Book: The Woodlanders

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This was undeniably true, and it had its weight with Grace, who
began to look as if she thought she had been shockingly severe.

"Before you go," he continued, "I want to know your pleasure about
me--what you wish me to do, or not to do."

"You are independent of me, and it seems a mockery to ask that.
Far be it from me to advise. But I will think it over. I rather
need advice myself than stand in a position to give it."

"YOU don't need advice, wisest, dearest woman that ever lived. If
you did--"

"Would you give it to me?"

"Would you act upon what I gave?"

"That's not a fair inquiry," said she, smiling despite her
gravity. "I don't mind hearing it--what you do really think the
most correct and proper course for me."

"It is so easy for me to say, and yet I dare not, for it would be
provoking you to remonstrances."

Knowing, of course, what the advice would be, she did not press
him further, and was about to beckon Marty forward and leave him,
when he interrupted her with, "Oh, one moment, dear Grace--you
will meet me again?"

She eventually agreed to see him that day fortnight. Fitzpiers
expostulated at the interval, but the half-alarmed earnestness
with which she entreated him not to come sooner made him say
hastily that he submitted to her will--that he would regard her as
a friend only, anxious for his reform and well-being, till such
time as she might allow him to exceed that privilege.

All this was to assure her; it was only too clear that he had not
won her confidence yet. It amazed Fitzpiers, and overthrew all
his deductions from previous experience, to find that this girl,
though she had been married to him, could yet be so coy.
Notwithstanding a certain fascination that it carried with it, his
reflections were sombre as he went homeward; he saw how deep had
been his offence to produce so great a wariness in a gentle and
once unsuspicious soul.

He was himself too fastidious to care to coerce her. To be an
object of misgiving or dislike to a woman who shared his home was
what he could not endure the thought of. Life as it stood was
more tolerable.

When he was gone, Marty joined Mrs. Fitzpiers. She would fain
have consulted Marty on the question of Platonic relations with
her former husband, as she preferred to regard him. But Marty
showed no great interest in their affairs, so Grace said nothing.
They came onward, and saw Melbury standing at the scene of the
felling which had been audible to them, when, telling Marty that
she wished her meeting with Mr. Fitzpiers to be kept private, she
left the girl to join her father. At any rate, she would consult
him on the expediency of occasionally seeing her husband.

Her father was cheerful, and walked by her side as he had done in
earlier days. "I was thinking of you when you came up," he said.
"I have considered that what has happened is for the best. Since
your husband is gone away, and seems not to wish to trouble you,
why, let him go, and drop out of your life. Many women are worse
off. You can live here comfortably enough, and he can emigrate,
or do what he likes for his good. I wouldn't mind sending him the
further sum of money he might naturally expect to come to him, so
that you may not be bothered with him any more. He could hardly
have gone on living here without speaking to me, or meeting me;
and that would have been very unpleasant on both sides."

These remarks checked her intention. There was a sense of
weakness in following them by saying that she had just met her
husband by appointment. "Then you would advise me not to
communicate with him?" she observed.

"I shall never advise ye again. You are your own mistress--do as
you like. But my opinion is that if you don't live with him, you
had better live without him, and not go shilly-shallying and
playing bopeep. You sent him away; and now he's gone. Very well;
trouble him no more."

Grace felt a guiltiness--she hardly knew why--and made no
confession.



CHAPTER XLVI.


The woods were uninteresting, and Grace stayed in-doors a great
deal. She became quite a student, reading more than she had done
since her marriage But her seclusion was always broken for the
periodical visit to Winterborne's grave with Marty, which was kept
up with pious strictness, for the purpose of putting snow-drops,
primroses, and other vernal flowers thereon as they came.

One afternoon at sunset she was standing just outside her father's
garden, which, like the rest of the Hintock enclosures, abutted
into the wood. A slight foot-path led along here, forming a
secret way to either of the houses by getting through its boundary
hedge. Grace was just about to adopt this mode of entry when a
figure approached along the path, and held up his hand to detain
her. It was her husband.

"I am delighted," he said, coming up out of breath; and there
seemed no reason to doubt his words. "I saw you some way off--I
was afraid you would go in before I could reach you."

"It is a week before the time," said she, reproachfully. "I said
a fortnight from the last meeting."

