CHAPTER XV.
CONCERNING A HORSESHOE.
The greater part of the majority of lives is passed in a groove. Sometimes a great crash comes, and all the machinery is put out of gear, but then the life is resumed, and all goes on quietly again—not as before, the change was too violent for that, but in another groove, in which it moves until another crisis comes. These crises come to all, even the most uneventful lives, but they come oftener to some than to others, and when they do come they invariably come suddenly and in the most unexpected way. Let the road of life be ever so long and straight and dull and monotonous, it is sure to lead to a turning some day, though, perhaps, the new road on which we enter with such hope and zest may be longer and duller and rougher than the first. And, after all, monotonous lives are often the happiest, though the young are very sceptical on this point, until their own lives have been upset by one or two of the great changes which come sooner or later to everyone.
Jack’s sudden departure was such a crisis in his life, and, indeed, it affected the whole family, though after he was gone they settled down again into the old quiet daily routine. It was not the same as before; it never is. This is really the sad part of it; not that life is monotonous, as people often complain, but that after a great change, no matter how brief—a few minutes may be long enough to effect such a change—but after such a change the life can never go on again exactly the same as it was before; it may be happier or the reverse. One thing is certain, it will never be the same again. And the older we grow the more sad does it seem that the good old times are gone for ever—they can never come back any more.
Our children grow up and are both a blessing and a comfort to our fading lives, but the days are gone for ever when the curly-headed cherub, now a man of six feet high, awoke us at unearthly hours for a romp, before a sepulchral voice outside announced that his bath was ready, to our intense relief. He has cherubs of his own now, and can sympathise with our feelings, when the nurse’s knock was heard, and the time will come when he too, like us, will wish in vain for those happy days to return.
The Shelleys’ change had been so sudden; in a few hours it was all settled, and Jack gone to America, who, earlier in the day, had been shearing sheep, as though that was to be the only anxiety in his shepherd’s life. After he was gone they were at first so occupied with nursing Charlie they had scarcely time to realise all that had happened on that June morning; but in a few weeks Charlie was quite well again, and then they resumed their former lives. But it was all different now; Charlie took Jack’s place as under-shepherd, and went with his father to the downs every day instead of Jack. Fairy spent a great deal of her time at the rectory, for now Jack was gone she felt her anomalous position, for, fond as she was of the shepherd and his wife and of Charlie, she could not help feeling there was a gulf between them and her, which, in Jack’s case, did not exist, for intellectually he was her superior.
As she grew older, Fairy began to realise that there was another difference between her and her foster parents, besides the difference of education, for she was a lady in thought and feeling as well as by birth, and, thanks to Mr. Leslie, by education. Not that there was anything to jar upon her feelings in John Shelley or his wife; for simple, honest folk as they were, there was nothing vulgar about them; and it is vulgarity which jars against a refined mind; but all the same there was a difference between them and her, a difference she had not felt as a child, but which, now she was growing into a woman, pressed upon her.
She felt this difference more with Charlie than the others, for John Shelley’s piety made her look up to him with reverence; and Mrs. Shelley’s sound common sense and true motherly kindness had won her respect and affection; but Charlie, fond as she was of him, was rather a trial to Fairy. His thick hobnailed shoes which he persisted in wearing in the house, his smock-frock, to which, on the shepherd, Fairy had no objection, for, as she often said, he looked like one of the old patriarchs in it, but Charlie’s smock was by no means becoming; he looked what he was—a clodhopping youth in it; his dirty stained hands, which no amount of washing could ever make clean, his broad, Sussex brogue, and his habit of chucking at his forelock if he met Mr. Leslie, were thorns in the flesh to Fairy, as they had been to Jack; and certainly there was no danger of her ever feeling or evincing more than a sisterly affection for the bucolic Charlie. No wonder if Fairy, feeling lonely when Jack was gone, took to remaining oftener at the rectory, after her lesson hours were over, than she had done when he was at home, particularly as she was a great favourite there, not only with the young people, who could do nothing without Fairy, but with Mr. and Mrs. Leslie also, both of whom had come to be very fond of her. They pitied her, too, knowing well the difficulties of her position, though Fairy was much too loyal to the Shelleys to speak of them; and they were anxious to help her as far as lay in their power. At present all they were able to do was to give her the same advantages of education as they bestowed on their own four plain daughters. Unluckily, Fairy did not show any great fondness for study, though she readily learnt French and music, and any accomplishments, for she was very clever with her fingers, and both painted and played very well, for those days.
