14 The encounter with the carriages having sprung upon Winterborn's mind the image of Mrs. Charmond. His thoughts by a natural channel went from her to the fact that several cottages and other houses in the two Hintocks now his own would fall into her possession in the event of South's death. He marveled what people could have been thinking about in the past to invent such precarious tenures as these. Still more, what could have induced his ancestors at Hintock and other village people to exchange their old copy holds for life leases. But having naturally succeeded to these properties through his father, he had done his best to keep them in order, though he was much struck with his father's negligence in not ensuring South's life. After breakfast still musing on the circumstances, he went upstairs, turned over his bed, and drew out a flat canvas bag which lay between the mattress and the sacking. In this he kept his leases, which had remained there unopened ever since his father's death. It was the usual hiding place among rural lifeholders for such documents. Winterborn sat down on the bed and looked them over. They were ordinary leases for three lives, which a member of the South family some fifty years before this time had accepted of the Lord of the Manor in lieu of certain copy holds and other rights, in consideration of having the dilapidated houses rebuilt by said Lord. They had come into his father's possession chiefly through his mother, who was the South. Pin to the parchment of one of the indentures was a letter which Winterborn had never seen before. It bore a remote date, the handwriting being that of some solicitor or agent, and the signature of the landholders. It was to the effect that at any time before the last of the stated lives should drop, Mr. Giles Winterborn's senior, or his representative, should have the privilege of adding his own and his son's life to the life remaining on payment of a merely nominal sum, the concession being in consequence of the elder Winterborn's consent to demolish one of the houses and relinquish its site, which stood at an awkward corner of the lane and impeded the way. The house had been pulled down years before. While Giles' father had not taken advantage of this privilege to insert his own and his son's lives, it was impossible to say. The likelihood was that death alone had hindered him in the execution of his project, as it surely was the elder Winterborn having been a man who took much pleasure in dealing with house property in his small way. Since one of the Souths still survived, there was not much doubt that Giles could do what his father had left undone, as far as his own life was concerned. This possibility cheered him much, for by those houses hung many things. Melbury's doubt of the young man's fitness to be the husband of Grace had been based not a little on the precariousness of his holdings and little and great hentock. He resolved to attend to the business at once, the fountful renewal being a sum that he could easily muster. His scheme, however, could not be carried out in a day, and meanwhile he would run up to Souths as he had intended to do and learn the results of the experiment with the tree. Marty met him at the door. Well, Marty, he said, and was surprised to read in her face that the case was not so helpful as he had imagined. I'm sorry for your labor, she said. It is all lost. He says the tree seems taller than ever. Winterborn looked around at it. Tall of the tree certainly did seem, the gauntness of it now naked stem being more marked than before. It quite terrified him when he first saw what you had done to it this morning, she added. He declares it will come down upon him, us, and cleave us like the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Well, can I do anything else? asked he. The doctor says the tree ought to be cut down. Oh, you've had a doctor. I didn't send for him. Mrs. Charmin, before she left, heard that Father was ill and told him to attend to him at her expense. That was very good of her, and he says it ought to be cut down. He mustn't cut it down without her knowledge, I suppose. He went upstairs. There the old man sat staring at the now gaunt tree as if his gaze was frozen on its trunk. Unluckily the tree waved afresh by this time, a wind having sprung up and blown the fog away, and his eyes turned with its wavings. They heard footsteps, a man's, but of a lighter type than usual. There is Dr. Fitzpiers again, she said, and descended. Presently his tread was heard on the naked stairs. Mr. Fitzpiers entered the sick chamber just as the doctors more or less want to do on such occasions, and pre-emptantly when the room is that of a humble collegeer, looking round toward the patient with that preoccupied gaze, which so plainly reveals that he well and I forgot all the case in the whole circumstance since he dismissed them from his mind at his last exit from the same apartment. He nodded to Winterborn, with whom he had already a little acquainted, recalled the case to his thoughts and went leisurely on to where South sat. Fitzpiers was, on the whole, a finely formed handsome man. His eyes were dark and impressive, and beamed with the light either of energy or susceptibility. It was difficult to say which. It might have been a little bit of both. That quick, glittering, practical eye sharp for the surface of things and for nothing beneath it, he had not. But whether his apparent depth of vision was real, or only an artistic accident of his corporeal molding, nothing but his deeds could reveal. His face was rather soft and stern, charming than grand, pale than fleshed. His nose, if a sketch of this feature had desure for a person of his pretensions, was artistically beautiful enough to have been worth doing in marble by any sculptor, not overly busy, and was thence devoid of those naughty irregularities which often mean power. While the double sima, or classical curve of his mouth, was not without a looseness in its close, nevertheless either from his readily appreciative mean, or his reflective manner, or the instinct towards profound things which was said to possess him, his presence bespoke the loss for rather than the dandy or macaroni, an effect which helped by the absence of trinkets or other trivialities from his attire, though this was more furnished and up-to-date than as usual the case among our practitioners. Strict people of the highly respectable class, knowing a little about him by report, might have said that he seemed likely to err rather in the possession of too many ideas than too few, to be a dreamyist of some sort, or too deeply steeped in some false kind of ism. However, this may be, it will be seen that he was undoubtedly a somewhat rare kind of gentleman and doctor to have descended, as from the clouds upon little Hickock. This is an extraordinary case, he said at last when he was born after examining south by conversation, look and touch, and learn that the craze about the Elm was stronger than ever. Come downstairs and I'll tell you what I think. They accordingly descended, and the doctor continued, the tree must be cut down, or I won't answer for his life. "'Tis Miss Charmin's tree, and I suppose we must get permission,' said Giles. "'If so, as she has gone away I must speak to her agent.' "'Oh, never mind whose tree it is. What's the tree besides life? Cut it down. I have not the honour of knowing Miss Charmin as yet, but I am disposed to risk that much with her.' "'Tis Timber rejoined Giles, more screrupulous than he would have been had not his own interest stood so closely involved, though never fell a stick around here without it being marked first either by her or her agent. "'Then we'll inaugurate a new era forthwith.' "'How long has he complained of the tree?' asked the doctor of Marty. "'Weaks and weeks, sir. The shape of it seems to haunt him like an evil spirit.' "'He said it is exactly his own age that has got human sense and sprouted up when he was born on purpose to rule him and keep him as its slave. Others have been like it before and hit a car.' "'They could hear South's voice upstairs.' "'Oh, he's rocking this way. He must come. "'And then my poor life, what's worth houses upon houses, will be squashed out of me.' "'Oh, oh!' "'That's how he goes on,' she added. "'And he'll never look anywhere but out the window and scarcely have the curtains drawn.' "'Down with it, then, and hang, Mrs. Charmin,' said Mr. Fitzpiers. "'The best plan will be to wait until the evening when it is dark or early in the morning before he is awake so that he doesn't see it fall, for that would terrify him worse than ever. "'Keep the blind down till I come and then I'll assure him and show him that his trouble is over.' The doctor then departed and they waited until the evening. When it was dusk and the curtains drawn, Winterworn directed a couple of woodsmen to bring a casket saw, and the tall, threatening tree was soon nearly off of its base. He would not have felt it completely, then, on account of the possible crash, but next morning before South was awake, they went and lowered it cautiously in a direction away from the cottage. It was a business difficult to do quite silently, but it was done at last in the home of the same birth year as the woodmen they stretched upon the ground. The weakest idler that passed could now go forth on marks formerly made in the upper forks by the shoes of the adventurous climbers only. Once inaccessible, nests could be examined microscopically and on swaying extremities where birds alone had perched, bystanders now sat. As soon as it was broad daylight, the doctor came and Winterworn entered the house with him. Marie said that her father was wrapped up and ready as usual to put in his chair. They ascended the stairs and soon seated him. He began at once complaining of the tree danger to his life in Winterworn's house property and consequence. The doctor signaled to Giles who went and drew back the printed cotton curtains. To his gone sea said Mr. Fitzpiers. As soon as the old man saw the vacant patch of sky in place of the branch column so familiar to his gaze, he sprang up speechless. His eyes rose from their hollows till the whites showed all around. He fell back and a bluish whiteness overspread him. Greatly alarmed, they put him to bed. As soon as he came a little out of his room, oh it's gone. Where? Where? His whole system seemed paralyzed by amazement. They were thunderstruck at the result of the experiment and did all they could. Nothing seemed to avail. Giles and Fitzpiers went and came but uselessly. He lingered through the day and died that evening as the sun went down. Damned if my remedy hadn't killed him, murmured the doctor. End of chapter. Recording by Ray Smith, Phoenix, The Woodlanders. By Thomas Hardy. When Melbury heard what had happened, he seemed much moved and walked thoughtfully about the premises. He was genuinely sorry and on winter burns he was the more grieved in that this catastrophe had so closely followed the somewhat harsh dismissal of Giles as the betrothed of his daughter. He was quite angry with circumstances for so heathlessly inflicting on Giles a second trouble when the needful when inflicted by himself was all that the proper order of events demanded. I told Giles' father when he came into those houses not to spend too much money on a life hold property held neither for his own life nor his sons but he wouldn't listen to me and now Giles has to suffer for it. Poor Giles, murmured Grace. Now Grace, between us two it is very very remarkable it is almost as if I had foreseen this and I'm thankful for your escape though I am sincerely sorry for Giles. Had we not dismissed him already we could hardly have found it in our hearts to dismiss him now. So I say be thankful. I'll do all I can for him as a friend but as a pretender to the position that can never be thought of more. And yet at that very moment the impractic ability to which poor Winterburn's suit had then reduced was touching Grace's heart to a warmer sentiment on his behalf than she had felt for years concerning him. He, meanwhile, was sitting down alone in the old familiar house which had ceased to be his taking a calm if somewhat dismal survey of affairs. The pendulum on the clock bumped every now and then against one side as the muffled drum to his worldly march. Looking out the window he could perceive that a paralysis had come over Credo's occupation of manuring the garden owing, obviously, to a conviction that they might not be living there long enough to profit by next season's crop. He looked at the leases again and the letter attached. There was no doubt that he had lost his houses by an accident which might easily have been circumvented if he had known the true conditions of his holding. The time for performance had now lapsed at law but might not the intention be considered by the landlord when she became aware of the circumstances and his moral right to retain the holdings for the term of his life be