Violet Jacob

“ But it was a strange thing that when they were a few yards distant on the green road past Pencoed Chapel, a latch was raised softly in the cottage.
And, as the tread of the dark horse died away, Mrs. Job, like Sarah in the Scriptures, stood behind the door and laughed.
Black Heber set his face to the open stretches below the mountain. Above, treading the paths of the sky, the planets wheeled on their way towards morning; the constellations had turned a little. The night, as it approached its zenith, had lightened under the dominance of the shining groups with their myriad companions. ”

“ The whole world had been drawn as one man to the centre of attraction, and she scarcely met a living creature until she was far into the country. She knew her direction well, once she was out of Talgwynne, for the Black Mountain was a landmark by which it was easy to guide herself. She could see the identical smooth stretch on which she had galloped with Heber Moorhouse, and she was soon in a lane which she felt sure must bring her down upon the high road. Stiff and weary as she still was, she pressed on with no goal but Losbury bridge and nothing but chance as a friend. ”

“ He had read in every face how completely his misfortunes were public property, though the Hand of Friendship had helped to put his humiliation from him for a little while. Every one he met knew how he had arrived at Pencoed on his wedding morning to find himself there on a fool’s errand. No living creature had seen Catherine go; and all that he or any one had been able to drag from Mrs. Job was the admission that she had heard a horse pass her cottage long after she was snug in bed. She had risen and stared into the darkness, but, seeing nothing, had returned to her rest. ”

“ Heber Moorhouse, pressing hard on their heels, shouted now and again, swinging the rope’s end he carried and leaning far out of his saddle as he drove the stragglers in. The rough-coated, weedy-looking pony under him cantered on, stubborn in face and obedient in limb to the rider’s hand and balance. ‘Black Heber’ could bring in his sheep as easily without his dog as with him. ”

“ Though the [Pg 107] buying and selling had not abated, and the fair would rage on for another couple of hours, he shook the dust of Talgwynne off his feet, embittered by his own folly in listening to the impudent woman who had made him forget what was due to himself and led him into fresh ignominy and defeat. His enmity against the shepherd was more keen than ever. His lips closed and unclosed as though in speech with his rival.
As the sound of his going died away, the girl raised herself and looked over the gate at his retreating figure. She felt as if she never wished to see a man again. ”

“ Heber had touched her imagination—and she had more of it than is given to most women of her class—and her heart too. She would bring him to her yet, she promised herself. There was a power in her that hard work and a cramped life had not been able to destroy. The consciousness of femininity in a working woman, should it be alive when its necessary function of attracting a mate and securing a home is accomplished, seldom survives the birth of her first child. Susannah Moorhouse had neither mate nor child ”

“ About an hour afterwards Heber’s perturbed wanderings came to an end: he approached Pencoed again. It was not only Susannah’s demeanour and its suggestion that annoyed him, for, in his heart, he blamed her for having let slip his regained treasure. It was an illogical feeling, because he never doubted that Catherine had gone with Saunders, and gone willingly, repenting the rash step she had taken. He did not overlook the difference between himself and the richer man, though he despised Charles. ”

“ The sharpest things in earth or heaven were the angles of Cassiopeia’s Chair, high among the constellations, which seemed not to look down on the sleep-bound world but to be turning from it, consciously aloof in their unwavering detachment; a sight to affect some not at all; to oppress some by the comparison of infinitude with their own individualities; to raise others, by that very comparison, to the height of ecstasy—the dim foreknowledge of what that true sense of proportion must be which swallows the individual into the immutable and divine. ”

“ At the brink of the pool the men who were awaiting baptism were taking off their coats and boots and Saunders stood back again as he saw them making their preparations. The wrath which the sight of Catherine’s bare ankles and her thinly veiled body had raised turned every instinct in revolt against the rite he had witnessed. ”

“ How meekly she had followed him out of the door at Pencoed! She had distrusted herself all her life; and now she must despise herself too, as she sat, a deluded fool, in front of Susannah, who knew all, and was mocking her because of the knowledge.
When people have been a long time in learning some elementary truth, the lesson, [Pg 69] once made plain, takes complete hold of them. Catherine had never yet attempted to act for herself and now she saw that she must awake from her passiveness and free herself, once and for all, from the web in which she was taken. ”

“ Heber looked grim and weary as he approached. Since Sunday, when he had parted from Susannah, he had had no chance of leaving his work either to question his father at Talgwynne or to make any other attempt at discovering where Catherine had hidden herself. He did not know what to believe; his doubt of his cousin’s truthfulness was strong and his opinion of Mrs. Job’s wisdom great. ”

“ He sat on a log, sheltered from the fresh wind by the hedge at his back, with Susannah, to whom both horses and riders were interesting, beside him. Though old Moorhouse was remarkable by reason of his stature, which years and rheumatism had only slightly disguised, and his niece, because of a vivid, indefinable something, which arrested both male and female eyes, the couple was too ordinary a sight to attract notice from regular haunters of the fair, and only a few strangers let their minds wander from business to glance at them. ”

“ Unreturned love must be worn either as a fetter or as a decoration; and though there are many men whose pride it is to go through life decked out in the [Pg 133] cheap jewellery of the affections, the shepherd was not one of them. Had he found time to think of such things they would have irritated him. He did not care for ornaments; he only cared for freedom and for getting what he wanted. Though he believed himself to have lost Catherine for good and all, his freedom remained; and he felt now as though Susannah menaced it. ”