What was to become of Fairy in the future was a problem which often exercised Mr. and Mrs. Leslie’s brains, and the only solution they could arrive at was that Jack must make his fortune in America, and come back and marry her, since it was quite clear she could not live for ever with the shepherd; neither was she fitted to be a governess; and there was no other way of well-educated women earning their living in those days, and there would be some insurmountable obstacles to marrying her to any one else. A gentleman would hesitate at marrying a girl brought up in a peasant’s cottage, and it was quite certain Fairy would not marry anyone but a gentleman, unless, indeed, she took Jack; so, after due consideration, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie settled there was no other future open to her.
Meanwhile there was plenty of time before Fairy need want to fly away from the shepherd’s sheltering roof, for if Jack came back at the end of two years she would only then be eighteen. And as time went on the accounts of Jack were very satisfactory. Not only did his own letters lead his friends to gather that he was making his way, but Mr. Leslie occasionally received glowing accounts from his friend the banker of the very promising young man he had sent out to him, and there seemed very little doubt that Jack would do uncommonly well for himself.
He wrote every mail, either to his mother or Fairy; indeed, his letters were the chief incidents in their lives, and were eagerly looked for, for little occurred to vary the monotony of the daily routine, except, in due course, the sheep-fairs, lambing-time, the sheep-washing and shearing, and the White Ram, until, in the spring of the second year after Jack went away, a disease broke out among the flocks, which gave John Shelley a great deal of anxiety, although hitherto his sheep had escaped. Indeed, he had been very fortunate since Jack left, and at the time of his third White Ram his flock was in a most prosperous condition. Charlie had developed into an excellent shepherd; his heart was as much in his work now as his father’s; he knew and loved all his sheep, and he was by no means above going to the fairs with them; on the contrary, he was very proud of his position of under-shepherd, and then he had no scruples, like Jack, about snareing wheatears. He made quite a little fortune in this way during the summer months, and in winter he trapped moles and sold them for so much a dozen; in the autumn he gathered mushrooms and sold them—indeed, all was fish that came to Charlie’s net; and in one way he was as observant as Jack, though while Jack pursued his observations from a pure love of natural history, Charlie always had an eye on the main chance.
He cared nothing for the beauty of the scenery—probably he saw none, although Ray, the naturalist, thought the South Downs equal to any scenery in Europe. All Charlie saw was an expanse of short crisp turf, excellent pasturage for his sheep. He never brought Fairy home a bunch of flowers, as Jack had been wont to do every day except in the depth of winter, and when she asked him to get her some bee orchises from Mount Caburn, Charlie either did not know where they grew or else had not time to gather them; and then Fairy would go to John Shelley, and beg him to get her some orchids before they were all over, and, busy as he might be, John never refused.
One hot July day when John Shelley’s White Ram was already a thing of the past, he came home unexpectedly about ten in the morning, looking so very grave that Fairy, who was painting on the kitchen table, asked what was the matter. John often looked grave now; indeed, he had never been quite the same since Jack had struck that unlucky blow; the suspense and anxiety he endured then, and the narrow escape he felt they had had of a terrible tragedy being enacted in the midst of their happy home circle, and then the loss of his eldest son, which he felt exceedingly, for he was very proud of clever, handsome Jack; all had saddened him. Perhaps, too, the knowledge that he had attained the goal of his earthly ambition, to be captain of the Lewes shearing company, and had nothing more to hope for in this world, made him grave; at any rate, though he had always lived for the future—for the life beyond the grave, he did so more than ever now; and though he was too good a man and too busy to indulge in any morbid thoughts, yet he set very little store on this life, and often longed for the time to come when he should lay his burden down and cross the dark river which leads to those fields of light where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.
For Fairy the shepherd had ever a smile; she was the light of his home, the poetry of his life; one glance at her delicate, bright little face, crowned with its wealth of golden hair, was sufficient to chase all gloom from his brow; and now, though he looked unusually grave, he smiled at her.
“Where is mother, little one?”
“She is lying down with one of her bad headaches; she would clean up the house first, but at last I persuaded her to let me cook the dinner, so I am going to; surely, it is not time yet. Why have you come home so soon, John?”
“Mother ill! That is bad. ‘It never rains but it pours,’ as they say. What am I to do?”
“Why, John; what is the matter? Has anything happened to Charlie?”
“No, child, no, not that I know of; but my sheep have got it.”
No need for Fairy to ask what the sheep had got, for this disease had been Charlie’s sole topic of conversation ever since it had broken out, so, to tell the truth, she was rather weary of it; but for John’s sheep to have it was a serious matter she knew; moreover, she always took special interest in “our sheep,” as she called them.
“Oh, John, have our sheep got it? Oh, I am sorry! I thought you would be sure to escape. How many are ill?”