"My dear, you don't suppose I could wait a fortnight without
trying to get a glimpse of you, even though you had declined to
meet me! Would it make you angry to know that I have been along
this path at dusk three or four times since our last meeting?
Well, how are you?"

She did not refuse her hand, but when he showed a wish to retain
it a moment longer than mere formality required, she made it
smaller, so that it slipped away from him, with again that same
alarmed look which always followed his attempts in this direction.
He saw that she was not yet out of the elusive mood; not yet to be
treated presumingly; and he was correspondingly careful to
tranquillize her.

His assertion had seemed to impress her somewhat. "I had no idea
you came so often," she said. "How far do you come from?"

"From Exbury. I always walk from Sherton-Abbas, for if I hire,
people will know that I come; and my success with you so far has
not been great enough to justify such overtness. Now, my dear
one--as I MUST call you--I put it to you: will you see me a little
oftener as the spring advances?"

Grace lapsed into unwonted sedateness, and avoiding the question,
said, "I wish you would concentrate on your profession, and give
up those strange studies that used to distract you so much. I am
sure you would get on."

"It is the very thing I am doing. I was going to ask you to burn--
or, at least, get rid of--all my philosophical literature. It is
in the bookcases in your rooms. The fact is, I never cared much
for abstruse studies."

"I am so glad to hear you say that. And those other books--those
piles of old plays--what good are they to a medical man?"

"None whatever!" he replied, cheerfully. "Sell them at Sherton
for what they will fetch."

"And those dreadful old French romances, with their horrid
spellings of 'filz' and 'ung' and 'ilz' and 'mary' and 'ma foy?'"

"You haven't been reading them, Grace?"

"Oh no--I just looked into them, that was all."

"Make a bonfire of 'em directly you get home. I meant to do it
myself. I can't think what possessed me ever to collect them. I
have only a few professional hand-books now, and am quite a
practical man. I am in hopes of having some good news to tell you
soon, and then do you think you could--come to me again?"

"I would rather you did not press me on that just now," she
replied, with some feeling. "You have said you mean to lead a
new, useful, effectual life; but I should like to see you put it
in practice for a little while before you address that query to
me. Besides--I could not live with you."

"Why not?"

Grace was silent a few instants. "I go with Marty to Giles's
grave. We swore we would show him that devotion. And I mean to
keep it up."

"Well, I wouldn't mind that at all. I have no right to expect
anything else, and I will not wish you to keep away. I liked the
man as well as any I ever knew. In short, I would accompany you a
part of the way to the place, and smoke a cigar on the stile while
I waited till you came back."

"Then you haven't given up smoking?"

"Well--ahem--no. I have thought of doing so, but--"

His extreme complacence had rather disconcerted Grace, and the
question about smoking had been to effect a diversion. Presently
she said, firmly, and with a moisture in her eye that he could not
see, as her mind returned to poor Giles's "frustrate ghost," "I
don't like you--to speak lightly on that subject, if you did speak
lightly. To be frank with you--quite frank--I think of him as my
betrothed lover still. I cannot help it. So that it would be
wrong for me to join you."

Fitzpiers was now uneasy. "You say your betrothed lover still,"
he rejoined. "When, then, were you betrothed to him, or engaged,
as we common people say?"

"When you were away."

"How could that be?"

Grace would have avoided this; but her natural candor led her on.
"It was when I was under the impression that my marriage with you
was about to be annulled, and that he could then marry me. So I
encouraged him to love me."

Fitzpiers winced visibly; and yet, upon the whole, she was right
in telling it. Indeed, his perception that she was right in her
absolute sincerity kept up his affectionate admiration for her
under the pain of the rebuff. Time had been when the avowal that
Grace had deliberately taken steps to replace him would have
brought him no sorrow. But she so far dominated him now that he
could not bear to hear her words, although the object of her high
regard was no more.

"It is rough upon me--that!" he said, bitterly. "Oh, Grace--I did
not know you--tried to get rid of me! I suppose it is of no use,
but I ask, cannot you hope to--find a little love in your heart
for me again?"

"If I could I would oblige you; but I fear I cannot!" she replied,
with illogical ruefulness. "And I don't see why you should mind
my having had one lover besides yourself in my life, when you have
had so many."

"But I can tell you honestly that I love you better than all of
them put together, and that's what you will not tell me!"