conceded? His heart sank within him when he perceived that despite all the legal reciprocities and safeguards prepared and written the upshot of the matter amounted to this that it depended upon the mere caprice good or will of the woman he had met the day before in such an unfortunate way, whether he was to possess his houses for life or no. When he was sitting and thinking a step came to the door and Melbury appeared looking very sorry for his position. Winterburn welcomed him by a word and a look and went on with his examination of the parchments. His visitor sat down. Giles, he said, was very awkward and I'm sorry for it. What are you going to do? Giles informed him of the real estate affairs and how barely he had missed availing himself of the chance of renewal. What a misfortune. Why is this neglected? Well, the best thing you can do is write and tell her about it and throw yourself upon her generosity. Oh, I'd rather not, murmured Giles. But you must, said Melbury. In short, he argued so cogently that Giles allowed himself to be persuaded and the letter to Mrs. Sherman was written and sent to Hintock House whence, as he knew, it would be at once forwarded to her. Melbury, feeling that he had done so good an action in coming as almost to extenuate his previous arbitrary conduct to nothing, went home and Giles was left alone to the suspense of waiting for reply from the Divinity who shaped the ends of the Hintock population. By this time, all the villagers knew of the circumstances and being well nigh like one family, a keen interest was the result all around. Everybody thought of Giles, nobody thought of Marty, but when they had them looked in upon her during those moonlight nights which preceded the burial of her father they would have seen the girl absolutely alone in the house with the dead man. Her own chamber, being nearest the stairs, the coffin had been placed there for convenience and at a certain hour of the night when the moon arrived opposite the window its beams streamed across the still profile of south, sublime by the august presence of death and onward a few feet farther upon the face of his daughter the repose, almost as dignified as that of her companion, the repose of a guileless soul that had nothing more left upon earth to lose except a life which she did not overvalue. South was buried and a week passed and Winterburn watched for a reply from Mrs. Charmond. Melbury was very sanguine as to its tenor, but Winterburn had not told him of the encounter with her carriage when, if ever he had heard an affronted tone on a woman's lip he had heard it on hers. The postman's time for passing was just after Melbury's men had assembled in the spa house and Winterburn, who, when not busy on his own account, would lend assistance there used to go out in the lane every morning and meet the postman at the end of one of the green rides through the hazel cops in the straight stretch of which his laden figure could be seen a long way off. Grace was also very anxious, more anxious than her father, more perhaps than Winterburn himself. This anxiety led her to the spa house on some pretext or other almost every morning while they were awaiting the reply. Fitzpiers too, though he did not personally appear, was much interested and not altogether easy in his mind, for he had been formed by an authority of what he had himself conjectured that if the tree had been allowed to stand the old man would have gone on complaining, but might have lived for twenty years. Eleven times had Winterburn gone to that corner of the ride and looked up its long straight slope through the wet grays of John, but though the postman's bold figure loomed in view pretty regularly he brought nothing for Giles. On the twelfth day the man of Missives, well, yet in the extreme distance held up his hand and Winterburn saw a letter in it. He took it into the spa house before he broke the seal, and those who were there gathered round him while he read Grace looking in at the door. The letter was not for Mrs. Charmander self, but her agent had certain. Winterburn glanced it over and looked up. It's all over. He said. Ah, said they together. Her lawyer instructed to say that Mrs. Charmander sees no reason for disturbing the natural course of things, particularly as she contemplates pulling the houses down. He said quietly, only think of that, said several. Winterburn had turned away and said vehemently to himself. Then let her pull him down B-D-D to her. Cretal looked at him with a face of seven sorrows, saying, Ah, it was that spirit that lost him for you, Mr. Winterburn subdued his feelings, and from that hour, whatever they were, kept him entirely to himself. There could be no doubt that up to this last moment he had nourished a feeble hope of regaining Grace in the event of his negotiations turning out to success. Not being aware of the fact that her father was an ocean sufficient to enable both to live in comfort, he deemed it now an absurdity to dream any longer of such a vanity as making her his wife and sank into silence forthwith. Yet, whatever the value of techternity to a man among strangers, it is apt to express more than talkativeness when he dwells among friends. The countrymen who is obliged to judge the time of day from changes in external nature sees a thousand successive tints and traits in the landscape, which are never by him who hears the regular chime of a clock, because they are never in request. In like manner do we use our eyes on our taciturn comrade? The infantesimal movement of muscle, curve, hair, and wrinkle, which, when accompanied by a voice goes unregarded, is watched and translated in the lack of it, till virtually the whole surrounding circle of familiars is charged with the reserved one's moods and meanings. This was the condition of affairs between Winterburn and his neighbors after his stroke of ill luck. He held his tongue and they observed him and knew that he was discomposed. Mr. Melbury, in his compunction, thought more of the matter than anyone else except his daughter. Had Winterburn been going on in the old fashion, Grace's father could have alluded to his disapproval of the alliance every day with the greatest frankness. But to speak any further on the subject he could not find it in his heart to do now. He hoped that Giles would soon of his own accord make some final announcement that he entirely withdrew his pretensions to Grace and get the thing passed and done with. For though Giles had in measure acquiesced to the wish of her family, he could make matters unpleasant if he chose to work upon Grace, and hence when Melbury saw the young man approaching along the road one day, he kept friendliness and frigidity exactly balanced in his eye till he could see whether Giles' manner was presumptive or not. His manner was that of a man who abandoned all claims. Mr. Melbury, he said in a low voice, whose quality he had endeavored to make as practical as possible. I'm afraid I shall not be able to keep that mare I bought, and as I don't care to sell her I should like, if you don't object, to give her to Miss Melbury. The horse is very quiet and would be very safe for her. Mr. Melbury was rather affected at this. Grace shall have the horse, but I will pay you what you gave for her and any expense you may have put to her terms, and thus it was arranged. They were now opposite Melbury's house and the timber merchant pressed Winterburn to enter, Grace being out of the way. Pull around the settle, Giles, of the timber merchant as soon as they were within. I should like to have a serious talk with you. Thereupon he put the case to Winterburn, frankly, in quite a friendly way. He declared that he did not like to be hard on a man when he was in difficulty, but he really did not see how Winterburn could marry his daughter Giles acquiesced in the awkwardness of the situation, but from a momentary feeling that he would like to know Grace's mind from her own lips, he did not speak out positively there and then. He accordingly departed, somewhat abruptly, and went home to consider whether he would seek to bring about a meeting with her. In the evening, while he sat quietly pondering, he fancied that he had heard a scraping on the wall outside his house. The boughs of a monthly rose which grew there made such a noise sometimes, but as no wind was stirring he knew that it could not be the rose tree. He took up the candle and went out. Nobody was near. As he turned the light flickered on the white-washed rough case of the front, and he saw the words written thereon in charcoal which read as follows, O Giles, you've lost your dwelling place, and therefore, Giles, you'll lose your Grace. Giles went indoors. He had his suspicions as to the scrawler of those lines, but he could not be sure. What suddenly filled his heart far more than curiosity about their authorship was a terrible belief that they were turning out to be true. Try to see Grace as he might. They decided the question for him. He sat down and wrote a formal note to Melbury, in which he briefly stated that he was placed in such a position as to make him share to the full Melbury's view of his own and his daughter's promise, made some years before, to wish that it should be considered as canceled, and that it was from any obligation on account of it. Having fastened up this, their plenary absolution, he determined to get it out of his hands and have done with it, to which end he went off to Melbury's at once. He was now so late that the family had all retired. He crept up to the house, thrust the note under the door and stole away as silently as he had come. Melbury himself was the first to rise the next morning, and when he had read the letter, his relief was great. Giles, very honorable, he kept saying to himself, I shall not forget him, now to keep her up to her own true level. It happened that Grace went out for an early ramble that morning, passing through the door and the gate while her father was in the spar house. To go in her customary direction, she could not avoid passing Winterburn's house. The morning sun was shining flat upon its white surface, and the words, which still remained, were immediately visible to her. She read them, and her face flushed to crimson. She could see Giles and Cretal talking together in the back. The charred spar-gad with which the lines had been written lay on the ground beneath the wall. Feeling pretty sure that Winterburn would observe her actions, she quickly went up to the wall and rubbed out loose and inserted keep in its stead. Then she made the best of her way home without looking behind her. Giles could draw an inference now if he chose. There could not be the least doubt that gentle Grace was warming to more sympathy with her interest in Giles Winterburn than ever she had done while he was her promised lover. That since his misfortune, those social shortcomings of his which contrasted so awkwardly with her later experiences of life had become obscured by the generous revival of an old romantic attachment to him. The mentally trained and tilled into foreignness of view as compared with her youthful time, Grace was not an ambitious girl and might if left to herself have declined Winterburn without much discontent or unhappiness. Her feelings just now were so far from latent that the writing on the wall had thus quickened her to an unusual rashness. Having returned from her walk she sat at breakfast silently. When her stepmother had left the room she said to her father, I have made up my mind that I should like my engagement to Giles to continue for the present at any rate till I can see further what I ought to do. Millbury looked much surprised. Nonsense, he said sharply. You don't know what you're talking about. He said across to her the letter received from Giles. She read it and said no more. Could he have seen her write on the wall? She did not know. Fate, it seemed, would have it this way and there was nothing to do but acquiesce. It was a few hours after this that Winterburn, who curiously enough had not perceived grace writing, was clearing away the tree from the front of South's late dwelling. He saw Marty standing in her doorway, a slim figure in her meager black, almost without womanly contours as yet.  