“Only ten at present; but though I have taken them away from the others, it is so infectious I am afraid they will all get it.”
“Did you come home to tell mother?” asked Fairy.
“No, I came back to ask her to go to Lewes and tell Hobbs, the veterinary, to come and see them as soon as possible, while I take those who are all right to the downs, and go on to look at Charlie’s flock; he may not have noticed the first symptoms. Perhaps I can find someone in the village to go, as mother is ill.”
“Nonsense, John, I will go; I shall like the walk this lovely day. I don’t mind the sun a bit; I love it; besides, I shall be back before the heat of the day. Tell me where I am to go, and what I am to say.”
“But, my pretty one, mother does not like you to go to Lewes alone, does she?”
“In a case like this she would not mind; it is great nonsense at all, I think, for the Leslie girls go in alone, one or other of them, every day.”
John smiled, partly at the way in which Fairy identified herself with the Leslie girls, as if they were in the same position as herself, and partly at her naivety in not seeing that it was one thing for a plain girl like Maud Leslie to walk about Lewes alone, and quite another for the shepherd’s pretty dainty little foster daughter. However, he was very anxious about his sheep, and wanted the veterinary fetched as quickly as possible, and he knew he could trust Fairy to go far better than a boy in the village, so he accepted her offer, and gave her the necessary directions.
Fairy ran upstairs to tell Mrs. Shelley where she was going and to fetch her hat, and then set off in high glee, very much enjoying the novelty of going to Lewes alone, though Mrs. Shelley, as she first bent and kissed her before starting, grumbled at John’s imprudence in allowing it. And certainly there was something to be said on Mrs. Shelley’s side of the question, for Fairy was a girl who could not walk out without attracting attention; not that she was so exceedingly beautiful, but there was such a brilliancy in her beauty, which was of the pocket-Venus type, such a freshness and brightness about her, that everyone who saw her involuntarily turned to look after this little sunbeam who had just shed a ray of light across his path. She was dressed in a very simple white dress, with a large straw hat, with a piece of blue ribbon round it on her head. Fairy was very fond of white dresses, and very extravagant, for she never would wear a soiled one, and good Mrs. Shelley, who took a great pride in the girl’s appearance, washed and starched and ironed them for her without complaining.
Fairy’s way lay down the lane and across some fields, by a kind of drift, to the Winter-bourne, now a mere tiny brook, which you could easily step over, and then down a road with fields on one side and the Priory grounds on the other, to the town.
She met no one till she reached the bourne, and she tripped along quickly, resolutely denying herself the pleasure of gathering all the wild roses she came across, partly because, she told herself, she must make haste on her important errand, partly because it would soil her dress.
“I must gather all I can as I come back,” said Fairy, with a longing glance at the fence, covered with the lovely wild roses, pink and white and cream-coloured, the loveliest of all our wild flowers—the “rose of all the roses.”
But when she came back that golden head was too full of other thoughts to remember the roses.
At the bourne Fairy met Mr. Leslie on horseback. He stopped and wanted to know where she was going.
“To Lewes, on business, very important business, for John,” said Fairy, grandly.
“Indeed! I wish my mare were not so tired, that I might come with you, but I am just back from Brighton, and I expect, as the poor people here say, the fairies got into my stable and rode her about all last night, for she is far from fresh this morning. But I must not keep you. Good-bye; don’t let anyone pick you up and run off with you before Jack comes back. I heard from him this morning; he talks of coming home at the end of this year.”
“So soon? Mother will be glad. Good-bye,” said Fairy, her bright little face lighting up with pleasure, though she did not blush or look conscious; facts Mr. Leslie noticed, and went home to tell his wife Fairy was too much of a child to be in love, and he was sure she had no thought of Jack as a husband.
In this he was right; Fairy had no thought of Jack nor of anyone else as a husband just then; she was fancy-free as she disappeared down the road which led to the picturesque old town, lying before her in its amphitheatre of hills, whose white chalk patches looked strangely cold and repellent on this warm July morning. But those chalk hills often give one a chill at first. Fairy was too much accustomed to them to notice or feel it any more than she noticed or felt the cold, blunt, downright, and, at first, repelling manner of the Sussex peasant, who probably derives some of his characteristics from the country in which he is born and bred, and lives and moves and has his being, for it is certain that scenery influences character to a much greater extent than is commonly supposed. Fairy knew that this was only one phase of the Sussex downs; another time those hills—by the way, the word “down” is derived from an old Saxon word, meaning “hill”—another time those hills would look soft, and warm, and sweet, and attractive, just as the Sussex peasant, on better acquaintance, proves himself honest and true and kind-hearted, in spite of his uncouth manners.
(To be continued.)
