bess was coming over the snow next morning from the thatched shed where she had been milking dame ursula’s cows, when dan grimshaw slouched round the corner of the cottage with his gun over his shoulder. he had been away in the woods early and had brought back a hare, a brace of woodcock, and a widgeon that he had knocked over in the old fish-ponds of the abbey of holy cross. a black spaniel followed at his heels. bess, in her red petticoat, her cheeks aglow under her coal-black hair, came over the snow towards him with the fresh milk frothing in the pail.
“morning to ye, bess,” quoth the great, hairy-faced animal whose huge calves and bulging shoulders were those of a stunted giant. “i’ve brought ye back some game, lass, in return for breaking your sleep last night. i’m sorry if i angered ye.”
he held out the hare and the three birds in one great red paw, grinning amiably, yet with a glint in his red-brown eyes. bess smiled at dan under her scarlet hood. a lass needed wit in such a woodland haunt as this, where the strongest arm ruled, and men fought like quick, subtle, and resourceful, glib with her tongue and clever with her eyes. the felinity of her nature was developed when she must purr and fawn, or spit and extend her claws as necessity commanded. bess did not love black dan, but isaac grimshaw’s son was a man to be humored rather than rebuffed.
“you have a good heart, dan,” she said, kindly enough. “i was oversharp with ye last night. i jumped out of bed on the left side, and was as cross in the cold as might be. won’t you come in and take breakfast with us?”
the man turned and walked with her towards the cottage, carrying the game in one hand, the gun in the other. his eyes watched bess as she walked, tall and straight as a cypress, her stride almost that of a man, her head poised finely on her slightly arched neck. he noticed the muscles and sinews standing out in the strong brown forearm that carried the pail, the trim, gray-stockinged ankles under the short red petticoat.
“did ye dream of me, bess?” he asked, with a grin.
“not i,” she laughed, good-humoredly.
“or of young david?”
“no, nor of david.”
“then ye did not dream at all, lass,” he said, with his brown eyes burning.
“no, dan, i have not seen my man as yet.”
old ursula came to the door of the cottage at the moment with a broom in her brown fists, looking for all the world like an old witch. she gave dan a glare from her bright eyes, and scolded bess for going out into the snow in her best shoes.
“i have asked dan to breakfast, mother,” said the girl, with a laugh; “see the game he has brought us home.”
“dan to breakfast, indeed! there be but two rashers in the pan and two eggs in the pot. we can’t feed dan at such short notice.”
the man frowned at her, kicked his dog that was for sparring with old ursula’s cat, tossed the hare and birds onto a settle by the door, and jerked his gun up over his shoulder. he and dame ursula were not the best of friends, and black dan, who feared no mortal thing in breeches, stood half in awe of the old beldam. he clawed his fur cap from off his head, stared hard at bess, and stood fidgeting on the step.
“i reckon i’d better go home, lass,” he said, sulkily.
bess set her milk-pail down on the stone floor and untied her hood.
“you take some cooking for, dan,” she said, mischievously.
“i don’t want to lick shoe-leather for a welcome.”
“never worry. we will be ready for you another day.”
bess, having caught a significant twinkle in dame ursula’s eyes, gave dan grimshaw a courtesy, and picked up her pail. the man pulled his fur cap down over his eyes, and, with a last glance at the girl, plodded away over the snow, whistling, his breath steaming on the frosty air. bess watched him go, and then closed and locked the door. old ursula was bending over the fire, turning the bacon in the pan.
she looked at bess curiously, and scolded the black cat that had put its fore-paws on the milk-pail and was trying to lap the milk.
“did you dream, lass?” she asked, inquisitively.
bess looked serious of a sudden and colored, though her face hardly betrayed any deepening flush. she was still puzzling over the face of the man she had seen in her dream, and yet the girl was not in a mood to confess to mother ursula in the matter.
“not i,” she said, laughing, and taking a rough cloth from a drawer and spreading it on the oak table.
“not of david?”
“why should i dream of david, mother?”
ursula frowned, and mumbled over the pan. isaac’s youngest son was her favorite, a tall, flaxen-polled stripling, with a merry face and good-humored blue eyes. ursula did not love black dan. he was too big and masterful, too surly, too much of a great bully.
bess had spread the cloth.
“dan came and threw stones at my window,” she said, suddenly.
“hey!”
“i told him i wouldn’t have climbed out of bed to see his ugly face.”
old ursula forked the rashers onto a hot plate and looked at bess meaningly, wagging a lean forefinger to give emphasis to her words.
“you must be shy of dan,” she said, shrewdly.