It was you, you know. Because it was the truth. I didn't mean to let it stay, Mr. Winterburn, but when I was going to rub it out, you came and I was obliged to run off. Having prophesied one thing, why did you alter it to another? Your predictions can't be worth much. I have not altered it. But you have. No. It is altered, go and see. She went and read that in spite of losing the dwelling place, he would keep his grace. Marty came back surprised. Well, I never, she said, who can have made such nonsense of it? Who indeed, said he. I have rubbed it all out as the point of it is quite gone. You'd no business to rub it out. I didn't tell you to. I meant to stay a little longer. Some idle boy did it, no doubt, she murmured. Does this seem very probable, and the actual perpetrator was unsuspected? Winterburn said no more and dismissed the matter from his mind. From this day of his life onward for a considerable time, Winterburn, though not absolutely out of his house as yet, retired into the background of human life and action thereabout. A feat not particularly difficult of performance anywhere when the doer has the assistance of a lost prestige. Grace, thinking that Winterburn saw her right, made no further sign. The mark of fidelity that she had thus timidly launched was stranded and lost. The Woodlander is by Thomas Hardy, Chapter 16. Dr. Fitzpiers lived on the slope of the hill in a house of much less pretension, both as to architecture and as to magnitude than the timber merchants. The latter had, without doubt, been once the menorial residence appertaining to the snug and modest domain of Little Hintock, of which the boundaries were now lost by its absorption with others of its kind into the adjoining estate of Mrs. Charmonde. Though the Melburys themselves were unaware of the fact, there was every reason to believe, at least so the person said that the owners of that little manner had been Melbury's own ancestors, the family name occurring in numerous documents relating to transfers of land about the time of the Civil Wars. Mr. Fitzpiers' dwelling on the contrary was small, cottage-like and comparatively modern. It had been occupied and was in part occupied still by a retired farmer and his wife, who, on the surgeon's arrival in quest up a home, had accommodated him by receding from their front rooms into the kitchen-quarter whence they administered to his wants and emerged at regular intervals to recede from him a not unwelcome addition to their income. The cottage and its garden were so regular in their arrangement that they might have been laid out by a Dutch designer of the time of William and Mary. In a low, dense hedge, cut to which shape was the door over which the hedge formed an arc and from the inside of the door a straight path, bordered with clipped box, ran up the slope of the garden to the porch, which was exactly in the middle with two windows on each side. Right and left of the path were first a bed of gooseberry bushes, next of currant, next of raspberry, next of strawberry, next of old-fashioned flowers, at the corners opposite the porch being spheres of boxes resembling a pair of school globes. Over the roof of the house could be seen the orchard on yet higher ground and behind the orchard the forest trees up to the crest of the hill. Opposite the garden door and visible from the parlor window was a swing gate leading into a field across which there ran a footpath. The swing gate had just been repainted and on one fine afternoon before the paint was dry and while gnats were still dying thereon the surgeon was standing in his sitting room abstractedly looking out at the different pedestrians who passed and re-passed along that route. Being of a philosophical stamp he perceived that the characters of each of these travelers exhibited itself in a somewhat amusing manner by his or her method of handling the gate. As regarded the men there was not much variety. They gave the gate a kick and passed through. The women were more contrasting. To them the sticky woodwork was a barricade, a disgust, a menace, a treachery that these might be. The first that he noticed was a bouncing woman in her skirts tucked up and her hair uncombed. She grasped the gate without looking giving it a supplementary push with her shoulder when the white imprint drew from her an exclamation in language not too refined. She once the green bank sat down and rubbed herself in the grass cursing the while. Ha ha ha left the doctor. The next was a girl with her hair cupped short in whom the surgeon recognized the daughter of his late patient the woodman's south. Moreover a black bonnet that she wore by way of mourning unpleasantly reminded him that he had ordered the filing of a tree which caused her parents death and winter born's losses. She walked and thought and not recklessly but her preoccupation led her to grasp unsuspectingly the bar of the gate and touch it with her arm. Fitzpiers thought sorry that she should have soiled that new black rock, poor as it was for it was probably her only one. She looked at her hand and arm, seemed but little surprised, wiped off the disfigurement with an almost unmoved face and as if without abandoning her original thoughts. Thus she went on her way. Then there came over the green quite different sort of personage. She walked as delicately as she had been bred in town and as firmly as she had been bred in the country. She seemed one who dimly knew her appearances to be attractive but who retained some of the charm of being ignorant of the fact by forgetting it in a general pensiveness. She approached the gate to let such a creature touch it even with a tip of her glove the Fitzpiers almost like letting her proceed to tragical self-destruction. He jumped up and looked for his hat but was unable to find the right one, glancing again out of the window he saw that he was too late. Having come up, she stopped, looked at the gate, picked up a little stick and using it as a bayonet pushed open the obstacle without touching it at all. He steadily watched her till she had passed out of sight recognizing her as the very young lady whom he had seen once before and been unable to identify. Who could that emotional face be? All the others he had seen in Hintock as yet oppressed him with her crude rusticity. The contrast offered by this suggested that she hailed from elsewhere. Precisely these thoughts had occurred to him at the first time of seeing her but he now went a little further down and considered that as there had been no carriage seen or heard lately in that spot she could not have come from a very long distance. She must be somebody staying at Hintock house possibly Mrs. Tramont of whom he had heard so much at any rate unimped and this probability was sufficient to set a mild radiance and the surgeons somewhat dull sky. Fitzpiers went down to the book he had been perusing. It happened to be that of a German metaphysician for the doctor was not a practical man except by Fitz and much preferred the ideal world to the real and the discovery of principles to their application. The young lady remained in his thoughts. He might have followed her but he was not constitutionally active and preferred a conductual pursuit. However when he went out to ramble just before dusk he insensibly took the direction of Hintock house which was the way that Grace had been walking it having happened that her mind had run on Mrs. Tramonts that day and she had walked to the brow of a hill when the house could be seen returning by another route. Fitzpiers in his turn reached the edge of the glen overlooking the manor house the shutters were shut and the house was closed the mere aspect of the place was enough to inform him that Mrs. Tramont had gone away and that nobody else was staying there. Fitzpiers felt vague disappointment that the young lady was not Mrs. Tramont of whom he had heard so much and without pausing longer to gaze at a carcass from which the spirit has flown he bent his step homewards. Later in the evening Tramonts to visit a cottage patient about two miles distant like the majority of young practitioners in his position he was far from having assumed the dignity of being driven his rounds by a servant in a broom that flashed the sunlight like a mirror. His way of getting about was by means of a gig which he drove himself hitching the reins of the horse to the gate post shutter hook or garden pailing for hesitation or giving pennies to little boys to hold the animal during his stay pennies which were well-earned when the cases to be attended were of a certain cheerful kind that wore out the patience of the little boys. On this account of traveling alone the night journeys which Fitzpiers had frequently to take were dismal enough a serious apparent perversity in nature ruling that whenever there was to be a birth particularly inaccessible and lonely place that event should occur in a night. The surgeon having been of late years a town man hated the solitary midnight woodland he was not altogether skillful with the reins and it often occurred to his mind that if in some remote depths of the trees an accident were to happen the fact of his being alone might be the death of him. Hence he made a practice of picking up any country man or lad whom he chance to pass by and under the disguise of treating him to a nice drive obtained his companionship on the journey and his convenient assistance in opening gates. The doctor had started on his way out of the village on the night in question when the light of his lamp fell upon the musing form of Winterborn walking leisurely along as if he had no object in life. Winterborn was a better class of companion than the doctor usually could get and he had once pulled up and asked him if he would like a drive through the wood that fine night. Gilles seemed rather surprised at the doctor's friendliness but said that he had no objection and accordingly amounted beside Mr. Fitzpiers. They drove along under the black bows which formed a network upon the stars all the trees of a species like in one respect and no two of them alike in another. Looking up as they passed under a horizontal bow he sometimes saw objects like large tadpoles lodged diametrically across it which Gilles explained to be a pheasant's bear at boost and they sometimes heard the reports of a gun which reminded him that others knew what those tadpole shapes represented as well as he. Presently the doctor said what he had been going to see for some time. Is there a young lady staying in this neighborhood a very attractive girl with a little white bowl around her neck and white fur around her gloves? Winterburn of course knew in a moment that Grace whom he had caught the doctor peering at was represented by these accessories. With a wary grimness partly in his character partly induced by the circumstances he evaded an answer by saying I saw a young lady talking to Mrs. Charmonde the other day. Perhaps it was she. Fitzpiers concluded from this that Winterburn had not seen him looking over the hedge. It might have been, he said. She is quite a gentle woman the one I mean. She cannot be a permanent residence in Hintock or I should have seen her before nor does she look like one. She is not staying at Hintock house? No, it is closed. Then perhaps she is staying at one of the cottages or farmhouses. Oh no, you mistake. She was a different sort of girl altogether. As Bills was nobody Fitzpiers treated him accordingly and at and apostophized the night in continuation. She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness a power that from its objects drew one impulse of her bane. In her lightness most like some radiant cloud of morning dew which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue. To nourish some far desert she did seem beside me gathering beauty as she grew like the bright shade of some immortal dream which walks when tempest sleep the wave of life's dark stream. The customer Charm of the lion seemed to Winterburn though he divine that they were a quotation to be somehow the result of his lost love's Charm upon Fitzpiers. You seem to be mightly in love with her, sir, he said, with a sensation of heart sickness with a sensation of heart sickness and more than ever resolved not to mention grace by name. Oh no, I am not that Winterburn people living insulated as I do by the solitude of this place get charged with emotive fluids like the laden jar with electric for want of some conductor at hand to disperse it. Human love is a subjective thing the essence itself of men as that greater thinker Spinoza the philosopher says Ipsa hominis essencia. It is joy accompanied by an idea which we project against any suitable object in the line of our vision just as the rainbow iris is projected against an oak ash or elm tree indifferently so that if any other young lady had appeared instead of the one who did appear I should have felt just the same interest in her and have quoted precisely the same lines from Shelley about her as about this one I saw such miserable creatures of circumstances are we all Well, it is what we call being in love down in these parts whether or no, said Winterborn you are right enough if you admit that I am in love with something in my own head and no thing admits itself outside it at all is it part of a country doctor's duty to learn the view of things may I ask sir said Winterborn adopting the socratic Greek word irony with such well-assumed simplicity that Fitzpiers answered readily oh no truth is Winterborn that medical practice in places like this is a very rule of thumb matter a bottle of bitter stuff for this and that old woman the bitterer the better compounded from a few simple stereotype prescriptions occasional attendance at births where mere presence is almost sufficient