“ The thing that suited Catherine’s patroness best in their arrangement was that the girl could be left in charge of the gate while she went to Llangarth market. She was a woman of some means, who did a small trade in eggs and poultry, and the difficulty of leaving her post on Thursdays had been a weekly annoyance; for a market day was a foretaste of Paradise to her. She owned a stout, aged pony of her late husband’s which she occasionally hired out to her neighbours for odd jobs, and she now looked forward to journeying in comfort to the very fountain-head of gossip. ”

“ Job’s barn and whirled her, terrified, through the starlight, could not [Pg 63] have existed in those untroubled Sabbaths. He could not be the same person as the Heber she had known. She did not suspect that, though he had always existed, she had never seen him. A like puzzle had dismayed her in Saunders; the same chameleon-like habit of turning, under new circumstances, into a different being. ”

“ He resumed his seat, feeling as if a rough hand had taken him by the collar. When a man without vanity loves a woman as much as he loved Catherine Dennis, the unasked favour of another is only a gyve to be shaken off. ”

“ There was annoyance in the thought that Heber Moorhouse would not have exchanged his sheep and his life of exertion and hardship—the cold winter snow and starlight of the mountain, its burning, shadeless summer heats—for the advantages which had placed himself high in the consideration [Pg 19] of Catherine’s few friends. Catherine was an orphan and her lot in life that of a maidservant at a humble farm. She had caught Charles’s affections in spite of every prejudice he possessed and the fact spoke well for the strength of his feelings. ”

“ Labels play a large part in the imagination of youth and she was young enough to be desperately impressed by discrepancies and contradictions. Her association with him had been short, and ran smoothly till its breaking, but she had learnt little about men from it. Until their quiet courtship had begun, her lot had been entirely with women. Her mistress had not given her much latitude, and Heber had been seldom to the farm; their walks to and from Pencoed chapel on Sundays had been almost the only meetings of the engaged pair. ”

“ He was a long, elderly man, whose appearance and demeanour made the horse under him a mere adjunct to himself and commerce a secondary matter. The lightning trot that formed his charger’s chief qualification was of such incredible swiftness that he had gone by almost before the onlookers knew what had happened. In order that this should not degenerate into a canter, the rider had laid himself forward on the leggy creature’s neck, and was firmly grasping its ears, from between which his own face, crowned by a pot hat and framed in streaming whiskers, stared into futurity. ”

“ Nevertheless, he had promised her that he would embrace it practically, and he glanced at the small knot of men who awaited their turn to be baptized and with whom he was to present himself when the women came up from the pool.
The quiet figures stood modestly in a row behind the minister, Catherine and the [Pg 17] grey-haired woman together; the girl’s colour was mounting and fading again in her face. She looked over for a moment at her affianced husband, and he could see the exaltation that burned in her eyes, suggesting to him more than ever the idea of martyrdom. ”

“ While so engaged, she directed Catherine, who looked on with astonishment, to shut the gate and tie the animal to it. The girl obeyed, and when the widow approached, bulging more strangely than usual, she helped her to mount. Mrs. Cockshow used the toll bars as a horse-block. Then the egg basket was handed up to her, a switch cut from the hedge, and Catherine was bidden to attend to the needs of passers and to suffer no one to shirk payment. Before the rider was out of sight, Bungo burst with a yell from the toll-house and began to follow, raising a trail of dust as he went. ”

“ It struck her that she would not have felt so secure with Charles under like conditions, though he considered himself a finer horseman and though he was such a well-appointed figure when he rode into the market-town on his sleek hackney. She would hardly have been a woman had the thought not given her pleasure. They turned towards the hill as the track opened into unconfined wideness. They had spoken little and no caress had passed between the reunited couple; Heber had not so much as kissed the woman in his arms. ”

“ The colour ran up to her face and remained in a bright spot on each of her high cheek-bones. Faint lines about her mouth and jaw showed that she had passed her freshest youth, though her full figure and [Pg 58] unfaded eyes held all the attraction of womanhood in the mid-thirties. She had hurried on a few clothes, but her bodice was carelessly fastened and strained across her full bosom. When she turned her attention to Catherine she seemed to be looking down at her from a height.
“Here’s my girl, Catherine Dennis,” said Heber shortly. “Ye’ll not refuse her a bed to-night, Susannah.” ”

“ If Susannah’s letter had produced no effect on Charles, it had given him the keen pleasure of knowing that Heber was made a fool of as well as himself. The whole look of the man as he came to meet him sent the warmth of satisfaction through Saunders, because it suggested to him that he was out of spirits with the world. ”

“ Heber’s a man of his word, an’ you broke your word to him, an’ Saunders broke his word to you; yes, an’ will again too. If he can’t keep faith wi’ his sweetheart what’ll he do with his wife?”
“But he’s a very good-living man,” began Catherine.
“That may be,” cried Mrs. Job, raising her voice; “but there’s no religion in him! He don’t care for nothin’ but his cattle an’ his money an’ his buyin’ an’ sellin’ an’ layin’ up riches. What’s the use o’ that when his heart’s proud before God an’ the truth’s not in him? Maybe ye’ll live to find it out, girl. An’ when ye do, don’t come to me. ”

“ Cockshow did not believe in men. Her own husband had drunk heavily and persistently; and she had had time to visit his sins upon him before he escaped into the next world. She was well acquainted with Charles Saunders, and slightly so with Black Heber, for both had passed through her gate at various times.
“Take care ye don’t let the sun go over the ’ill, all the same,” she had said to Catherine; for though a despiser of men, she was an advocate of marriage. To her, matrimony, with the whip hand, was the ideal life. ”

“ But for the usual market this was the little town’s one explosion of business and pleasure; sheep and cattle changed hands every week within sound of the clock on the square church tower in larger or smaller quantities, but it was only in spring and autumn that mountain ponies, hackneys, and carthorses enlivened the place by their transitory presence. ”