A vague hope of meeting Lacrima—an instinctive rather than a conscious feeling—had led him in this direction. Once in the park, the high opposing ridge, crowned with its sentinel-line of tall Scotch-firs, arrested his attention and drew him towards it. He crossed the Yeoborough road and ascended the incline of Dead Man’s Lane.
As he passed the cottage of his rival, he observed Mr. Quincunx energetically at work in his garden. On this occasion the recluse was digging up, not weeds, but young potatoes. He was in his shirt-sleeves and looked hot and tired.
Andersen leaned upon the little gate and observed him with curious interest. “Why isn’t she here?” he muttered to himself. Then, after a pause: “He is an ash-root. Let him drag that house down! Why doesn’t he drag it down, with all its heavy stones? And the Priory too? And the Church;—yes; and the Church too! He burrows like a root. He looks like a root. I must tell him all these things. I must tell him why he has been chosen, and I have been rejected!” He opened the gate forthwith and advanced towards the potato-digger.
Mr. Quincunx might have struck the imagination of a much less troubled spirit than that of the poor stone-carver as having a resemblance to a root. His form was at once knotted and lean, fibrous and delicate. His face, by reason of his stooping position, was suffused with a rich reddish tint, and his beard was dusty and unkempt. He rose hastily, on observing his visitor.
“People like you and me, James, are best by ourselves at these holiday-times,” was his inhospitable greeting. “You can help me with my potatoes if you like. Or you can tell me your news as I work. Or do you want to ask me any question?”
He uttered these final words in such a tone as the Delphic oracle might have used, when addressing some harassed refugee.
“Has she been up here today?” said the stone-carver.
“I like the way you talk,” replied the other. “Why should we mention their names? When I say people, I mean girls. When I say persons, I mean girls. When I say young ladies, I mean girls. And when you say ‘she’ you mean our girl.”
“Yours!” cried the demented man; “she is yours—not ours. She is weighed down by this evil Stone,—weighed down into the deep clay. What has she to do with me, who have worked at the thing so long?”
Mr. Quincunx leant upon his hoe and surveyed the speaker. It occurred to him at once that something was amiss. “Good Lord!” he thought to himself, “the fellow has been drinking. I must get him out of this garden as quickly as possible.”