so healthy and strong are the people and a lens for an absence now and then investigation and experiment cannot be carried on without more appliances than one has here though I have attempted it a little Gilles did not enter into this view of the case what he had been struck with was a curious parallelism between Mr. Fitzpiers' mannero and graces as shown by the fact of both of them straying into a subject of discourse so engrossing to themselves that again it was foreign to him nothing further passed between himself and the doctor in relation to Grace till they were on their way back they had stopped at a wayside in for a glass of brandy and cider hot and when they were again in motion Fitzpiers possibly a little warmed by the liquor resumed the subject by saying I should like very much to know who that young lady was what difference can it make if she's only the tree your rainbow falls on ha ha true you have no wife sir I have no wife and no idea of one I helped do better things than marry and settle in him talk not but that is well for a medical man to be married and sometimes begad to be pleasant enough in this place with the wind roaring around the house and the rain and the bows beating against it I hear that you lost your life holds by the death of south I did I lost in more ways than one they had reached the top of Hentuck Lane or street if it could be called such where three quarters of the roadside consisted of corpse and orchard one of the first houses to be passed was Malbury's a light was shining from a bedroom window facing lengthwise of the lane winter born glanced at it and saw what was coming he had withheld an answer to the doctor's inquiry to hinder his knowledge of grace but as he thought to himself who hath gathered the wind in his fists who hath bound the water in the garment he could not hinder what was doomed to arrive and might just as well have been outspoken as they came up to the house Grace's figure was distinctly visible drawing the two white curtains together which were used here as blinds why there she is said Fitzpiers how does she come there in the most natural way in the world it is her home Mr. Malbury is her father oh indeed indeed indeed how comes he to have a daughter of that stamp winter born laughed coldly won't money do anything he said if you have promising material to work upon a hint talk girl taken early from home and put under proper instruction become as finished as any other young lady if she's got brains and good looks to begin with no reason at all why she shouldn't murmur the surgeon with reflective disappointment only I didn't anticipate quite that kind of origin for her and you think an inch or two less of her now there was little tremor in his voice as he spoke well so the doctor would recover I am not so sure that I think less of her at first it was a sort of low but dammy I'll stick up for her she's charming every inch of her so she is said winter born but not to me from this ambiguous expression of the reticent woodlanders Mr. Fitzpiers inferred that his mulberry because of some hotiness in her bearing towards him and had on that account withheld her name the supposition did not tend to diminish his admiration for her end of chapter 16 recording by Sophia Choi chapter 17 of the woodlanders this is a livery box recording all livery box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liverybox.org recording by mistoffalus the woodlanders by Thomas Hardy chapter 17 Grace's exhibition of herself in the act of pulling to the window curtains had been the result of an unfortunate incident in the house that day nothing less than the illness of grammar Oliver a woman who had never till now laying down for such a reason in her life like others to whom unbroken ears of health has made the idea of keeping their bed almost as repugnant as death itself she had continued on foot till she literally fell on the floor and though she had as yet been scarcely a day of duty she had sickened into quite a different personage from the dependent grammar of the yard and spar house ill as she was on one point she was firm on no account will she see a doctor in another words fits peers the room in which Grace had been discerned was not her own but the old woman's on the girl's way to bed she had received a message from grammar to the effect that she would much like to speak to her that night Grace entered and set on a low chair beside the bed so that's the profile of grammar as she lay cast self in a keen shadow upon the whiteened wall her large head being still further magnified by an enormous turbine which was really her petticoat wound in a breath around her temples Grace put the room a little in order and approaching the sick woman said I am calm grammar as you wish do let us send for the doctor before he gets later I will not have him said grammar Oliver decisively then somebody to sit up with you can't bear it no I wanted to see you miss Grace because she have something on my mind dear miss Grace I took that money of the doctor after all what's money Grace did not quite understand the ten pounds he offered me for my head because I have a large brain I signed a paper when I took the money not feeling concerned about it at all I have not like to tell you that it was really settled with him because you showed such a horror at the notion well having thought it over more at length I wish I hadn't done it it weighs upon my mind John South's death of fear about the tree makes me think that I shall die of this she have been going to ask him later to let me off but I hadn't the face why I've sent some money more than two pounds to wear it me terribly and I shall die of the thought of that paper I signed with my holy cross as South died of his trouble if you ask him to burn the paper he will I'm sure and think no more of it she have done it once already miss but he left cruel like yours is such a fine brain miss grammar he said that science couldn't afford to lose you besides you've taken my money don't let your father know of this please a no account whatever no no I will let you have the money to return to him grammar rolled her head negatively upon the pillow even if I should be well enough to take it to him he won't like it though why he should so particular want to look into the works of a poor old woman's head piece like mine when there's so many other folks about I don't know I know how he'll answer me a lone person like you grammar here we'll say what difference is it to you that becomes a view when the breath out of your body oh it do trouble me if you only knew how he do chubby me around the chamber in my dreams you would pity me how I could do it I can't think but she was always so reckless if I only had anybody to plead for me Mrs. Malbury would I'm sure I but he wouldn't to she it once a younger face than hers to work upon such as he Grace started with comprehension you don't think he would do it for me she said oh wouldn't he I couldn't go to him grammar on any account I don't know him at all I if I were a young lady said the artful grammar you could save a poor old woman Skellington from a heathen doctor instead of a Christian grave I would do it and be glad to but nobody will do anything for poor old familiar friend but push her out of the way you're very ungrateful grammar to see that but you are ill I know and that's why you speak so now believe me you are not going to die yet you told me yourself that you meant to keep him waiting many a year I one can joke when one is well even in old age but in sickness one's gaiety falters to grief and that which seemed small looks large and the grim far off seems near Grace's eyes have tears in them I don't like to go to him on such an errand grammar she said but I will to ease your mind it was with extreme reluctance that Grace cloaked herself next morning for the undertaking she was all the more indisposed to the journey by reasons of grammar's allusion to the effect of a pretty face upon Dr. Fitzpiers and hence she most illogically did that which had the doctor never seen her would have operated to justify the sole motive of her journey that is to say she put on a woollen veil which hid all her face except an occasional spark of her eyes her own wish that nothing should be known of this strange and gruesome proceeding no less than grammar Oliver's own desire led Grace to take every precaution against being discovered she went out by the garden door as the safest way all the household having occupations at the other side the morning looked forbidding enough when she's definitely opened it the battle between frost and thaw was continuing in mid-air the trees dripped on the garden plots where no vegetables would grow for the dripping though they were planted year after year with a curious mechanical regularity of country people in the face of hopelessness the moss which covered the once broad gravel terrace was swamped and Grace stood irresolute then she thought of poor grammar and her dreams of the doctor running after her scalpel in hand and the possibility of a case so curiously similar to stouts ending in the same way thereupon she stepped out into the drizzle the nature of her errand and grammar Oliver's account of the compact she had made lent a fascinating horror to Grace's conception of Fitzpiers she knew that he was a young man but her single object in seeking an interview with him put all considerations of his age and social aspect from her mind standing as she stood in grammar Oliver's shoes he was simply a remorseless jove of the sciences who would not have mercy and would have sacrifice a man whom safe for this she would have preferred to avoid knowing but since in such a small village it was improbable that any long time could pass without their meeting there was not much to deplore in her having to meet him now but as need hardly be said Miss Malbury's view of the doctor as a merciless unwavering irresistible science was not quite in accordance with fact the real doctor Fitzpiers was a man of too many hobbies to show likelihood of rising to any great eminence in the profession he had chosen or even to acquire any wide practice in the rural district he had marked out as a field of survey for the present in the course of a year his mind was accustomed to pass in a grand solar sweep with all the zodiacal signs of the intellectual heaven sometimes it was in the ram sometimes in the bull one month he would be immersed in alchemy another in posy one month in the twins of astrology and astronomy then in the crowd of German literature and metaphysics injustice to him it must be stated that he took such studies as were related to his own profession in turn with the rest and it had been in a month of anatomical order without the possibility of a subject that he had proposed to grandma Oliver the terms she had mentioned to her mistress as maybe inferred from the tone of his conversation with winterboard he had lately plunged into abstract philosophy with much zest perhaps his keenly appreciative modern unpractical mind found this around more to his taste than any other though his aims were desultory Fitzpiers's mental constitution was not without its admirable side a keen inquirer he honestly was even if the midnight rays of his lamp visible so far through the trees of hintock lighted rank literatures of emotion and passion as often as or as often are than the books and material of science but whether he meditated the muses or the philosophers the loneliness of hintock life was beginning to tell upon his impressionable nature winter in a solitary house in the country without society is tolerable may even enjoyable and delightful given certain conditions but these are not the conditions which attached to life of a professional man who drops down into such a place by mere accident they were present to the lives of winterboard, mulberry and grace but not to the doctors there are old association an almost exhaustive biographical or historical acquaintance with every object animate and inanimate within the observer's horizon he must know all about those invisible ones of the days gone by whose feet have traversed the fields which look so gray from his windows recall whose creaking plow has turned those saws from time to time whose hands planted the trees of that form accrest to the opposite hill whose horses and hounds have torn through that underwood what birds affected that particular break what domestic dramas of love, jealousy, revenge or disappointment have been enacted in the cottages the mansion the street or on the green the spot may have beauty, grandeur, salubitry convenience but if it lacked memories it will ultimately pile upon him who settles there without opportunity of intercourse with his kind in such circumstances may be an old man dreams of an ideal friend till he throws himself into the arms of any imposter who chooses to wear that title on his face a young man may dream of an ideal friend likewise but some humor of the blood will probably lead him