"The gentleman who is staying at the inn wants to know," Joan said.
"Is that all you have to say to me?" David asked quietly.
"No," said Joan, looking up at him. "There is something more: about the pastry-"
But just then Hieronymus had joined them.
"If you're talking about pastry," he said cheerily, "I never tasted any better than Miss Hammond's. I ate a dishful this morning!"
The exciseman looked at Joan, and at the historian.
"Yes," he said, as he cracked his whip, "it tastes good to those who can get it, and it tastes bad to those who can't get it."
And with that he galloped away, leaving Joan confused, and Hieronymus mystified. He glanced at his companion, and seemed to expect that she would explain the situation; but as she did not attempt to do so he walked quietly along with her until they came to the short cut which led back to the Green Dragon. There he parted from her, making an arrangement that she should come and write for him on the morrow. But as he strolled home he said to himself, "I am much afraid that I have been eating some one else's pastry! Well, it was very good, especially the jam-puffs!"
CHAPTER VI
THE EXCISEMAN'S LIBRARY
David Ellis did not feel genially disposed toward the historian; and yet when he stood in the kitchen of the Green Dragon, testing the new brew, and saw Hieronymus eagerly watching the process, he could not but be amused. There was something about Hieronymus which was altogether irresistible. He had a power, quite unconscious to himself, of drawing people over to his side. And yet he never tried to win; he was just himself, nothing more and nothing less.
"I am not wishing to pry into the secrets of the profession," he said to David Ellis; "but I do like to see how everything is done."
The exciseman good-naturedly taught him how to test the strength of the beer, and Hieronymus was as pleased as though he had learned some great secret of the universe, or unearthed some long-forgotten fact in history.
"Are you sure the beer comes up to its usual standard?" he asked mischievously, turning to Mrs. Benbow at the same time. "Are you sure it has nothing of the beef-tea element about it? We drink beef-tea by the quart in this establishment. I'm allowed nothing else."
David laughed, and said it was the best beer in the neighborhood; and with that he left the kitchen and went into the ale-room to exchange a few words with Mr. Howells, the proprietor of the rival inn, who always came to the Green Dragon to have his few glasses of beer in peace, free from the stormy remonstrances of his wife. Every one in Little Stretton knew his secret, and respected it. Hieronymus returned to the parlor, where he was supposed to be deep in study.
After a few minutes some one knocked at the door, and David Ellis came in.
"Excuse me troubling you," he said, rather nervously, "but there is a little matter I wanted to ask you about."
"It's about that confounded pastry!" thought Hieronymus, as he drew a chair to the fireside and welcomed the exciseman to it.
David sank down into it, twisted his whip, and looked now at Hieronymus and now at the books which lay scattered on the table. He evidently wished to say something, but he did not know how to begin.
"I know what you want to say," said Hieronymus.
"No, you don't," answered the exciseman. "No one knows except myself."
Hieronymus retreated, crushed, but rather relieved too.
Then David, gaining courage, continued:
"Books are in your line, aren't they?"
"It just does happen to be my work to know a little about them," the historian answered. "Are you interested in them too?"
"Well," said David, hesitating, "I can't say I read them, but I buy them."
"Most people do that," said Hieronymus; "it takes less time to buy than to read, and we are pressed for time in this century."
"You see," said the exciseman, "I don't buy the books for myself, and it's rather awkward knowing what to get. Now what would you get for a person who was really fond of reading: something of a scholar, you understand? That would help me for my next lot."
"It all depends on the taste of the person," Hieronymus said kindly. "Some like poetry, some like novels; others like books about the moon, and others like books about the north pole, or the tropics."
David did not know much about the north pole or the tropics, but he had certainly bought several volumes of poetry, and Hieronymus' words gave him courage.
"I bought several books of poetry," he said, lifting his head up with a kind of triumph which was unmistakable. "Cowper, Mrs. Hemans-"
"Yes," said Hieronymus patiently.
"And the other day I bought Milton," continued the exciseman.
"Ah," said the historian, with a faint smile of cheerfulness. He had never been able to care for Milton (though he never owned to this).
"And now I thought of buying this," said David, taking from his pocket a small slip of paper and showing it to his companion.
Hieronymus read: "Selections from Robert Browning."
"Come, come!" he said cheerily, "this is a good choice!"
"It is not my choice," said David simply. "I don't know one fellow from another. But the man at the shop in Ludlow told me it was a book to have. If you say so too, of course that settles the matter."
"Well," said Hieronymus, "and what about the other books?"
"I tell you what," said David suddenly, "if you'd come to my lodgings one day, you could look at the books I've got and advise me about others. That would be the shortest and pleasantest way."
"By all means," said the historian. "Then you have not yet given away your gifts?"
"Not yet," said David quietly. "I am waiting awhile."
And then he relapsed into silence and timidity, and went on twisting his whip.
Hieronymus was interested, but he had too much delicate feeling to push the inquiry, and not having a mathematical mind he was quite unable to put two and two together without help from another source. So he just went on smoking his pipe, wondering all the time what possible reason his companion could have for collecting a library beginning with Mrs. Hemans.
After a remark about the weather and the crops-Hieronymus was becoming quite agricultural-David rose in an undecided kind of manner, expressed his thanks, and took his leave, but there was evidently something more he wanted to say, and yet he went away without saying it.
"I'm sure he wants to speak about the pastry," thought Hieronymus. "Confound him! Why doesn't he?"
The next moment the door opened, and David put his head in.
"There's something else I wanted to say," he stammered out. "The fact is, I don't tell anybody about the books I buy. It's my own affair, and I like to keep it to myself. But I'm sure I can trust you."
"I should just think you could," Hieronymus answered cheerily.