"I am sorry; but I fear I cannot," she said, sighing again.

"I wonder if you ever will?" He looked musingly into her
indistinct face, as if he would read the future there. "Now have
pity, and tell me: will you try?"

"To love you again?"

"Yes; if you can."

"I don't know how to reply," she answered, her embarrassment
proving her truth. "Will you promise to leave me quite free as to
seeing you or not seeing you?"

"Certainly. Have I given any ground for you to doubt my first
promise in that respect?"

She was obliged to admit that he had not.

"Then I think that you might get your heart out of that grave,"
said he, with playful sadness. "It has been there a long time."

She faintly shook her head, but said, "I'll try to think of you
more--if I can."

With this Fitzpiers was compelled to be satisfied, and he asked
her when she would meet him again.

"As we arranged--in a fortnight."

"If it must be a fortnight it must!"

"This time at least. I'll consider by the day I see you again if
I can shorten the interval."

"Well, be that as it may, I shall come at least twice a week to
look at your window."

"You must do as you like about that. Good-night."

"Say 'husband.'"

She seemed almost inclined to give him the word; but exclaiming,
"No, no; I cannot," slipped through the garden-hedge and
disappeared.



Fitzpiers did not exaggerate when he told her that he should haunt
the precincts of the dwelling. But his persistence in this course
did not result in his seeing her much oftener than at the
fortnightly interval which she had herself marked out as proper.
At these times, however, she punctually appeared, and as the
spring wore on the meetings were kept up, though their character
changed but little with the increase in their number.

The small garden of the cottage occupied by the Tangs family--
father, son, and now son's wife--aligned with the larger one of
the timber-dealer at its upper end; and when young Tim, after
leaving work at Melbury's, stood at dusk in the little bower at
the corner of his enclosure to smoke a pipe, he frequently
observed the surgeon pass along the outside track before-
mentioned. Fitzpiers always walked loiteringly, pensively,
looking with a sharp eye into the gardens one after another as he
proceeded; for Fitzpiers did not wish to leave the now absorbing
spot too quickly, after travelling so far to reach it; hoping
always for a glimpse of her whom he passionately desired to take
to his arms anew.

Now Tim began to be struck with these loitering progresses along
the garden boundaries in the gloaming, and wondered what they
boded. It was, naturally, quite out of his power to divine the
singular, sentimental revival in Fitzpiers's heart; the fineness
of tissue which could take a deep, emotional--almost also an
artistic--pleasure in being the yearning inamorato of a woman he
once had deserted, would have seemed an absurdity to the young
sawyer. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers were separated; therefore the
question of affection as between them was settled. But his Suke
had, since that meeting on their marriage-day, repentantly
admitted, to the urgency of his questioning, a good deal
concerning her past levities. Putting all things together, he
could hardly avoid connecting Fitzpiers's mysterious visits to
this spot with Suke's residence under his roof. But he made
himself fairly easy: the vessel in which they were about to
emigrate sailed that month; and then Suke would be out of
Fitzpiers's way forever.

The interval at last expired, and the eve of their departure
arrived. They were pausing in the room of the cottage allotted to
them by Tim's father, after a busy day of preparation, which left
them weary. In a corner stood their boxes, crammed and corded,
their large case for the hold having already been sent away. The
firelight shone upon Suke's fine face and form as she stood
looking into it, and upon the face of Tim seated in a corner, and
upon the walls of his father's house, which he was beholding that
night almost for the last time.

Tim Tangs was not happy. This scheme of emigration was dividing
him from his father--for old Tangs would on no account leave
Hintock--and had it not been for Suke's reputation and his own
dignity, Tim would at the last moment have abandoned the project.
As he sat in the back part of the room he regarded her moodily,
and the fire and the boxes. One thing he had particularly noticed
this evening--she was very restless; fitful in her actions, unable
to remain seated, and in a marked degree depressed.

"Sorry that you be going, after all, Suke?" he said.

She sighed involuntarily. "I don't know but that I be," she
answered. "'Tis natural, isn't it, when one is going away?"

"But you wasn't born here as I was."

"No."

"There's folk left behind that you'd fain have with 'ee, I
reckon?"

"Why do you think that?"

"I've seen things and I've heard things; and, Suke, I say 'twill
be a good move for me to get 'ee away. I don't mind his leavings
abroad, but I do mind 'em at home."