to think rather of an ideal mistress and at length the rustle of a woman's dress the sound of her voice the transit of her form across the field of his visions will incandle his soul with a flame that blinds his eyes the discovery of the attractive grace's name and family would have been enough in other circumstances to lead the doctor if not to put her personality out of his head to change the character of his interest in her instead of treasuring her image as a rarity he would at most have played with it as a toy he was that kind of a man but situated here he could not go so far as amative cruelty he dismissed all reverential thought about her but he could not help taking her seriously he went on to imagine the impossible so far indeed did he go in this futile direction that others are want to do he constructed dialogues and scenes in which grace had turned out to be the mistress of Hintock Manor House the mysterious Mrs. Charmond particularly ready and willing to be wooed by himself and nobody else well she isn't that he said finally but she's a very nice sweet exceptional girl the next morning he breakfasted alone as usual it was snowing with a fine flake just sufficient to make the woodland gray without ever achieving whiteness there was not a single letter for Fitzpiers only a medical circular and a wickly newspaper to sit before a large fire on such mornings and read and gradually acquire energy till the evening came and then with lamp on light and feeling full of vigor to pursue some engrossing subject or other till the small hours had hitherto been his practice but today he could not settle in his chair that self-contained position he had lately occupied in which the only attention demanded was the concentration of the inner eye all out-regard being quite gratuitous seemed to have been taken by his stratagem and for the first time he had an interest outside the house he walked from one window to another and became aware that the most irksome of solitudes is not the solitude of remoteness but that which is just outside desirable company the breakfast hour went by heavily enough and the next followed in the same half-snowy half-rainy style there now being the inevitable relapse which sooner or later succeeds a time too radiant for their season such as they had enjoyed in the late midwinter at Hintock to people at home there these changeful tricks had their interests the strange mistakes that some of the more sanguine trees had made in budding before their month to be incontinently glued up by frozen thawings now the similar sanguine errors the passive birds in framing nests that were now swamped by snow-water and other such incidents prevented any sense of wearesomeness in the minds of natives but these were features of a world not familiar to Fitzpiers and the inner visions to which he had almost exclusively attended having suddenly failed in their power to absorb him he felt unutterably dreary he wondered how long Miss Marbury was going to stay in Hintock the season was unperpetuous for accidental encounters with her out of doors and except by accident he saw not how they were to become acquainted one thing was clear any acquaintance with her could only with a due regard to his future be casual at most of the nature of a flirtation for he had high aims and they would someday lead him into other spheres than this thus this is totally thinking he fly himself down upon the couch which as in many droughty old country houses was constructed with a hood being in fact a legitimate development for the settle he tried to read as he reclined but having set up till 3 o'clock that morning the book slipped from his hand and he fell asleep and of Chapter 17 Recording by Miss Dauphalus Chapter 18 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 Miss Dauphalus The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter 18 was at this time that Grace approached the house her knock always soft in virtue of her nature was softer today by reason of her stranger end however it was heard by the farmer's wife who kept the house and Grace was admitted Opening the door of the doctor's room the housewife glanced in and imagining Fitzpere absent asked Miss Marbury to enter and wait a few minutes she should go and find him believing him to be somewhere on the premises Grace acquiesced went in and sat down close to the door as soon as the door was shut upon her she looked around the room and started at perceiving a handsome man snuggly as ghost in the couch like a recumbent figure within some canopied mural tomb of the 15th century except that his hands were by no means in prayer she had no doubt that this was the doctor awakened him herself she could not and her immediate impulse was to go and pull the broad ribbon with a brass rosette which hung at one side of the fireplace but expecting the landlady to re-enter in a moment she abandoned this intention and stood gazing in great embarrassment at the reclining philosopher the windows of Fitzpierre's soul being at present shuttered he probably appeared less impressive than in his hours of animation but the light abstracted from his material presence by sleep was more than counter balanced by the mysterious influence of that state in a stranger upon the consciousness of a beholder so sensitive so far as she could criticize at all she became aware that she had encountered a specimen of creation altogether unusual in that locality the occasions on which grace had observed men of this stamp were when she had been far removed away from him talk and even then such examples had met her eye or at a distance and mainly of course of fiber than the one who now confronted her she nervously wondered why the woman had not discovered her mistake and returned and went again towards the bell pool approaching the chimney her back was two Fitzpierre's but she could see him in the glass an indescribable thrill passed through her as she perceived that the eyes of the reflected image were open gazing wonderingly at her and under the curious unexpectedness of the sight she became as if spellbound almost powerless to turn her head and regard the original however by an effort she did turn when there he lay asleep the same as before he startled perplexity as to what he could be meaning was sufficient to lead her to precipitatedly abandon her around she crossed quickly to the door opened and closed it noiselessly and went out of the house conserved by the time that she had gone down the path and through the garden door into the lane she had discovered her equanimity here screened by the hedge she stood and considered a while drip drip drip fell the rain upon her umbrella and around she had come out in such a morning because of the seriousness of the matter in hand yet now she had allowed to be stultified by a momentary tremulousness concerning an incident which perhaps meant nothing after all in the meantime her departure from the room stealthy as it had been had roused Fitzpiers and he set up and the reflection from the mirror which Grace had beheld there was no mystery he had opened his eyes for a few moments but had immediately relapsed into unconsciousness if indeed he had ever been positively awake that somebody had just left the room he was certain and that's the lovely form which seemed to have visited him in a dream was no less than a real presentation of the person departed he could hardly doubt looking out of the window a few minutes later down the box edged gravel path which led to the bottom he saw the garden door gently open and through it entered the young girl of his thoughts Grace having just at this juncture determined to return and attempt the interview a second time that he saw her coming instead of going made him ask himself if his first impression of her were not a dream indeed she came hesitantly along carrying her umbrella so low over her head that he could hardly see her face when she reached the point where the raspberry bushes ended and the strawberry bed began she made a little pause Fitzpiers feared that she might not be coming to him even now and hastily quitting a room he ran down the path to meet her the nature of her he could not divine but he was prepared to give her any amount of encouragement I beg your pardon Miss Mulberry he said I saw you from the window and fancied you might imagine that I was not at home if it is I you were coming for I was coming to speak one word to you nothing more she replied and I can say it here no no please do come in well then if you will not come into the house come as far as the porch thus pressured she went onto the porch and they stood together inside it Fitzpiers closing her umbrella for her I have merely a request or petition to make she said my father's servant is ill a woman you know and her illness is serious I am sorry to hear it you wish me to come and see her at once no I particularly wish you not to come oh indeed yes and she wishes the same it would make her seriously worse if you were to come it would almost kill her my errand is of a peculiar and awkward nature it is concerning a subject which weighs on her mind that unfortunate arrangement she made with you that you might have a body after death oh grandma Oliver the old woman with a fine head seriously ill is she and so disturbed by her rash compact I have brought the money back will you please return to her the agreement she signed Grace held out to him a couple of five pound notes which she had kept readily tucked in her glove without replying or considering the notes Fitzpiers allowed his thoughts to follow his eyes and dwell upon Grace's personality and the sudden closed relation in which he stood to her the porch was narrower the rain increased it ran off the porch and dripped on the creepers and from the creepers upon the edge of Grace's cloaks and skirts the rain is wetting your dress please do come in he said it really makes my heart ache to let you stay here immediately inside the front door was the door of his sitting room he flung it open and stood in a coaxing attitude try how she would Grace could not resist the supplicatory mandate written on the face and the manner of this man and this stressful resignation sat on her and she glided past him into the room brushing his coat with her elbow by reason of the narrowness he followed her shut the door which she somehow had hoped he would leave open and placing a chair for her sat down the concerns which Grace felt at the development of these common police incidents was of course mainly owing to the strange effect upon her nerves of that view of him in the mirror gazing at her with open eyes when she had thought him sleeping which made her fancy that his slumber might have been a faint based on inexplicable reasons she again preferred the notes he awoke from looking at her as at a piece of life staturey and listened differentially as she said will you then reconsider and cancel the bond which poor grammar olive so foolishly gave all cancel it without reconsideration though you will allow me to have my own opinion about her foolishness grammar is a very wise woman and she was as wise in that as in other things you think there was something very fiendish in the compact do you not Ms. Norbury but remember that the most eminent of our surgeons in past times have entered into such agreements not fiendish strange yes that may be since strangeness is not in the nature of a thing but in its relation to something eccentric in this case an unessential observer he went to his desk and searching a while found a paper which be unfolded and brought to her a thick cross appeared in ink at the bottom evidently from the hand of grammar grace put the paper in her pocket with a look of much relief as Fitzpiers did not take up the money half of which had come from grace's own purse she pushed it a little nearer to him no no I shall not take it from the old woman he said it is more strange than the fact of a surgeon arranging to obtain a subject for dissection the acquaintances should be formed out of it I am afraid you think me uncivil and showing my disliked the notion but I did not mean to be oh no no he looked at her as he had done before with puzzled interest I cannot think I cannot think he murmured something bewilders me greatly he still reflected and hesitated last night I set up very late he at last went on and on that account I fell into a little nap on that couch about half an hour ago and during my few minutes of unconsciousness I dreamed what do you think that you stood in the room should she tell she merely blushed you may imagine Fitzpiers continued now persuaded that it had indeed been a dream that I should not have dreamed of you without considerable thinking about you first he could not be acting of that she felt assured I fancied in my vision that you stood there he said pointing to where she had paused I did not see you directly but reflected as I thought what a lovely creature the design is for once carried out nature has at last recovered her lost union with the