Heriot's Choice Part 50

Olive smiled, and nodded. The conversation had not particularly interested her, but she liked this idle lingering in the shade; the ivied walls and gateway, and the small blue-black cattle, with the peac.o.c.k strutting in the sun, made up a pretty picture. She followed almost reluctantly, when Dr. Heriot stretched himself, and called to his mare, who was feeding beside them, and then led the way to the sheep-pens. Here there was blazing sunshine again, hoa.r.s.e voices and laughing, and the incessant bleating of sheep, and all the bustle attendant on a clipping.

Mr. Colby came forward to meet them, with warm welcome. He was a tall, erect man, with a pleasant, weatherbeaten face, and a voice with the regular Westmorland accent. Hugh, as the newcomer, was treated with marked attention, and regret was at once manifested that he should only witness such a very poor affair.

But Hugh Marsden, who had been bred in towns, thought it a very novel and amusing sight. There were ten or twelve clippers at work, each having his stool or creel, his pair of shears, and a small cord to bind the feet of the victims.

The patient creatures lay helplessly under the hands that were so skilfully denuding them of their fleece. Sometimes there was a struggling ma.s.s of wool, but in most instances there was no resistance, and it was impossible to help admiring the skill and rapidity of some of the clippers.

The flock was penned close at hand; boys caught them when wanted, and brought them to the clippers, received them when shorn, and took them to the markers, who also applied the tar to the wounded.

In the distance the lambs were being dipped, and filled the air with their distressful bleatings, refusing to recognise in the shorn, miserable creatures that advanced to meet them the comfortable fleecy parents they had left an hour ago.

Olive watched the heartrending spectacle till her heart grew pitiful.

The poor sheep themselves were baffled by the noxious sulphur with which the fleece of the lambs were dripping. In the pasture there was confusion, a ma.s.s of white shivering bodies, now and then ecstasies, recognition, content. To her the whole thing was a living poem--the innocent faces, the unrest, the plaintive misery, were intact with higher meanings.

'This miserable little lamb, dirty and woebegone, cannot find its mother,' she thought to herself. 'It is even braving the terrors of the crowded yard to find her; even with these dumb, unreasoning creatures, love casteth out fear.'

'Mr. Colby has been telling us such a curious thing,' said Hugh, coming to her side, and speaking with his usual loud-voiced animation. 'He says that in the good old times the Fell clergy always attended these clippings, and acted the part of "doctor;" I mean applied the tar to the wounded sheep.'

'Colby has rather a racy anecdote on that subject,' observed Dr. Heriot, overhearing him. 'Let's have it, Michael, while your wife's tea is brewing. By the bye, I have not tasted your "clipping ale" yet.'

'All right, doctor, it is to the fore. If the story you mean concerns the election of a minister, I think I remember it.'

'Of course you do; two of the electors were discussing the merits of the rival candidates, one of whom had preached his trial sermon that day.'

Michael Colby rubbed his head thoughtfully.

'Ay, ay; now I mind.'

'"Ay," says one, "a varra good sarmon, John; I think he'll du."'

'"Du," says John; "ay, fer a Sunday priest, I'll grant ye, he's aw weel enugh; byt fer clippens en kirsnens toder 'ill bang him aw't nowt."'

Mildred was no longer able to conceal that her head ached severely, and, at a whispered request from Polly, Dr. Heriot led the way to the farmhouse.

Strangers, seeing Wharton Hall for the first time, are always struck by the beauty of the old gateway, mantled in ivy, through which is the trim flower-bordered inclosure, with its comfortable dwelling-house and low, long dairy, and its picturesque remnant of ruins, the whole forming three sides of a quadrangle.

Wharton Hall itself was built by Thomas Lord Wharton about the middle of the sixteenth century, and is a good specimen of a house of the period.

Part of it is now in ruins, a portion of it occupied as a farmhouse.

Mrs. Colby, a trim, natty-looking little body, was bustling about the great kitchen with her maids. Tea was not quite ready, and there was a short interval of waiting, in a long, narrow room upstairs, with a great window, looking over the dairy and garden, and the beautiful old gateway.

'I call this my ideal of a farmhouse!' cried Hugh enthusiastically, as they went down the old crazy staircase, having peeped into a great empty room, which Polly whispered would make a glorious ballroom.

The sunshine was streaming into the great kitchen through the narrow windows. July as it was, a bright fire burnt in the huge fireplace; the little round table literally groaned under the dainties with which it was spread; steel forks and delicate old silver spoons lay side by side, the great clock ticked, the red-armed maids went clattering through the flagged pa.s.sages and dairies, a brood of little yellow chickens clucked and pecked outside in the dust.

'What a picture it all is,' said Olive; and Dr. Heriot laughed. The white dresses and the girls' fresh faces made up the princ.i.p.al part of the picture to him. The grand old kitchen, the sunshine, and the gateway outside were only the background, the accessories of the whole.

Polly wore a breast-knot of pale pinky roses; she had laid aside her broad-brimmed hat; as she moved hither and thither in her trailing dress, with her short, almost boyishly-cropped hair, she looked so graceful and piquante that Dr. Heriot's eyes followed her everywhere with unconscious pleasure.