Suke's face was not changed from its aspect of listless
indifference by the words. She answered nothing; and shortly
after he went out for his customary pipe of tobacco at the top of
the garden.

The restlessness of Suke had indeed owed its presence to the
gentleman of Tim's suspicions, but in a different--and it must be
added in justice to her--more innocent sense than he supposed,
judging from former doings. She had accidentally discovered that
Fitzpiers was in the habit of coming secretly once or twice a week
to Hintock, and knew that this evening was a favorite one of the
seven for his journey. As she was going next day to leave the
country, Suke thought there could be no great harm in giving way
to a little sentimentality by obtaining a glimpse of him quite
unknown to himself or to anybody, and thus taking a silent last
farewell. Aware that Fitzpiers's time for passing was at hand she
thus betrayed her feeling. No sooner, therefore, had Tim left the
room than she let herself noiselessly out of the house, and
hastened to the corner of the garden, whence she could witness the
surgeon's transit across the scene--if he had not already gone by.

Her light cotton dress was visible to Tim lounging in the arbor of
the opposite corner, though he was hidden from her. He saw her
stealthily climb into the hedge, and so ensconce herself there
that nobody could have the least doubt her purpose was to watch
unseen for a passer-by.

He went across to the spot and stood behind her. Suke started,
having in her blundering way forgotten that he might be near. She
at once descended from the hedge.

"So he's coming to-night," said Tim, laconically. "And we be
always anxious to see our dears."

"He IS coming to-night," she replied, with defiance. "And we BE
anxious for our dears."

"Then will you step in-doors, where your dear will soon jine 'ee?
We've to mouster by half-past three to-morrow, and if we don't get
to bed by eight at latest our faces will be as long as clock-cases
all day."

She hesitated for a minute, but ultimately obeyed, going slowly
down the garden to the house, where he heard the door-latch click
behind her.

Tim was incensed beyond measure. His marriage had so far been a
total failure, a source of bitter regret; and the only course for
improving his case, that of leaving the country, was a sorry, and
possibly might not be a very effectual one. Do what he would, his
domestic sky was likely to be overcast to the end of the day.
Thus he brooded, and his resentment gathered force. He craved a
means of striking one blow back at the cause of his cheerless
plight, while he was still on the scene of his discomfiture. For
some minutes no method suggested itself, and then he had an idea.

Coming to a sudden resolution, he hastened along the garden, and
entered the one attached to the next cottage, which had formerly
been the dwelling of a game-keeper. Tim descended the path to the
back of the house, where only an old woman lived at present, and
reaching the wall he stopped. Owing to the slope of the ground
the roof-eaves of the linhay were here within touch, and he thrust
his arm up under them, feeling about in the space on the top of
the wall-plate.

"Ah, I thought my memory didn't deceive me!" he lipped silently.

With some exertion he drew down a cobwebbed object curiously
framed in iron, which clanked as he moved it. It was about three
feet in length and half as wide. Tim contemplated it as well as
he could in the dying light of day, and raked off the cobwebs with
his hand.

"That will spoil his pretty shins for'n, I reckon!" he said.

It was a man-trap.



CHAPTER XLVII.


Were the inventors of automatic machines to be ranged according to
the excellence of their devices for producing sound artistic
torture, the creator of the man-trap would occupy a very
respectable if not a very high place.

It should rather, however, be said, the inventor of the particular
form of man-trap of which this found in the keeper's out-house was
a specimen. For there were other shapes and other sizes,
instruments which, if placed in a row beside one of the type
disinterred by Tim, would have worn the subordinate aspect of the
bears, wild boars, or wolves in a travelling menagerie, as
compared with the leading lion or tiger. In short, though many
varieties had been in use during those centuries which we are
accustomed to look back upon as the true and only period of merry
England--in the rural districts more especially--and onward down
to the third decade of the nineteenth century, this model had
borne the palm, and had been most usually followed when the
orchards and estates required new ones.

