After Cubbingdean, where a little river runs over the road, you climb again between hedgerows and orchards; then comes a piece of woodland on either side, and beyond that you are on Mere Common, which is more than a mile across and half as much again in length. Mary tiptoed through the wood with a knocking heart and, taking breath, addressed herself to the proof before her. She had not, so far, met a living soul, unless pheasants have souls, and hares. These light-foot beasts had made her jump more than enough, and set the pulses at her temples beating like kettle-drums. Her mind was beset by terrors; she had to bite her lip sharply to keep herself to her task.
The wooded road opened, the trees thinned out; now she was on the Common, indeed, and saw the ghostly lumps of furze—each in its shroud—on either hand, with the mist irradiate upon them. She saw the ribbon of white road tapering to a point—and midway of that, beside it, dead in her way, a bright and steady light. At this apparition she stopped short, gazing in panic, her eyes wide, lips apart. Somebody was there! somebody was there—and what could she do?
She had plenty of spirit for the ordinary encounters of daylight. Over-confident young Mr. Perivale, impudent Sunday scholars, young men who took liberties, found their level; Mrs. James herself would not care to go too far. But in the dark her imagination rode her; she then became what indeed she seemed to one at least of her admirers—the hunted nymph cowering in covert, appealing only for the mercy of men. So now, before this terrible light, glimmering there steady and on the watch, her knees began to shake, her eyes to grow dim. She dared not pass it—so much she confessed; she must make a wide cast, and slip by it through the furze.
She plunged desperately in and struck out to the left of the road. Almost immediately the furze was level with her head, often over it; and she had but one arm free to fend it off. It scratched her cheeks, tore her frock, pulled her hair all about her shoulders; she felt the hairpins part and fall. As for the accursed bicycle, it seemed to be battling on its own account like a mad thing, contesting every inch of ground, clinging to every root, sticking in every hollow. Her breath went, and her strength after it, but still she fought and panted. Amazing contrast between what she had been at seven o’clock, and was now at half-past ten! Impossibly fair seemed the spent day, impossibly serene her panic heart. Bitter regret for what was so lovely and so far away started the tears again; she bit her lip, forced herself on; but at last, pushing with all her might between two ragged clumps, she was caught up sharp, felt a stinging pain on her shin, her ankle gripped by something which cut to the bone. She tottered and fell forward upon her bicycle, and as she went down the ring of fire holding her ankle bit and burned—and Mary shrieked.
She had done herself no service by her détour, for she heard a man cry, “Hulloa—I’m coming,” and resigned herself to utter fate. God send him kind!—what were these terrible teeth at her ankle? She felt out to reach it—a wire! She was in a hare-wire, set, no doubt by this ruffian who was coming to her now. She heard him labouring through the bushes, and held her breath; and then again he called—“Where are you? Don’t be afraid.” That was a good voice surely! That was a young man’s voice—not a gipsy’s. Comforted, perhaps interested, she crouched, holding her caught ankle, and waited.
VIII
FRIENDSHIP’S GARLAND
The beam of a lantern enveloped her and her gossamered surroundings; presently it blazed full upon her, discovered her flushed and reproachful face, curtained in hair. She saw a tall person, bareheaded, in what seemed to be white clothes, and, by a chance ray, that he was sallow, black-haired, smiling, and had black eyes. A young man! She had no fears left; she was on her own ground again.
“What under the sky are you doing here?” he said. She almost laughed.
“I’m caught in a hare-wire. It hurts very much.”
“It would, you know. Let me look.” He knelt beside her, and then his quick fingers searched for the wire. As they touched hers she felt them cool and nervous. “I’ve got it. I say! it’s nearly through your stocking. No wonder you cried—but now you know why a hare cries. Quiet now—I’ll have it off in a minute.” He dived for a knife, talking all the time. “I dare say you think that I set that wire for a hare, and caught you. You’re quite wrong. I don’t kill hares, and I don’t eat ’em; too nearly related to us, I believe. One minute more—” and he nipped the wire. “There—you are free. You can leap and you can run. Perhaps you’d care to tell me why you battle in these brakes, tearing your frock to ribbons and scratching your eyes out, when you might walk that road like a Christian lady. Just as you please—why, good Lord, you’ve got a bike! It beats cock-fighting. But don’t tell me unless you care to; perhaps it’s a secret.”