"If I had been a village girl I might have been a good woman," she thought, walking up to the porch; "but I daresay I should have tired of this innocent sweetness and gone up to the evil life of London, as all village beauties have done."
On knocking at the door it was opened shortly by a tiny woman, old, shrivelled, and evil-looking enough to have been the witch of the cottage. Not that Mrs. Belk was ill-looking; on the contrary, she must have been pretty when young, for she still retained a sufficiency of beauty to warrant a second glance; but there was a restless look in her dark eyes, a settled sneer on her thin lips, and a generally discontented expression on her face which repelled the onlooker. Mrs. Belswin had an intuitive capability of reading faces, and the first glance she threw on this little figure with the withered face put her at once on her guard. On her guard against a cottager! Mrs. Belswin would have laughed at the idea. Still, the fact remains that Mrs. Belk bore her character in her face, and Mrs. Belswin at once put herself on her guard against Mrs. Belk. Hardly probable that these two women would meet again. The cottager could never have it in her power to harm the lady; but in spite of the absurdity of the situation, Mrs. Belswin, with that inherent suspicion created by a long life of duplicity and watchfulness, did not think it beneath her dignity to pick and choose her words while talking to this humble woman, in case chance should turn her into a possible enemy.
"I beg your pardon," she said slowly; "but I am very tired, and would like to rest."
"There's a public a little way on, ma'am," replied Mrs. Belk, respectfully, by no means inclined to entertain a stranger.
"I prefer to rest here," said Mrs. Belswin, coolly. "You know me, I daresay--Miss Pethram's companion."
"Mrs. Belsin?" said the old woman, doubtfully.
"Let the lady come in, mother," remarked the slow soft voice of a man inside the cottage. "Don't you see she looks tired?"
Whereupon Mrs. Belk with manifest reluctance moved to one side, and Miss Pethram's companion entered the room to find herself face to face with the handsomest man she had ever seen. He offered her a chair in silence, and she sat down thankfully, while Mrs. Belk closed the door, and the rustic Apollo stood leaning against the table looking at their visitor.
Handsome! yes; splendidly handsome this man, in a massive Herculean fashion. One who would be called a magnificent animal; for there was no intellect in the fresh-coloured face, no intelligence in the bright blue eyes, and his whole figure had but beauty and symmetry after the fashion of a brute. He was very tall--over six feet--with long limbs, a great breadth of chest, and a small, well-shaped head covered with crisp locks of curly golden hair. His skin was browned by the sun, he had a well-shaped nose, sleepy blue eyes, and his mouth and chin were hidden by a magnificent golden beard which swept his chest. Nature had lavished her gift of physical beauty on this man, but the casket contained no jewel, for the soul which would have lent light to the eyes, expression to the mouth, and noble bearing to the body, was absent, and Samson Belk was simply a fine animal whom one would admire like a soulless picture, but tire of in a few moments. Mrs. Belswin's first thought was, "What a handsome man!" her second, "What a brute he would be to the woman who loved him!"
They were a curious couple, the little withered mother and the tall handsome son, dissimilar enough in appearance to negative the relationship except for the expression of the face; for there, in the countenance of the man, appeared the same expression that pervaded the face of the woman. The eyes were not so restless, because they had rather a sleepy expression, the sneer on the lips was hidden by the drooping moustache, and the general look was more of ill-humour than discontent: but in spite of the physical difference between them, no one could have helped noticing, by the worst traits of the woman appearing in the man, that this splendid specimen of humanity was the offspring of this dwarfish feminine personality.