idea my thoughts ran in that direction because I had been reading the work of a transcendential philosopher last night and I dare say it was the dose of idealism that I received from it that made me scarcely able to distinguish between reality and fancy I almost wept when I woke and found that you had appeared to me in time but not in space alas at moment there was something theatrical in the delivery of Fitzpiers's effusion yet it would have been inexact to say that it was intrinsically theatrical it often happens that in situations of unrestraint where there is no thought of the eye of criticism real feelings glide into a mode of manifestation not easily distinguishable from rudimentate a veneer of affectation overlies a bulk of truth with the evil consequence if perceived that the substance is estimated by the superficies and the whole rejected Grace however was no specialist in men's manners and she admired the sentiment without thinking of the form and she was embarrassed lovely creature made explanation awkward to her gentle modesty but can it be said he suddenly that you really were here I have to confess that I have been in the room once before faltered she the woman showed me in and went away to fetch you and did not return I left and you saw me asleep he murmured with a faintest show of humiliation yes if you were asleep and did not deceive me why do you say if I saw your eyes open in the glass but as they were closed when I looked around upon you I thought you were perhaps deceiving me never said Fitzpiers fervently but could I deceive you foreknowledge to the distance of a year or so and either of them might have spoiled the effect of that pretty speech never deceive her but they knew nothing and the phase had its day Grace began now to be anxious to terminate the interview but the compelling power of Fitzpiers's atmosphere still held her there she was like an inexperienced actress having at last taken up her position on the boards and spoken her speeches does not know how to move off the thought of Grammar occurred to her I'll go at once and tell poor Grammar of your generosity she said it will relieve her at once Grammar is a nervous disease too how singular he answered accompanying her to the door one moment look at this which may interest you he had thrown open the door on the other side of the passage and she saw a microscope on the table of the confronting room look into it please you'll be interested, he repeated she applied her eye and saw the usual circle of light patterned all over with a cellular tissue of some indescribable sort what do you think that is said Fitzpiers she did not know that's a fragment of old John South's brain which I am investigating she started back not with a version but with wonder as to how it should have got there Fitzpiers laughed here am I he said, endeavoring to carry on simultaneously the study of physiology and transcendential philosophy the material world and the ideal so as to discover if possible of contrast between them and your finer sense is quite offended oh no Mr. Fitzpiers said grace earnestly it is not so at all I know from seeing your light at night how deeply you meditate and work instead of condemning you for your studies I admire you very much her face upturned from the microscope was so sweet, sincere and self-forgetful in its aspect that's the susceptible of Fitzpiers more than wish to annihilate the linear yard which separated it from his own whether anything of the kind showed in his eyes or not grace remains no longer at the microscope but quickly went her way into the rain End of Chapter 18 Recording by Mestophilus The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter 19 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 The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter 19 Instead of resuming his investigation of South's brain which perhaps was not so interesting under the microscope as might have been expected from the importance of that organ in life Fitzpiers reclined and ruminated on the interview Grace's curious susceptibility to his presence though it was as if the currents of her life were disturbed rather than attracted by him added a special interest to her general charm Fitzpiers was in a distinct degree scientific being ready and zealous to interrogate all physical manifestations but primarily he was an idealist he believed that behind the imperfect lay the perfect that rare things were to be discovered in the bulk of commonplace that results in a new and untried case might be different from those in other cases where the conditions have been precisely similar regarding his own personality as one of unbounded possibilities because it was his own notwithstanding that the factors of his life had worked out a sorry product for thousands he saw nothing but what was regular in his discovery at Hintock of an altogether exceptional being of the other sex who for nobody else would have had any existence one habit of Fitzpiers commoner in dreamers of more advanced age than in men of his years was that of talking to himself he paced round his room with a selective tread upon the more prominent blooms of the carpet and murmured this phenomenal girl will be the light of my life while I am at Hintock and the special beauty of the situation is that our attitude and relations to each other will be purely spiritual socially we can never be intimate anything like matrimonial intentions towards her charming as she is would be absurd they would spoil the ethereal character of my regard and indeed I have other aims on that practical side of my life Fitzpiers bestowed a regulation thought on the invitations marriage he was bound to make with a woman of family as good as his own and of purse much longer but as an object of contemplation for the present as objective spirit rather than corporeal sense grace melbury would serve to keep his soul alive and to relieve the monotony of his days his first notion acquired from the mere sight of her without converse that of an idle and vulgar flirtation with a timber merchants pretty daughter graded painfully upon him now that he had found what grace intrinsically was personal intercourse with such as she could take no lower form than intellectual communion and mutual explorations of the world of thought since he could not call at her fathers having no practical views cursory encounters in the lane in the wood coming and going to and from church or passing her dwelling were what the acquaintance would have to feed on such anticipated glimpses of her now and then realize themselves in the event re-encounters of not more than a minute's duration frequently repeated will build up mutual interest even an intimacy in a lonely place theirs grew as imperceptibly as the tree twigs budded there never was a particular moment at which she could be said that they became friends yet a delicate understanding now existed between two who in the winter had been strangers spring weather came on rather suddenly the unsealing of buds that had long been swollen accomplishing itself in the space of one warm night the rush of sap and the veins of the trees could almost be heard the flowers of late April took up a position unseen and looked as if they had been blooming a long while though there had been no trace of them the day before yesterday birds began not to mind getting wet indoor people said they had heard the nightingale to which outdoor people replied contemptuously that they had heard him on a fortnight before the young doctor's practice being scarcely so large as a London surgeons he frequently walked in the wood indeed such practice as he had he did not follow up with the assiduity it would have been necessary for developing it to exceptional proportions one day book in hand he walked in a part of the wood where the trees were mainly oaks it was a calm afternoon and there was everywhere around that the sign of great undertakings on the part of vegetable nature which is apt to fill reflective human beings who are not undertaking much themselves with a sudden uneasiness at the contrast he heard in the distance a curious sound something like the quack of a duck which he thought was common enough here about this time was not common to him looking through the trees Fitzpiers soon perceived the origin of the noise the barking season had just commenced and what he had heard was the tear of the ripping tool as it plowed its way along the sticky parting between the trunk and the rind Melbury did a large business in bark and as he was Grace's father and possibly might be found on the spot Fitzpiers was attracted to the scene even more than by its intrinsic interest when he got nearer he recognized among the workmen the two Timothy's Robert Cretel who probably had been lent by Winterborn and Marty South also assisted each tree doomed to this flying process was first attacked by Cretel with a small bill hook he carefully freed the collar of the tree from twigs and patches of moss which encrusted it to a height of a foot or two above the ground an operation comparable to the little toilet executioner's victim after this it was barked in its erect position to a point as high as a man could reach if a fine product of vegetable nature could ever be said to look ridiculous it was the case now when the oak stood naked-legged as if ashamed till the ax-man came and cut a ring around it and the two Timothy's finished the work with the crosscut saw as soon as it had fallen the barkers attacked it like locusts and in a short time the branches left on the trunk and larger limbs Marty South was adept at peeling the upper parts and there she stood engaged amid the mass of twigs and buds like a great bird running her tool into the smallest branches beyond the farthest points to which the skill and patience of them enabled them to proceed branches which in their lifetime had swayed high above the bulk of the wood and caught the latest and earliest rays of the sun and moon while the lower part of the forest was still in darkness you seem to have a better instrument than they Marty said Fitzpiers no sir she said holding up the tool a horse's leg bone fitted into a handle and filed to an edge it's only that they've less patience with the twigs because their time was worth more than mine a little shed had been constructed on the spot of thatched hurdles and bows and in front of it was a fire over which a kettle sung Fitzpiers sat down inside the shelter and went on with his reading except when he looked up to observe the scene and the actors the thought that he might settle here and become welded in with this sylvan life by marrying Grace Milbury across his mind for a moment why should he go farther into the world than he was now the secret of quiet happiness lay in limiting the ideas and aspirations these men's thoughts were with the margin of the Hintock Woodlands and why should not his be likewise limited a small practice among the people around him being the bound of his desires suddenly Marty South continued her operations upon the quivering bows and came out from the reclining oak and prepared tea when it was ready the men were called and Fitzpiers being in a mood to join sat down with him the latent reason of his lingering here so long revealed itself when the faint creaking of the joints of a vehicle became audible and one of the men said here's he turning their heads they saw Milbury's gig approaching the wheels muffled by the yielding moss the timber merchant was on foot leading the horse looking back every few steps to caution his daughter who kept her seat where and how to duck her head so as to avoid the overhanging branches they stopped at the spot where the bark ripping had been temporarily suspended Milbury curiously examined the heaps of bark and drawing near to where the workmen were sitting down accepted their shouted invitation to have a dish of tea for which purpose he hitched the horse to a bow Grace declined to take any of their beverage and remained in her place in the vehicle looking dreamily at the sunlight that came in threads through the hollies which the oaks were interspersed when Milbury stepped up closer to the shelter for the first time he perceived that the doctor was present and warmly appreciated Fitzpiers' invitation to sit down on the log beside him well bless my heart who would have thought of finding you here he said obviously much pleased at the circumstance I wonder now if my daughter knows you are so nigh at hand too he looked out towards the gig where Grace sat her face still turned in the opposite direction she doesn't see us well never mind let her be Grace was indeed quite unconscious of Fitzpiers' propinquity she was thinking of something which had little connection with the scene before her thinking of her friend lost as soon as found Mrs. Charmond of her capricious conduct and of the contrasting scenes which she possibly enjoying at that very moment at times to which Grace herself had hoped to be introduced by her friend's means