her to come to see me this very evening how does she happen to be riding there they don't know it's very singular thus these people with converging destinies went along the road together till Winterborne leaving the track of the carriage turned into little Hintock where almost the first house was the timber merchants pencils of dancing lights streamed out of the windows sufficiently to show the white lorristina's flowers and glance over the polished leaves of Laurel the interior of the rooms could be seen distinctly warmed up by the fire flames which in the parlor were reflected from the glass of the pictures and bookcase and in the kitchen from the utensils and ware let us look at the dear place for a moment before we call them she said in the kitchen dinner was preparing for though Melbury dined at one o'clock at other times today the meal had been kept back for grace a rickety old spit was in motion its end being fixed to the fire dog and the hole kept going by means of a cord conveyed over pulleys along the ceiling to a large stone suspended in a corner of the room old Grammar Oliver came and wound it up with a rattle like that of a mill in the parlor a large shade of Mrs. Melbury's head fell on the wall and ceiling but before the girl had regarded this room many moments their presence was discovered and her father and stepmother came out to welcome her the character of the Melbury family was of that kind which evinces some shyness in showing strong emotion among each other a trait frequent in rural households and one which stands in curiously inverse relation to most of the peculiarities distinguishing villagers from the people of towns thus hiding their warmer feelings under commonplace talk all round Grace's reception produced no extraordinary demonstrations but that more was felt than was enacted that appeared from the fact that her father in taking her indoors quite forgot the presence of Giles without as did also Grace herself he said nothing but took the gig round to the yard and called out from the spar house the man who particularly attended to these matters when there was no conversation to draw him off among the cops workers inside Winterborne then returned to the door with the intention of entering the house the family had gone into the parlor and were still absorbed in themselves the fire was as before the only light and it irradiated Grace's face and hands so as to make them look wondrously smooth and fair besides those of the two elders shining also through the loose hair about her temples at sunlight through a break her father was surveying her in the day's conjecture so much that she developed and progressed in manner and stature since he had last set eyes on her observing these things Winterborne remained dubious by the door mechanically tracing with his finger certain time-worn letters carved in the jams initials of bygone generations of householders who had lived and died there no he declared to himself he would not enter and join the family they had forgotten him and it was enough for today that he had brought her home still he was a little surprised that her father's eagerness to send him for Grace should have resulted in such an anticlimax as this he walked softly away into the lane towards his own house looking back when he reached the turning from which he could get a last glimpse of the timber merchant's roof he hazarded guesses as to what Grace was saying just at that moment and murmured with some self-derision nothing about me he looked also in the other direction and saw against the sky the attached hip and solitary chimney of Marty's cottage and thought of her too struggling bravely along under that humble shelter among her spargads and pots and skimmers at the timber merchants in the meantime the conversation flowed and as Giles Winterborn had rightly enough deemed on subjects in which he had no share among the excluding matters there was for one the effect upon Mr. Melbury of the womanly man and manners of his daughter which took him so much unawares that though it did not make him absolutely forget the existence of a conductor homeward thrust Giles' image back into quite the obscurest cellarage of his brain another was his interview with Mrs. Sherman's agent that morning at which the lady herself had been present for a few minutes Melbury had purchased some standing timber from her a long time before and now that the date had come for felling it he was left to pursue almost his own course this was what the household were actually talking of during Giles' cogitation without and Melbury's satisfaction with the clear atmosphere that had arisen between himself and the daily of the groves which enclose his residence was the cause of a counterbalancing mistiness on the side towards Winterborn so thoroughly does she trust me said Melbury that I might fell top our lap of my own judgement and he stick a timber whatever in her ward and fix the price in it and settle the matter but name it all I wouldn't do such a thing however it may be useful to have this good understanding with her I wish she took more interest in the place and stayed here all year round I'm afraid it's not her regard for you but her dislike of Hintock that makes her easy about trees said Mrs. Melbury when dinner was over Grace took a candle and began to ramble pleasurably through the rooms of her old home from which she had laterally become well-nigh an alien each nook and each object revived a memory and simultaneously modified it the chamber seemed lower than they had appeared on any previous occasion of a return the surfaces of both walls and ceilings standing in such relations to the eye that it could not avoid taking microscopic note of their irregularities and old fashion her own bedroom wore at once a look more familiar than when she had left it and yet her face estranged the world of little things therein gazed at her in helpless stationeryness as though they had tried and been unable to make any progress without her presence over the place where her candle had been accustomed to stand when she had used to read in bed till the midnight hour there was still the brown spot of smoke she did not know that her father had taken a special care to keep it from being cleaned off having concluded her perambulation of this now uselessly commodious edifice Grace began to feel that she had come a long journey since the morning and when her father had been up himself as well as his wife to see that her room was comfortable in the fire