Polly was more than eighteen now, but her hair had never grown properly--it was still tucked behind the pretty little ears, and the smooth glossy head still felt like the down of an unfledged bird; 'there was something uncommon about Polly Ellison's style,' as people said, and as Mildred sometimes observed to Dr. Heriot--'Polly is certainly growing very pretty.'

He thought so now as he watched the delicate, high-bred face, the cheeks as softly tinted as the roses she wore. Polly's gentle fun always made her the life of the party; she was busily putting in the sugar with the old-fashioned tongs--she carried the cups to Dr. Heriot and Hugh with saucy little speeches.

How well Mildred remembered that evening afterwards. Dr. Heriot had placed her in the old rocking-chair beside the open window, and had thrown himself down on the settle beside her. Chriss, who was a regular salamander, had betaken herself to the farmer's great elbow-chair; the other girls and Hugh had gathered round the little table; the sunshine fell full on Hugh's beaming face and Olive's thoughtful profile; how peaceful and bright it all was, she thought, in spite of her aching head; the girlish laughter pealed through the room, the sparrows and martins chirped from the ivy, the sheep bleating sounded musically from the distance.

'It is an ill wind that blows no one any good,' laughed Dr. Heriot; 'my mare's lameness has given me an excuse for idleness. Look at that fellow Marsden; it puts one into a good temper only to look at him; he reminds one of a moorland breeze, so healthy and so exuberant.'

'We are going to see the dairy!' cried Polly, springing up; 'Chriss and I and Mr. Marsden. Olive is too lazy to come.'

'No, I am only tired,' returned Olive, a little weary of the mirth and longing for quiet.

When the others had gone she stole up the crazy stairs and stood for a long time in the great window looking at the old gateway. They all wondered where she was, when Hugh found her and brought her down, and they walked home through the gray glimmering fields.

'I wonder of what you were thinking when I came in and startled you?'

asked Hugh presently.

'I don't know--at least I cannot tell you,' returned Olive, blushing in the dusky light. Could she tell any one the wonderful thoughts that sometimes came to her at such hours; would he understand it if she could?

The young man looked disconcerted--almost hurt.

'You think I should not understand,' he returned, a little piqued, in spite of his sweet temper; 'you have never forgiven me my scepticism with regard to poetry. I thought you did not bear malice, Miss Olive.'

'Neither do I,' she returned, distressed. 'I was only sorry for you then, and I am sorry now you miss so much; poetry is like music, you know, and seems to harmonise and go with everything.'

'Nature has made me prosaic and stupid, I suppose,' returned Hugh, almost sorrowfully. He did not like to be told that he could not understand; he had a curious notion that he would like to know the thoughts that had made her eyes so soft and shining; it seemed strange to him that any girl should dwell so apart in a world of her own. 'How you must despise me,' he said at last, with a touch of bitterness, 'for being what I am.'

'Hush, Mr. Marsden, how can you talk so?' returned Olive in a voice of rebuke.

The idea shocked her. What were her beautiful thoughts compared to his deeds--her dreamy, contemplative life contrasted with his intense working energies? As she looked up at the great broad-shouldered young fellow striding beside her, with swinging arms and great voice, and simple boyish face, it came upon her that perhaps his was the very essence of poetry, the entire harmony of mind and will with the work that was planned for him.

'Oh, Mr. Marsden, you must never say that again,' she said earnestly, so that Hugh was mollified.

And then, as was often the case with the foolish-fond fellow, when he could get a listener, he descanted eagerly about his little Croydon house and his mother and sisters. Olive was always ready to hear what interested people; she thought Hugh was not without a certain homely poetry as she listened--perhaps the moonlight, the glimmering fields, or Olive's soft sympathy inspired him; but he made her see it all.

The little old house, with its faded carpet and hangings, and its cupboards of blue dragon-china--'bogie-china' as they had called it in their childhood--the old-fashioned country town, the gray old almshouses, Church Street, steep and winding, and the old church with its square tower, and four poplar trees--yes, she could see it all.

Olive and Chriss even knew all about Dora and Florence and Sophy; they had seen their photographs at least a dozen times, large, plain-featured women, with pleasant kindly eyes, Dora especially.

Dora was an invalid, and wrote little books for the Christian Knowledge Society, and Florence and Sophy gave lessons in the shabby little parlour that looked out on Church Street; through the wire blinds the sisters' little scholars looked out at the old-fashioned butcher's shop and the adjoining jeweller's. At the back of the house there was a long narrow garden, with great bushes of lavender and rosemary.

The letters that came to Hugh were all fragrant with lavender, great bunches of it decked the vases in his little parlour at Miss Farrer's; antimaca.s.sars, knitted socks, endless pen-wipers and kettle-holders, were fashioned for Hugh in the little back room with its narrow windows looking over the garden, where Dora always lay on her little couch.

'She is such a good woman--they are all such good women,' he would say, with clumsy eloquence that went to Olive's heart; 'they are never sad and moping, they believe the best of everybody, and work from morning till night, and they are so good to the poor, Sophy especially.'

'How I should like to know them,' Olive would reply simply; she believed Hugh implicitly when he a.s.sured her that Florence was the handsomest woman he knew; love had beautified those plain-featured women into absolute beauty, divine kindness and goodness shone out of their eyes, devotion and purity had transformed them.

'That is what Dora says, she would so like to know you; they have read your book and they think it beautiful. They say you must be so good to have such thoughts!' cried Hugh, with sudden effusion.