The Untilled Field

by George Moore

The next time he saw her their talk turned upon the house she had found for him, and she said if he did not take it he would certainly go back to America in the spring. She forgot herself a little; her father had to check her, and Ned returned home sure in his mind that she would marry him—if he asked her. And the next day he chose a pair of trousers that he thought becoming—they were cut wide in the leg and narrow over the instep. He looked out for a cravat that she had not seen him wear, and he chose the largest, and he put on his braided coat. He could not see that his moustache was not in keeping with his clothes: he had often intended to shave it, but to-day was not the day for shaving. She had liked his moustache, and he thought it would be a pity she should not enjoy it, however reprehensible her taste for it might be. And he pondered his side-whiskers, remembering they were in keeping with his costume (larger whiskers would be still more in keeping), and amused by his own fantastic notions, he thought he was beginning to look like the gentleman of seventy or eighty years ago that he had seen in varnished maplewood frames in the drawing-room at the Cronins'. His trousers were of a later period, but they were, nevertheless, contemporaneous with the period of the mahogany sideboard, and that was what he liked best.

Suddenly he stopped, remembering that he had never wished to be married, because he never thought that he could love the same woman always, and now he asked himself if Ellen were an exception, and if he had been led back to Ireland to marry her. He had grown tired of women before, but it seemed to him that he never could grow tired of her. That remained to be seen; the one certain thing was that he was going to propose to her.

He was told she was in the garden, and he was glad to dispense with the servant's assistance; he would find his way there himself, and, after some searching, he found the wicket. The thing itself and its name pleased him. When he had a garden he would have a wicket. He had already begun to associate Ellen with her garden. She was never so much herself as when attending her flowers, and to please her he had affected an interest in them, but when he had said that the flowers were beautiful his eyes went to the garden walls and Ellen had seen that they had interested him more than the flowers. He had said that the buttresses were of no use; they had been built because in those days people took a pleasure in making life seem permanent. The buttresses had enabled him to admire the roses planted between them, and he had grown enthusiastic; but she had laughed at his enthusiasm, seeing quite clearly that he admired the flowers because they enhanced the beauty of the walls.

At the end of the garden there was a view of the Dublin mountains, and the long walk that divided the garden had been designed in order to draw attention to them. The contrast between the wild mountain and the homely primness of the garden appealed to his sense of the picturesque; and even now though the fate of his life was to be decided in a few minutes he could not but stay to admire the mysterious crests and hollows. In this faint day the mountains seemed more like living things, more mysterious and moving, than he had even seen them before, and he would have stood looking at them for a long while if he had not had to find Ellen. She was at the furthest end of the garden, where he had never been, beyond the rosary, beyond the grass-plot, and she was walking up and down. She seemed to have a fishing-net in her hand. But how could she be fishing in her garden? Ned did not know that there was a stream at the end of it; for the place had once belonged to monks, and they knew how to look after their bodily welfare and had turned the place into a trout preserve. But when Mr. Cronin had bought the property the garden was waste and the stream overgrown with willow-weed and meadow-sweet and every kind of brier. And it was Ellen who had discovered that the bottom of the stream was flagged and she had five feet of mud taken out of it, and now the stream was as bright and clear as in the time of the monks, and as full of trout. She had just caught two which lay on the grass panting, their speckled bellies heaving painfully.

"There is a great big trout here," Ellen said, "he must be a pound weight, and we tried to catch him all last season, but he is very cunning, he dives and gets under the net."

"I think we shall be able to catch him," said Ned, "if he is in the stream and if I could get another net."

"The gardener will give you one."

And presently Ned came back with a net, and they beat up the stream from different ends, Ellen taking the side next the wall. There was a path there nearly free from briers, and she held her light summer dress round her tightly. Ned thought he had never seen anyone so prettily dressed. She wore a striped muslin variegated with pink flowers; there were black bows in her hat and black ribbon was run down the bottom of her dress; she looked very pretty against the old wall touched here and there with ivy. And the grace of her movement enchanted Ned when she leaned forward and prevented the trout from escaping up the stream. But Ned's side of the stream was overgrown with briers and he could not make his way through them. Once he very nearly slipped into the stream, and only saved himself by catching some prickly briers, and Ellen had to come over to take the thorns out of his hand. Then they resumed their fishing, hunting the trout up and down the stream. But the trout had been hunted so often that he knew how to escape the nets, and dived at the right moment. At last wearied out he let Ned drive him against the bank. Ellen feared he would jump out of the net at the last moment, but he was tired and they landed him safely.

And proud of having caught him they sat down beside him on the grass and Ellen said that the gardener and the gardener's boy had tried to catch him many times; that whenever they had company to dinner her father said it was a pity they had not the big trout on the table.

The fishing had been great fun, principally on account of Ellen's figure, which Ned admired greatly, and now he admired her profile, its gravity appealed to him, and her attitude full of meditation. He watched her touching the gasping trout with the point of her parasol. She had drawn one leg under her. Her eyes were small and grey and gem-like, and there was a sweet look of interrogation in them now and then.