“shy, mother?”
“the great fool is a rough, masterful dog. throw him a bone now and then, lass, to keep him from growing surly. he’s no mate for you, girl, the great, black-faced oaf. david’s the lad to make a good husband. you must be shy of dan, bess.”
the girl swept her black hair over her ears, laughed, and began to bustle about the kitchen.
“i can take care of myself, mother,” she said.
“better be your own mistress, lass, than let black dan have the handling of your love.”
thus a certain superficial similarity may be traced between the lots of richard jeffray and bess of the woods. both had a garrulous and world-wise relative to stem with the calthrops of caution the careless confidence of youth. while old ursula pattered in the inglenook of black dan’s ugliness of face and temper, and extolled the blond david for his red cheeks and good-humored eyes, the lady letitia would ask her nephew with the greatest gravity, “what color miss jilian fancied for her hair this season? had miss hardacre had that front tooth replaced? had richard ever heard of the soakington affair, when miss jilian had eloped with ensign soakington of a marching regiment, and had been overtaken and brought back unmarried by sir peter? yes, it was quite true that miss hardacre had spent the night with the ensign at an inn at reigate before sir peter and brother lot had ended the romance with their whips. what! richard had not heard the tale! well, it was an old scandal, and had happened ten years ago. yes, there had been other affairs. sir peter was wise in desiring to get his daughter married.”
now richard jeffray was a sensitive youth, and though the lady letitia’s sarcasms gored him beneath his air of amiable patience, he was not a little disturbed by her gibes and her innuendoes. richard had inherited a chivalrous temper from his father, and he was something of a young quixote in his notions of honor. certainly he had often idled beside miss jilian’s tambour-frame, attended her as she warbled at the harpsichord, danced and ridden with her, gazed into her gray eyes with a fervor that was not platonic. miss hardacre had been very kind to him, so had sir peter, and even cousin lot, in his insolent and patronizing way. moreover, the lady letitia herself was not a white statue of truth and candor. richard knew that she cheated poor sugg at cards, rouged and powdered, and wore false eyebrows. and surely miss jilian was a very handsome young lady, and if she dressed somewhat gaudily, it was fashion’s fault and not her own. richard supposed that most young ladies had indulged in love affairs in their teens. had not he himself when a boy ogled dr. sugg’s daughter mary for weeks together? and in italy he had even imagined a little opera singer to be the finest feminine creation the world had ever doted upon.
thus the amiable and generous assling conceived that it would be a gross piece of dishonor on his part were he to treat miss jilian hardacre after the fashion that the lady letitia advised. by reason of the extreme delicacy of his sentiment he felt himself impelled rather to exaggerate his courtesies to that young lady, lest he should be charged with trifling with the pure peace of a spinster’s heart. it was not that richard stood altogether in awe of cousin lancelot’s hectoring courage. jeffray was no coward, though a dreamer. very possibly his aunt’s cynicisms had operated in a contrary direction to that which the old pharmaceutist had intended. contradiction begets contrariness; pessimism preens the wings of ardor. it may have been that the lad’s innate sense of chivalry was stirred, and that the lamps in that gorgeous temple of beauty flashed a bewitching glamour into richard’s soul. at all events, he did not slink like a dishonest cur from the maligned maiden’s side. he still continued to kiss her hand, and to admire her profile, a little forcefully perhaps, as she sat and played to him on the harpsichord.
one morning, a week or more after his debate with aunt letitia, richard rode over to hardacre house and dined with sir peter, mr. lot, and certain of the latter gentleman’s sporting friends. these bluff sussex boobies could by no means fathom young jeffray’s character. they took his sensitive reserve for pride, his occasional outbursts of enthusiasm for sentimentality. among these gentlemen the manly virtues were of the florid order. he who swore most, drank most, debauched most, was voted a fine fellow, a man of blood and bottom. richard jeffray, refined, sensitive, and a scholar, shrivelled and shrank before these noisy boors. they did not love him for his melancholy and his silence. “the young fool wanted pap and a flannel binder.” one rosy-gilled quipster made it his especial business that day to point his jokes at richard’s expense, till he was called to order by cousin lot across the table.
“tie up your funny nag, tom,” quoth mr. lancelot, with a glint of the eye, “he’s a stale and dull beast. dick jeffray’s too much of a gentleman to straddle your spavined jokes.”
mr. piggott blinked and guffawed. next moment he spilled his wine, and squealed as the heel of mr. lot’s boot came crunching upon his toe under the table.