burning she prepared to retire for the night no sooner however was she in bed that her momentary sleepiness shook itself off and she wished she had stayed up longer she amused herself by listening to the old familiar noises that she could hear to be still going on downstairs and by looking towards the window as she lay the blind had been drawn up as she used to have it when a girl and she could just discern the dim tree tops against the sky on the neighbouring hill beneath this meeting line of light and shade nothing was visible there was a one solitary point of light which blinked as the tree twigs waved to and fro before its beams from its position it seemed to radiate from the window of a house on the hillside the house had been empty when she was last at home and she wondered who inhabited the place now her conjectures however were not intently carried on and she was watching the light quite idly when it gradually changed colour and it lent Sean blue a sapphire thus it remained several minutes and then it passed through violet to red her curiosity was so widely awakened by the phenomenon that she sat up in bed and stared steadily at the shine an appearance of this sort sufficient to excite attention anywhere was no less than a marvellant hintock as Grace had known the hamlet almost every diurnal and nocturnal effect in that woodland place had hitherto been the direct result of the regular terrestrial role which produced the season's changes but here was something dissociated from these normal sequences and foreign to local habit and knowledge it was about this moment that Grace heard the household millow preparing to retire the most emphatic noise in the proceeding being that of her father bolting the doors then the stairs creaked and her father and mother passed her chamber the last to come was Grammar Oliver Grace slid out of bed ran across the room and lifting the latch said I am not asleep Grammar, come and talk to me before the old woman had entered Grace was again under the bedclothes Grammar sat down her candlestick and seated herself on the edge of Miss Melbury's coverlet I want you to tell me what that light is that I see on the hillside said Grace Mrs Oliver looked across oh that she said is from the doctors he's often doing things of that sort perhaps you don't know that we've a doctor living here now Mr Fitzpears by name Grace admitted that she had not heard of him well then Miss he's come here to get up at practice I know him very well through going there to help him scrub sometimes which your father said I might do if I wanted to in my spare time being a bachelor man he've only a lad in the house oh yes I know him very well sometimes he'd talk to me as if I were his own mother indeed yes Grammar he said one day when I asked him where he came here where there's hardly anybody living I'll tell you where he came here I took a map and I marked on it where Dr Jones' practice ends to the north of the district and where Mr Taylor's ends to the south and little Jimmy Green's on the east and somebody else's to the west then I took a pair of compasses and I found the exact middle of the country that was left between these bounds and that middle was little aim-talk so here I am but Lord there poor young man why he said Grammar Oliver I've been here three months and although there are good many people in the Hintox and the villages around and a scatter practice is often a very good one I don't seem to get many patients and there's no society at all and I'm pretty near melancholy mad he said with a great yawn and I should be quite if I went off my books on my lab laboratory and whatnot Grammar I was made for higher things and then he'd yawn and yawn again was he really made for higher things do you think I mean is he clever well no how can he be clever he maybe had to join up a broken man or woman after a fashion and put a finger upon an ache if you tell him nearly where it is but the young man they should live to my time of life and then they'd see how clever they were at five and twenty and yet he's a project a real project he says the orders of rossums let me tell you that everything is nothing there's only me and not me in the whole world and he told me that no man's hands could help what they did any more than the hands of a clock yes he's a man of strange meditations and his eyes seem to see as far as the North Star he will soon go away no doubt I don't think so Grace did not say why and Grammar hesitated at last he went on don't tell your father or mother miss if I let you know a secret Grace gave the required promise well he talks of bullying me and so we won't go away just yet buying you how not my soul my body when I'm dead one day when I was there cleaning he said Grammar you've a large brain a very large organ of a brain he said a woman's is usually four ounces less than a man's but yours is man's size and then he after he flattered me a bit like that he said he'd give me ten pounds to have me as anatomy after my death well no one had no chick or child left and nobody would any interest in me I thought faith if I can be of any use to my fellow creatures after I'm gone they're welcome to my services and so I said I take it over I would most likely agree and take the ten pounds now to the secret miss between us two the money will be very useful to me and I see no harm in it but of course there's no harm but oh Grammar how can you think to do it I wish you hadn't told me I wish I hadn't if you don't like to know miss but you needn't mind Lord he he he I should keep waiting many a year yet bless you I hope you will I'm sure the girl thereupon fell into such deep reflection that conversation languished and Grammar Oliver taking her candle wished Miss Melbury good night the latter's eyes rested on the distant glimmer around which she allowed her reasoning fancy to play in vague eddies that shaped the doings of the philosopher behind that light on the lines of intelligence just received it was strange to her to come back from the world to little Hintock and to find in one of its nooks like a tropical plant in a hedgerow a nucleus of advanced ideas and practices which had nothing in common with the life around chemical experiments anatomical projects and metaphysical conceptions had found a strange home here thus she remained thinking the imagined pursuits of the man behind the light intermingling with conjectural sketches of his personality till her eyes fell together with her own heaviness and she slept End of chapter 6