The darkness favouring him, it is not; and congratulating himself at getting off thus deftly, he continues rapidly up the road.
Arrived at the stile, he makes stop, saying in soliloquy:—
“I take it she be sure to come; but I’d gi’e something to know which o’ the two ways. Bein’ so darkish, an’ that plank a bit dangerous to cross, I ha’ heard—’tan’t often I cross it—just possible she may choose the roundabout o’ the road. Still, she sayed the big elm, an’ to get there she’ll have to take the path comin’ or goin’ back. If I thought comin’ I’d steer straight there an’ meet her. But s’posin’ she prefers the road, that ’ud make it longer to wait. Wonder which it’s to be.”
With hand rested on the top rail of the stile, he stands considering. Since their stolen interchange of speech at the Harvest Home, Mary has managed to send him word she will make an errand to Rugg’s Ferry; hence his uncertainty. Soon again he resumes his conjectured soliloquy:—
“’Tan’t possible she ha’ been to the Ferry, an’ goed back again? God help me, I hope not! An’ yet there’s just a chance. I weesh the Captain hadn’t kep’ me so long down there. An’ the fresh from the rain that delayed us nigh half a hour, I oughtn’t to a stayed a minute after gettin’ home. But mother cookin’ that nice bit o’ steak; if I hadn’t ate it she’d a been angry, and for certain suspected somethin’. Then listenin’ to all that dismal stuff ’bout the corpse-candle. An’ they believe it in the shire o’ Pembroke! Rot the thing! Tho’ I an’t myself noways superstishus, it gi’ed me the creeps. Queer, her dreamin’ she seed it go out o’ Abergann! I do weesh she hadn’t told me that; an’ I mustn’t say word o’t to Mary. Tho’ she ain’t o’ the fearsome kind, a thing like that’s enough to frighten anyone. Well, what ’d I best do? If she ha’ been to the Ferry an’s goed home again, then I’ve missed her, and no mistake! Still, she said she’d be at the elim, an’s never broke her promise to me when she cud keep it. A man ought to take a woman at her word—a true woman—an’ not be too quick to anticipate. Besides, the surer way’s the safer. She appointed the old place, an’ there I’ll abide her. But what am I thinkin’ o’? She may be there now, a waitin’ for me!”
He doesn’t stay by the stile one instant longer, but, vaulting over it, strikes off along the path.
Despite the obscurity of the night, the narrowness of the track, and the branches obstructing, he proceeds with celerity. With that part he is familiar—knows every inch of it, well as the way from his door to the place where he docks his boat—at least so far as the big elm, under whose spreading branches he and she have oft clandestinely met. It is an ancient patriarch of the forest; its timber is honeycombed with decay, not having tempted the axe by whose stroke its fellows have long ago fallen, and it now stands amid their progeny, towering over all. It is a few paces distant from the footpath, screened from it by a thicket of hollies interposed between, and extending around. From its huge hollow trunk a buttress, horizontally projected, affords a convenient seat for two, making it the very beau ideal of a trysting-tree.
Having got up and under it, Jack Wingate is a little disappointed—almost vexed—at not finding his sweetheart there. He calls her name—in the hope she may be among the hollies—at first cautiously and in a low voice, then louder. No reply; she has either not been, or has and is gone.
As the latter appears probable enough, he once more blames Captain Ryecroft, the rain, the river flood, the beefsteak—above all, that long yarn about the canwyll corph, muttering anathemas against the ghostly superstition.
Still she may come yet. It may be but the darkness that’s delaying her. Besides, she is not likely to have the fixing of her time. She said she would “find a way;” and having the will—as he believes—he flatters himself she will find it, despite all obstructions.