“damn it, sir—”
“hallo, was that your foot, tom? beg pardon; i’ve got such infernal long legs.”
mr. piggott took the hint, mopped up the wine with a napkin, and relapsed into silence. he was one of the hardacre toadies who swilled sir peter’s punch, swore in voluble admiration over mr. lot’s escapades, and always expressed himself ravished by miss jilian’s charms. sir peter had instructed his son as to the necessity for blanketing richard’s sensitive soul. hence, mr. lot, wise in his generation, had come to regard jeffray as a prospective brother-in-law, a pretty bridegroom to be cherished for miss jilian’s sake. he might despise the youth himself, but it was not sir peter’s policy to suffer richard to be frightened from hardacre by his raw-boned and boisterous guests.
richard did not see the fair mistress jilian that day. cousin lot announced to him, with a leer, that his sister was abed with a sick headache. should he deliver a note to her from her dear cousin? it would do jilian a world of good no doubt to get a glimpse of her cousin’s pretty sentences. richard blushed, smiled, contented himself with sending his “sympathetic and cousinly respect” to the suffering angel. the truth was this, though richard did not know it, miss hardacre had been trying some new cosmetic from town, and the treacherous stuff had blistered her fair cheeks. she was lying abed with a plaster of chalk and olive-oil over her face, and her sweet soul full of tempestuous indignation.
the snow was still lying an inch deep over the grass when jeffray bowed over sir peter’s gnarled and gouty hand, smiled sheepishly at lot, and mounted his mare for rodenham. mists were creeping up the valleys, rolling over the woods like smoke, wiping out the blues and purples of the distance with steaming vapor. the high ground by beacon rock was still clear, while below the mist seemed like a gray sea beating upon the dark coast-line of the moors. here and there a tall clump of trees stood out like a black and isolated rock in the midst of the water.
richard had passed beacon rock and was in the fringe of the fog when a shrill cry came to him from a thicket of pines known as the queen’s circle, standing on a knoll to the left of the road. he reined in to listen, the mist drifting about him in ragged eddies, raw and cold with the thawing snow. richard could see the clump of trees towering dimly through the vapor. angry voices came eddying over the moor. jeffray could distinguish a woman’s above the growling of the deeper undertones.
“let him be, dan, you coward!”
“stand aside, wench—”
“will you fight a mere lad? off, you great coward! i’ll hold him, david, run, lad, run!”
there was an angry uproar, an oath or two, the sound of men scuffling and struggling together. a woman’s figure broke away suddenly through the moving mist, red cloaked, hood thrown back, black hair in a tangle. she came close to jeffray’s horse, her hands to her bosom, her white face straining towards the west. she ran up to him, snatched at his bridle, looking up fiercely in his face.
“quick, or he’ll murder him—”
“who?”
“black dan. he’s a devil when angry. quick! you have pistols; give me one—”
she snatched one from jeffray’s holster, looked to the priming, and without so much as waiting for a word from him, darted away over the heather. richard, as though compelled, turned his horse, clapped in the spurs, and followed. he could see two men struggling together in the mist under the trees. the girl was running towards them, brandishing her pistol, and shouting as she ran.
“off, dan, or i’ll shoot ye. david, there’s help coming. take your hand off his throat, you devil.”
the struggling figures swayed and fell of a sudden. young david, with dan’s fist at his throat, had tripped the giant, and slipped free in the fall. quick as a cat he broke away from his brother’s clutches as they rolled on the ground, and scrambling up, took to his heels over the heather. dan was up and after him like a plunging hound, shouting and cursing as he lumbered in pursuit. before bess had reached the trees they had both disappeared down the hill-side into the mist.
she turned suddenly and faced jeffray, and held out the pistol to him by the stock as he rode up. he had recognized her as the girl he had seen under the beech-trees with the old woman tending pigs.
“thanks for your pistol,” she said, frankly, “david’s broken away, and can run three yards to dan’s two. the lad will be safe enough now.”
jeffray had taken the pistol from her and thrust it back into the holster. he was studying her angry yet handsome face, framed by its glorious sheen of hair.
“what were they fighting about?” he asked.
bess laughed, flashed a look at him out of her fierce eyes.
“about me,” she said.
“you?”
“yes. i must run home to warn ursula and old isaac. good-night.”
she swung away suddenly over the heather, leaving jeffray as though he had known since birth who dan and david, isaac and old ursula were. the man watched her tall figure melt into the mist, wondering the while who this wild elf could be. regaining the road, he trotted on again towards rodenham, keeping a sharp watch upon the misty woods. that same evening he called peter gladden, the butler, to him in the library, and drew from the old man all he knew concerning the woodlanders who lived in the forest of pevensel.
