Chapter X: THE END OF THE TETHER
“It must be my laziness,” Jim muttered to himself, as he came meandering down the lane after a long rambling walk around Ot Moor, and through the woods on the far side. It was spring once more, and the third anniversary of his marriage had gone by.
His remark was made in answer to his reiterated question as to why he had not sooner broken away. He heartily disliked any kind of “scene,” and, being a fatalist, he had preferred to “let things rip,” as he termed it, than to make a bid for that freedom which he had so recklessly abandoned. It was true that he had gone up to London more frequently of late; but any longer absences from home had caused such an intolerable display either of temper or of feminine jobbery on Dolly’s part that Jim had found the game hardly worth the candle.
She had no great reason to be jealous of her husband, for he was not a man who gave much thought to women. But she was violently jealous of her position as his wife; and anything which suggested that Jim was not dependent on her for companionship, or had any sort of existence in which she played no part, aroused her pique and led her to assert herself with a horrible sort of assurance. Men and women are capable of many inelegances; but there is nothing within the masculine range so gross as a silly woman’s view of wedlock.
Jim, as he trudged home between the budding hedges of the lane, and heard the call of the spring reverberating through his deadened heart, wished fervently that he had never inherited his uncle’s estate. The afternoon was warm, and the power of the sun, considering the time of the year, was remarkable. It beat into his eyes, and its brilliance seemed to penetrate into his brain, compelling him to rouse himself from his shadowed inaction, and to look about him.
He had been a total failure as a married man, and as a Squire his success had been negligible. His only real friend was Smiley-face, and, though they had little to say to one another, there was always an unspoken understanding between them. Real friendship is occasioned by a mutual sympathy which penetrates through that external skin whereon the artificialities of civilization are stamped, and reaches the heart within, where dwell the reason behind reason, the intelligence beyond intellect, and the clear “Yes” which masters the brain’s insistent “No.” Jim and the poacher understood one another; and on the part of the latter this understanding was supplemented by gratitude, for it chanced that Jim had saved him on one occasion from arrest and imprisonment. The circumstances need not here be related, and indeed they would not be pleasant to recall; for Smiley-face had thieved, and Jim had lied to save him, and the whole affair was highly prejudicial to law and public safety.
Often, when he was bored, he would go down into the woods and utter a low whistle, like the hoot of an owl, which had become his recognized signal for calling Smiley-face; and together they would prowl about, sometimes even poaching on other property beyond the lane which curved around the manor estate. This whistle had been heard more than once by villagers walking in the lane, and the story had gone about that the place was haunted, a rumour which Jim encouraged, since it deterred the ever-nervous Dolly from following him into its shadowed depths.
Besides this disreputable friendship, there was little comradeship for him in Eversfield. A few of the villagers liked him he believed, especially the children; but the majority of the inhabitants misunderstood him, and there were those who regarded him with marked hostility. The gipsies who camped on Ot Moor, however, found in him a valuable friend; and the tramps and wandering beggars who visited these parts never went empty from his door.