she wondered if this patronizing lady would return to Hintock during the summer and whether the acquaintance which had been nipped on the last occasion of her residence there would develop on the next Milbury told ancient timber stories as he sat relating them quite directly to Fitzpiers and obliquely to the men who had heard them often before Marty who poured out tea was just saying how petite Miss Grace when they heard a clashing sound of the gig harness and turning round Milbury saw that the horse had become restless and was jerking around the vehicle in a way which alarmed its occupant though she refrained from screaming Milbury jumped up immediately but not more quickly than Fitzpiers and while her father ran to the horse's head and speedily began to control him Fitzpiers was along the gig assisting Grace to descend her surprise at his appearance was so great that far from making a calm and independent descent she was verily nearly lifted down in his arms he relinquished her when she touched the ground and hoped she was not frightened oh no not much she managed to say there was no danger unless he had run under the trees with a bowser low enough to hit my head which was by no means an impossibility and justifies any amount of alarm he referred to what he thought he saw written on her face and she could not tell him that this had little to do with the horse but much to do with himself his contiguity had in fact had the same effect upon her as on those former occasions when he had come closer to her than usual that of producing in her an unaccountable tendency to tearfulness Milbury soon put the horse to rights and seeing that Grace was safe turned again to the work people his daughter's nervous distress had passed off in a few moments and she said quite gaily to Fitzpiers as she walked with him towards the group there was destiny to it you see I was doomed to join your picnic although I did not intend to do so Marty prepared her a comfortable place and she sat down in the circle and listened to Fitzpiers while he drew from her father and the bark rippers sundry narratives of their fathers and their grandfathers at their own adventures in these woods of the mysterious sights they had seen only to be accounted for by supernatural agency of white witches and black witches and the standard story of the spirits of the two brothers who had fought and fallen and had haunted Hinhoc House until they were exercised by the priests and compelled to retreat to a swamp in this very wood once they were returning to their old quarters at the rate of a cock's stride every New Year's day old style hence the local saying on a New Year's tide a cock's stride it was a pleasant time the smoke from the little fire of peeled sticks rose between the sitters and the sunlight and its blue veil stretched to naked arms of the prostrate trees the smell of the uncovered sap mingled with the smell of the burning wood and the sticky inner surface of the scattered bark glistened as it revealed its pale matter hues to the eye Melbury was so highly satisfied at having Fitzpiers as a sort of guest that he would have sat on for any length of time but Grace on whom Fitzpiers eyes only too frequently alighted seemed to think it incumbent upon her to make a show of going and her father thereupon accompanied her to the vehicle as the doctor had helped her out of it he appeared to think that he had excellent reasons for helping her in and performed the attention lingeringly enough what were you almost in tears about just now he asked softly oh I don't know she said and the words were strictly true Melbury mounted on the other side and they drove on out of the grove their wheels silently crushing delicate pattern mosses hyacinths, primroses, lords and ladies and other strange and ordinary plants and cracking up little sticks that lay across the track their way homeward ran along the crest of a lofty hill went on the right they beheld a wide valley differing both in feature and atmosphere from that of the Hintock precincts it was the cider country which met the woodland district on the axis of this hill over the veil the air was blue as sapphire such a blue as outside that apple valley was never seen under the blue the orchards were in a blaze of bloom some of the richly flowered trees running almost up to where they drove along over a gate which opened down the incline a man leaned on his arms regarding this fair promise so intently that he did not observe their passing that was Giles said Melbury and when they had gone by was it poor Giles she said all that bluth means heavy to begin work for him in his hands if no blight happens before the setting the apple yield to be such as we have not had for years meanwhile in the wood they had come from the man had sat on so long that they were indisposed to begin work again that evening they were paid by the ton and their time for labor was as they chose they placed the last gatherings of bark and rose for the cures which led them farther and farther away from the shed and thus they gradually withdrew as the sun went down Fitzpiers lingered yet he had opened his book again though he could hardly see a word in it and sat before the dying fire scarcely knowing of the men's departure he dreamed and mused till his consciousness seemed to occupy the whole space of the woodland around so little was there of jarring sight or sound to hinder perfect unity with the sentiment of the place the idea returned upon him of sacrificing all practical aims to live in calm contentment here and instead of going on elaborating new conceptions with infinite pains to accept quiet domesticity according to the oldest and homeliest notions these reflections detained him till the wood was in brown with the coming night and the shy little bird of this dusky time began to pour out all the intensity of his eloquence from a bush not very far off Fitzpiers eyes commanded as much of the ground in front as was open entering upon this he saw a figure whose direction of movement was toward the spot where he sat the surgeon was quite shrouded from observation by the recessed shadow of the hut and there was no reason why he should move till the stranger had passed by the shape resolved itself into a woman's she was looking on the ground and walking slowly as if searching for something that had been lost her course being precisely that of Mr. Melbury's gig Fitzpiers by a sort of divination the idea that the figure was graces her nearer approach made the guest a certainty yes she was looking for something and she came round by the prostrate trees that would have been invisible but for the white nakedness which enabled her to avoid them easily thus she approached the heap of ashes and acting upon what was suggested by a still shining ember or two she took a stick and stirred the heap which thereupon burst into a flame on looking around by the light thus obtained before the first time saw the illuminated face of Fitzpiers precisely on the spot where she had left him Grace gave a start and a screen the place had been associated with him in her thoughts but she had not expected to find him there still Fitzpiers lost not a moment in rising and going to her side I frightened you dreadfully I know he said I ought to have spoken but I did not at first expect it to be you I have been sitting here ever since he was actually supporting her with his arm as though under the impression that she was quite overcome and in danger of falling as soon as she could collect her ideas she gently withdrew from his grasp and explained what she had returned for in getting up or down from the gig or when sitting by the hut fire she had dropped her purse now we'll find it said Fitzpiers he threw an arm full of last year's leaves onto the fire which made the flame leap higher and the encompassing shades to weave themselves into a denser contrast turning even to night in a moment by this radiance they groped about on their hands and knees till Fitzpiers rested on his elbow and looked at Grace we must always meet in odd circumstances he said and this is one of the oddest I wonder if it means anything oh no I'm sure it doesn't said Grace in haste quickly assuming me erect posture pray don't say it anymore I hope there was not much money in that purse in the last few years raising to his feet more slowly and brushing the leaves from his trousers scarcely any I cared most about the purse itself because it was given to me indeed money is a little more use at Hintock than on Caruso's island there's hardly any way of spending it they had given up the search when Fitzpiers discerned something by his foot well here it is he said so that your father mother friend or admirer will not have to have his or her feelings hurt by the negligence after all oh he knows nothing of what I do now the admirer said Fitzpiers slally oh I don't know if you'd call him that said Grace with simplicity the admirer is a superficial conditional creature and this person is quite different as all the cardal virtues perhaps though I don't know them precisely well you unconsciously practice them Miss Milbury which is better according to Schlermacher they are self-control perseverance wisdom and love and his is the best list that I know oh I'm afraid poor she was going to say that she feared Winterborn the giver of the purse years before had not much perseverance though he had not all the others three but she determined to go no further in this direction and was silent these half revelations made a perceptible difference in Fitzpiers the sense of personal superiority wasted away and Grace assumed in his eyes the true aspect of a mistress in her lover's regard Miss Milbury he said suddenly I divine that this virtuous man you mention has been refused by you she could do no otherwise then admit it I do not inquire without good reason God forbid that I should kneel in another's place at any shrine unfairly but my dear Miss Milbury now that he is gone may I draw near I can't say anything about that she cried quickly because when a man has been refused you feel pity for him and like him more than you did before this increasing complication added still more value to grace in the surgeon's eyes it rendered her adorable but cannot you say he pleaded distractedly I'd rather not I think I must go home at once oh yes said Fitzpiers but as he did not move she felt it awkward to walk straight away from him and so they stood silently together a diversion was created by the accident of two birds that had either been roosting above their heads or nesting there tumbling one over the other into the hot ashes at their feet apparently engrossed in a desperate quarrel that prevented the use of their wings they speedily parted however and flew up and were seen no more that's the end of what's called love said someone the speaker was neither Grace nor Fitzpiers but Marty South who approached with her face turned up to the sky in her endeavor to trace the birds suddenly perceiving Grace she exclaimed oh Miss Milbury I've been following the pigeons and I didn't see you and here's Mr. Winterburn she continued shyly as she looked towards Fitzpiers who stood in the background Marty Grace interrupted I want you to walk home with me will you come along and without lingering longer she took hold of Marty's arm and led her away they went between the spectral arms of the peeled trees as they lay and onward among the growing trees by a path where there were no oaks and no barking and no Fitzpiers nothing but cops, wood between which the primroses could be discerned and bale bunches I didn't know Mr. Winterburn was there said Marty breaking the silence when they had nearly reached Grace's door nor was he said Grace but Miss Milbury I saw him no said Grace it was somebody else Giles Winterburn is nothing to me End of Chapter 19 Read by Dean Johnson The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter 20 of The Woodlanders This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit Libravox.org Recording by Jesse Drostowski The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter 20 The leaves over Hintock grew denser in their substance and The Woodland seemed to change from an open filigree to a solid opaque body of infinitely larger shape and importance The bow is cast green shades which hurt the complexion of the girls who walked there and a fringe of them which overhung Mr. Milbury's garden dripped on his seed-plots when it rained pitting their surface all over as with pockmarks till Milbury declared that gardens in such a place were no good at all The two trees that had creaked all the winter left off creaking the War of the Nightjar however forming a very satisfactory continuation of uncanny music from that quarter Except at midday the sun was not seen complete by the Hintock people but rather in the form of numerous little stars staring through the leaves Such an appearance it had on mid-summer of this year and as the hour grew later and nine o'clock drew on the irradiation of the