There had been the toothless variety used by the softer-hearted
landlords--quite contemptible in their clemency. The jaws of
these resembled the jaws of an old woman to whom time has left
nothing but gums. There were also the intermediate or half-
toothed sorts, probably devised by the middle-natured squires, or
those under the influence of their wives: two inches of mercy, two
inches of cruelty, two inches of mere nip, two inches of probe,
and so on, through the whole extent of the jaws. There were also,
as a class apart, the bruisers, which did not lacerate the flesh,
but only crushed the bone

The sight of one of these gins when set produced a vivid
impression that it was endowed with life. It exhibited the
combined aspects of a shark, a crocodile, and a scorpion. Each
tooth was in the form of a tapering spine, two and a quarter
inches long, which, when the jaws were closed, stood in
alternation from this side and from that. When they were open,
the two halves formed a complete circle between two and three feet
in diameter, the plate or treading-place in the midst being about
a foot square, while from beneath extended in opposite directions
the soul of the apparatus, the pair of springs, each one being of
a stiffness to render necessary a lever or the whole weight of the
body when forcing it down.

There were men at this time still living at Hintock who remembered
when the gin and others like it were in use. Tim Tangs's great-
uncle had endured a night of six hours in this very trap, which
lamed him for life. Once a keeper of Hintock woods set it on the
track of a poacher, and afterwards, coming back that way,
forgetful of what he had done, walked into it himself. The wound
brought on lockjaw, of which he died. This event occurred during
the thirties, and by the year 1840 the use of such implements was
well-nigh discontinued in the neighborhood. But being made
entirely of iron, they by no means disappeared, and in almost
every village one could be found in some nook or corner as readily
as this was found by Tim. It had, indeed, been a fearful
amusement of Tim and other Hintock lads--especially those who had
a dim sense of becoming renowned poachers when they reached their
prime--to drag out this trap from its hiding, set it, and throw it
with billets of wood, which were penetrated by the teeth to the
depth of near an inch.

As soon as he had examined the trap, and found that the hinges and
springs were still perfect, he shouldered it without more ado, and
returned with his burden to his own garden, passing on through the
hedge to the path immediately outside the boundary. Here, by the
help of a stout stake, he set the trap, and laid it carefully
behind a bush while he went forward to reconnoitre. As has been
stated, nobody passed this way for days together sometimes; but
there was just a possibility that some other pedestrian than the
one in request might arrive, and it behooved Tim to be careful as
to the identity of his victim.

Going about a hundred yards along the rising ground to the right,
he reached a ridge whereon a large and thick holly grew. Beyond
this for some distance the wood was more open, and the course
which Fitzpiers must pursue to reach the point, if he came to-
night, was visible a long way forward.

For some time there was no sign of him or of anybody. Then there
shaped itself a spot out of the dim mid-distance, between the
masses of brushwood on either hand. And it enlarged, and Tim
could hear the brushing of feet over the tufts of sour-grass. The
airy gait revealed Fitzpiers even before his exact outline could
be seen.

Tim Tangs turned about, and ran down the opposite side of the
hill, till he was again at the head of his own garden. It was the
work of a few moments to drag out the man-trap, very gently--that
the plate might not be disturbed sufficiently to throw it--to a
space between a pair of young oaks which, rooted in contiguity,
grew apart upward, forming a V-shaped opening between; and, being
backed up by bushes, left this as the only course for a foot-
passenger. In it he laid the trap with the same gentleness of
handling, locked the chain round one of the trees, and finally
slid back the guard which was placed to keep the gin from
accidentally catching the arms of him who set it, or, to use the
local and better word, "toiled" it.

Having completed these arrangements, Tim sprang through the
adjoining hedge of his father's garden, ran down the path, and
softly entered the house.

Obedient to his order, Suke had gone to bed; and as soon as he had
bolted the door, Tim unlaced and kicked off his boots at the foot
of the stairs, and retired likewise, without lighting a candle.
His object seemed to be to undress as soon as possible. Before,
however, he had completed the operation, a long cry resounded
without--penetrating, but indescribable.

"What's that?" said Suke, starting up in bed.

"Sounds as if somebody had caught a hare in his gin."

"Oh no," said she. "It was not a hare, 'twas louder. Hark!"

"Do 'ee get to sleep," said Tim. "How be you going to wake at
half-past three else?"

She lay down and was silent. Tim stealthily opened the window and
listened. Above the low harmonies produced by the instrumentation
of the various species of trees around the premises he could hear
the twitching of a chain from the spot whereon he had set the man-
trap. But further human sound there was none.

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