‘A girt man, miss,’ he said—‘a powerful man!’
‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Mildred, surprised and amused, ‘he’s—picturesque. Hardly at his best in “Past and Present,” though. I’ll lend you his “French Revolution,” which is much more interesting.’
Most leisured readers require a considerable length of time to assimilate that work; Jan, who had practically no leisure between sunrise and sunset, got through it in a week. He read it, as he read most works, with only a dim comprehension but with great contentment. Contentment, in fact, was the blessing bestowed upon him by Miss Haseldine’s happy inspiration; so that he spoke no more of joining the Army, while she was rewarded by the respectful thanks of his parents. From Jan himself she received something more than thanks and respect. It was, no doubt, natural enough that his imagination, fired by the novels and plays which she prescribed as occasional alternatives to historical study, should clothe her with the attributes of a heroine of romance. His contentment, for that matter, was perhaps as much the outcome of talks with Miss Mildred as of communings with authors who by themselves might rather have tended to increase the latent disquietude which they were supposed to have allayed. These talks became frequent during the autumn weeks, occasion for them being willingly supplied by a young lady who could not help finding Jan Issel unusual and interesting. He came out, every now and then, with the quaintest, the most original, the most poetical remarks, and if his hearer sometimes had a little inward laugh, she was very careful not to let her features betray her; because his sensitiveness was no less manifest than his timid devotion. To inspire devotion—especially when it is timid—is seldom disagreeable to any young lady; so Miss Mildred often overtook Jan in the lanes or summoned him to the house; and this was really kind of her, seeing that she, who had so much to fill her thoughts just then, might well have been excused if she had forgotten all about a queer, dreamy farm lad. For those were the days in which the long battle of the Aisne was developing, and although her brother Frank had thus far escaped death or wounds, bad news of him and others might come at any moment.
In Jan’s thoughts there was not much room for the war and its vicissitudes. There would have been no room in them at all for Judith Combe if she had not enjoyed the proverbial privilege of living near the rose, which entailed the more dubious one of hearing the rose extolled without intermission during those Sunday walks which at an earlier period had been so largely taciturn. But Judith was a long-suffering little soul, and it was only after much hesitation that she ventured to ask:
‘Bain’t ’ee gettin’ tu fond of her, Jan?’
Jan reddened all over his face and neck. ‘Tu fond o’ Miss Mildred! What be dramin’ about then? Do ’ee think a dog can get tu fond o’ the sun? You’m talkin’ proper nonsense, Judy.’
Nevertheless, Judith’s words came to him as a shock and a revelation, over which he pondered for hours afterwards. At first he was ashamed of his audacity and felt as if he had been guilty of some unpardonable outrage; but by degrees he arrived at a different view of the matter. What if he did love a human goddess? When all was said, he could not help it. The veriest cur, according to his own homely metaphor, may bask in the sun, and she could not be displeased by what would certainly never be revealed to her. It was his secret, which he was surely free to cherish, without the least shadow of hope, much as certain sixteenth-century poets cherished a passion for Queen Elizabeth, or said they did. But the fact of being without shadow of hope—as of course he was—did not preclude indulgence in ecstatic visions. His mobile imagination enabled him to see himself earning literary renown (like the peasant Robert Burns, perhaps), rising by virtue of the same to a position of admitted equality with the highest in the land and stripping the laurels from his brow to lay them at Mildred’s feet. Such things could not come to pass, and he knew that they could not; yet he liked to picture them and might plead that his fancies were as harmless as his love.
Harmless both may have been; only both contributed to bring about a return of his old restlessness. He was now embarrassed in conversing with Miss Mildred; he could not get rid of a haunting dread that she might suspect his sentiments (she was perhaps not so far from suspecting them as he thought), and then how would he ever dare to look her in the face again? More and more evident was it to him that he must leave the farm, that he would have to go some day and that he had better go soon. Added to this, his brothers were beginning to talk about donning khaki. Without saying anything to their father, they discussed the question amongst themselves and agreed that if ‘th’ old war’ was going to last another year, as the newspapers said it was, they could not decently keep out of it. It was impossible for all of them to go, that was certain; but one, or even two, of them might. The youngest they excluded, not only because ‘mother wouldn’t niver part with ’un,’ but because he was understood to have been cured of military hankerings. Thus it became plain that procrastination would only place fresh obstacles in Jan’s path.
It was on a grey morning in October that he was accosted by a recruiting sergeant at Exeter, whither he had been sent to dispose of some steers, and there was no need to impress upon him that Flanders was the right place for a likely young chap without encumbrances. He intimated that that was his own view and asked whether he could have a couple of days ‘to wind up like.’ Three, if he chose, the pleased sergeant replied; but he said two would be enough. They might even be excessive, he thought, for although old Mrs. Issel was a fond mother, she had a ‘tarrible power o’ spache’ when aggrieved; but he could not go off to the wars without taking leave of Miss Mildred, and he wanted to make sure of a farewell audience. More with that end in view than because he recognised any claim that Miss Mildred’s maid might have upon him, he marched up to Culme House the same evening and briefly informed Judith that he had taken the King’s shilling.