daytime became broken up by weird shadows and ghostly nooks of indistinctness Imagination could trace upon the trunks and bows strange faces and figures shaped lights The surfaces of the holly leaves would here and there shine like peeping eyes while such fragments of the sky as were visible between the trunks assumed the aspect of sheeted forms and cloven tongues This was before Moonrise Later on when that planet was getting command of the upper heaven and consequently shining with an unbroken face into such open glades as there were in the neighborhood of the Hamlet apparent that the margin of the wood which approached the timber merchant's premises was not to be left to the customary stillness of that reposeful time Fitzpiers having heard a voice or voices was looking over his garden gate where he now looked more frequently than into his books fancying that Grace might be abroad with some friends He was now irretrievably committed in heart to Grace Melbury though he was by no means sure far committed to him that the idea had for once completely fulfilled itself in the objective substance which he had hitherto deemed an impossibility he was enchanted enough to fancy must be the case at last It was not Grace who had passed however but several of the ordinary village girls in a group some steadily walking some in a mood of wild gaiety He quietly asked his landlady who was also in the garden what these girls were intending and she informed him that it being old Midsomer Eve they were about to attempt some spell or enchantment which would afford them a glimpse of their future partners for life She declared it to be an ungodly performance and one which she for her part would never countenance saying which she entered her house and retired to bed The young man lit a cigar and followed the bevy of maidens slowly up the road they had turned into the wood they had been to the south but Fitzpiers could easily track them by their voices low as they endeavored to keep their tones In the meantime other inhabitants of little Hintak had become aware of the nocturnal experiment about to be tried and were also sauntering stealthily after the frisky maidens Miss Melbury had been informed by Marty South during the day of the proposed peep into futurity and, being only a girl like the rest she was sufficiently interested and wished to see the issue The moon was so bright and the night so calm that she had no difficulty in persuading Mrs. Melbury to accompany her and thus, joined by Marty these went onward in the same direction Passing Winterbone's house they heard a noise of hammering Marty explained it This was the last night on which his paternal roof would shelter him the days of grace since it fell into hand having expired the house covered in bed-steeds with a view to an early exit next morning His encounter with Mrs. Charmon had cost him dearly When they had proceeded a little farther Marty was joined by Grandma Oliver who was as young as the youngest in such matters and Grace and Mrs. Melbury went on by themselves till they had arrived at the spot chosen by the village daughters whose primary intention of keeping their expedition a secret had been quite defeated Grace and her stepmother paused by a holly-tree the distance stood Fitzpiers under the shade of a young oak intently observing Grace who was in the full rays of the moon He watched her without speaking and unperceived by any but Marty and Grammar who had drawn up on the dark side of the same holly which sheltered Mrs. and Mrs. Melbury on its bright side the two former conversed in low tones They too come up in the wood next mid-summer night they'll come as one, said Grammar signifying Fitzpiers and Grace Skellington he'll carry home her living carcass before long but though she's a lady in herself and worthy of any such as he it do seem to me that he ought to marry somebody more of the sort of Mrs. Charmond and that Mrs. Grace should make the best of Winterbone Marty returned no comment and at that minute the girls some of whom were from great Hintock were seen advancing to work the incantation it now being midnight Directly we see anything we've done home as fast as we can, said one whose courage had begun to fail her to this the rest assented not knowing that a dozen neighbors lurked in the bushes around I wish we had not thought of trying this, said another but had contended ourselves with the whole digging to-morrow at twelve and hearing our husband's trades it is too much like having dealings with the evil one to try to raise their forms however they had gone too far to recede and slowly began to march forward in a skirmishing line through the trees toward the deeper recesses of the wood as far as the listeners could gather the particular form of black art to be practiced on this occasion was one connected with the sowing of hemp seed a handful of which was carried by each girl at the moment of their advance they looked back and discerned the figure of Miss Melbury who, alone of all the observers stood in the full face of the moonlight deeply engrossed in the proceedings by contrast with her life of late years they made her feel as if she had receded a couple of centuries in the world's history she was rendered doubly conspicuous by her light dress and after a few whispered words one of the girls, a bouncing maiden plighted to young Timothy Tang's asked her if she would join in Grace, with some excitement said that she would and moved on a little in the rear of the rest soon the listeners could hear nothing of their proceedings beyond the faintest occasional rustle of leaves grammar whispered again to Marty why didn't you go and try your luck with the rest of the maids I don't believe in it said Marty shortly why, half the parishes here the silly hussy should have kept it quiet I see Mr. Winterbone through the leaves just come up with Robert Cretel Marty, we ought to act a part of Providence sometimes do go and tell him that if he stands just behind the bush and to bomb her to slope Miss Grace must pass down and when she comes back she will most likely rush in in his arms for as soon as the clock strikes they'll bundle back home along like hairs I've seen such larries before do you think I'd better said Marty reluctantly oh yes, he'll bless you for it I don't want that kind of blessing but after a moment's thought she went and delivered the information and grammar had the satisfaction of seeing Giles walk slowly to the bend in the leafy defile which Grace would have to return meanwhile Mrs. Malbury, deserted by Grace had perceived Fitzpiers and Winterbone and also the move of the latter an improvement on grammar's idea entered the mind of Mrs. Malbury for she had lately discerned what her husband had not that Grace was rapidly fascinating the surgeon she therefore drew nearer to Fitzpiers you should be where Mr. Winterbone is standing she said to him, significantly she will run down to that opening much faster than she went up it if she is like the rest of the girls Fitzpiers did not require to be told twice he went across to Winterbone and stood beside him each knew the probable purpose of the other in standing there and neither spoke Fitzpiers scorned to look upon Winterbone as a rival and Winterbone adhering to the offhand manner of indifference which had grown upon him since his dismissal neither grammar nor Marty South had seen the surgeon's maneuver and still to help Winterbone as she supposed the old woman suggested to the wood girl that she should walk forward at the heels of Grace and toll her down the required way if she showed a tendency to run in another direction poor Marty always doomed to sacrifice desire to obligation walked forward accordingly and waited as a beacon still and silent for the retreat of Grace and her giddy companions now quite out of hearing the first sound to break the silence was the distant note of Great Hintock Clock striking the significant hour about a minute later that quarter of the wood to which the girls had wandered resounded with the flapping of disturbed birds then two or three hairs and rabbits bounded down the glade from the same direction and after these the rustling and crackling of leaves and dead twigs denoted the hurried approach of the adventurers whose fluttering gowns soon became visible Miss Melbury having gone forward quite in the rear of the rest was one of the first to return and the excitement being contagious she ran laughing towards Marty who stood still as a hand-post to guide her then passing on she flew round the fatal bush with an undergrowth narrowed to a gorge Marty arrived at her heels just in time to see the result Fitzpiers had quickly stepped forward in front of Winterbone who, disdaining to shift his position, had turned on his heel and the surgeon did what he would not have thought of doing but for Miss Melbury's encouragement and the sentiment of an eve which effaced conventionality stretching out his arms as the white figure burst upon him he captured her in a moment as if she had been a bird Oh! Grace cried in her fright You are in my arms, dearest, said Fitzpiers, and I am going to claim you and keep you there all our two lives she rested on him like one utterly mastered and it was several seconds before he recovered from this helplessness subdued screams and struggles audible from neighboring breaks revealed that there had been other lurkers there about for a similar purpose Grace, unlike most of these companions of hers, instead of gasping and writhing said in a trembling voice Mr. Fitzpiers, will you let me go? Certainly, he said, laughing as soon as you've recovered she waited another few moments then quietly and firmly pushed him aside and glided on her path the moon whitening her hot blush away but it had been enough new relations between them had begun the case of the other girls was different as had been said, they wrestled and tittered only escaping after a desperate struggle Fitzpiers could hear these enactments still going on after Grace had left him and he remained on the spot where he had caught her, Winterbone having gone away on a sudden another girl came bounding down the same descent that had been followed by Grace, a fine-framed young woman with naked arms seeing Fitzpiers standing there she said with playful effrontery Mace, kiss me if can't catch me, Tim Fitzpiers recognized her as Souk Damson, a Huy-Denish damsel of the Hamlet who was plainly mistaking him for her lover he was impulsively disposed to profit by her error and as soon as she began racing away he started in pursuit on she went under the bowels now in light, now in shade looking over her shoulder at him every few moments and kissing her hand but so cunningly dodging about among the trees and moonshades that she never allowed him to get dangerously near her thus they ran and doubled Fitzpiers warming with the chase till the sound of their companions had quite died away he began to lose hope of ever overtaking her when all at once, by way of encouragement she turned to a fence in which there was a style and leaked over it outside the scene was a changed one a metal where the half-made hay lay about in heaps in the uninterrupted shine of the now-high moon Fitzpiers saw in a moment that having taken to open ground she had placed herself at his mercy and he promptly vaulted over after her she flitted a little way down the med when all at once her light form disappeared as if it had sunk into the earth she had buried herself in one of the hay-cocks Fitzpiers, now thoroughly excited was not going to let her escape him thus he approached and set about turning over the heaps one by one as soon as he paused tantalized and puzzled he was directed anew by an imitative kiss which came from her hiding place and by snatches of a local ballad in the smallest voice she could assume oh, come in from the foggy foggy dew and a minute or two he uncovered her oh, tis not Tim, she said burying her face Fitzpiers, however, disregarded her resistance for a reason of its mildness stooped and it printed the purposed kiss then sunk down on the next hay-cock panting with his race whom do you mean by Tim, he asked presently my young man, Tim Tanks, said she now, on her bright, did you really think he was he? I did at first but you didn't at last I didn't at last do you much mind that it was not? no, she answered lilly Fitzpiers did not pursue his questioning in the moonlight sook looked very beautiful the scratches and blemishes incidental to her outdoor occupation being invisible under these pale rays while they remained silent the coarse whir of the eternal nightjar bursts sarcastically from the top of a tree at the nearest corner of the wood besides this not a sound of any kind reached their ears the time of nightingales being now passed and Hintock lying at a distance of two miles at least in the opposite direction the hay-field stretched away into remoteness till it was lost to the eye in a soft mist End of Chapter 20 Recording by Jesse Drozdowski July 22, 2009 Parma, Ohio