So he promised secrecy, and then followed the exciseman to the door, and watched him mount his horse and ride off. Mr. Benbow was coming in at the time, and Hieronymus said some few pleasant words about David Ellis.
"He's the nicest man in these parts," Mr. Benbow said warmly. "We all like him. Joan Hammond will be a lucky girl if she gets him for a husband."
"Is he fond of her, then?" asked Hieronymus.
"He has always been fond of her since I can remember," Mr. Benbow answered.
Then Hieronymus, having received this valuable assistance, proceeded carefully to put two and two together.
"Now I know for whom the exciseman intends his library!" he said to himself triumphantly.
CHAPTER VII
AUNTIE LLOYD PROTESTS
Auntie Lloyd was a material, highly prosperous individual, utterly bereft of all ideas except one; though, to be sure, the one idea which she did possess was of overwhelming bulk, being, indeed, the sense of her own superiority over all people of all countries and all centuries. This was manifest not only in the way she spoke, but also in the way she folded her hands together on the buckle of her waist-belt, as though she were murmuring: "Thank heaven, I am Auntie Lloyd, and no one else!" All her relations, and indeed all her neighbors, bowed down to her authority; it was recognized by every one that the mistress of the Tan-House Farm was a personage who must not be disobeyed in the smallest particular. There had been one rebel in the camp for many years now: Joan. She alone had dared to raise the standard of revolt. At first she had lifted it only an inch high; but strength and courage had come with years, and now the standard floated triumphantly in the air. And to-day it reached its full height, for Auntie Lloyd had driven over to the Malt-House Farm to protest with her niece about this dictation, and Joan, though she did not use the exact words, had plainly told her to mind her own business.
Auntie Lloyd had been considerably "worked up" ever since she had heard the news that Joan went to write for a gentleman at the Green Dragon. Then she heard that Joan not only wrote for him, but was also seen walking about with him; for it was not at all likely that an episode of this description would pass without comment in Little Stretton; and Auntie Lloyd was not the only person who remarked and criticised. A bad attack of sciatica had kept her from interfering at the outset; but as soon as she was even tolerably well she made a descent upon the Malt-House Farm, having armed herself with the most awe-inspiring bonnet and mantle which her wardrobe could supply. But Joan was proof against such terrors. She listened to all Auntie Lloyd had to say, and merely remarked that she did not consider it was any one's affair but her own. That was the most overwhelming statement that had ever been made to Auntie Lloyd. No wonder that she felt faint.
"It is distinctly a family affair," she said angrily. "If you're not careful, you'll lose the chance of David Ellis. You can't expect him to be dangling about your heels all his life. He will soon be tired of waiting for your pleasure. Do you suppose that he too does not know you are amusing yourself with this newcomer?"
Joan was pouring out tea at the time, and her hand trembled as she filled the cup.
"I won't have David Ellis thrust down my throat by you or by any one," she said determinedly.
And with that she looked at her watch, and calmly said that it was time for her to be off to the Green Dragon, Mr. Howard having asked her to go in the afternoon instead of the morning. But though she left Auntie Lloyd quelled and paralyzed, and was conscious that she had herself won the battle once and for all, she was very much irritated and distressed too. Hieronymus noticed that something was wrong with her.
"What is the matter?" he asked kindly. "Has Auntie Lloyd been paying a visit to the Malt-House Farm, and exasperated you beyond all powers of endurance? Or was the butter-making a failure? Or is it the same old story-general detestation of every one and everything in Little Stretton, together with an inward determination to massacre the whole village at the earliest opportunity?"
Joan smiled, and looked up at the kind face which always had such a restful influence on her.
"I suppose that is the root of the whole matter," she said.
"I am sorry for you," he said gently, as he turned to his papers, "but I think you are not quite wise to let your discontent grow beyond your control. Most people, you know, when their lives are paralyzed, are found to have but sorry material out of which to fashion for themselves satisfaction and contentment."
Her face flushed as he spoke, and a great peace fell over her. When she was with him all was well with her; the irritations at home, the annoyances either within or without, either real or imaginary, and indeed all worries passed for the time out of her memory. David Ellis was forgotten, Auntie Lloyd was forgotten; the narrow, dull, everyday existence broadened out into many interesting possibilities. Life had something bright to offer to Joan. She bent happily over the pages, thoroughly enjoying her congenial task; and now and again during the long pauses of silence when Hieronymus was thinking out his subject, she glanced at his kind face and his silvered head.
And restless little Joan was restful.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DISTANCE GROWS
So the days slipped away, and Joan came regularly to the Green Dragon to write to the historian's dictation. These mornings were red-letter days in her life; she had never before had anything which she could have called companionship, and now this best of all pleasures was suddenly granted to her. She knew well that it could not last; that very soon the historian would go back into his own world, and that she would be left lonely, lonelier than ever. But meanwhile she was happy. She always felt after having been with him as though some sort of peace had stolen over her. It did not hold her long, this sense of peace. It was merely that quieting influence which a mellowed nature exercises at rare moments over an unmellowed nature, being indeed a snatch of that wonderful restfulness which has something divine in its essence. She did not analyze her feelings for him, she dared not. She just drifted on, dreaming. And she was grateful to him too, for she had unburdened her heavy heart to him, and he had not laughed at her aspirations and ambitions. He had certainly made a little fun over her, but not in the way that conveyed contempt; on the contrary, his manner of teasing gave the impression of the kindliest sympathy. He had spoken sensible words of advice to her, too; not in any formal set lecture-that would have been impossible to him-but in detached sentences given out at different times, with words simple in themselves, but able to suggest many good and noble thoughts. At least that was what Joan gathered, that was her judgment of him, that was the effect he produced on her.
Then he was not miserly of his learning. He was not one of those scholars who keep their wisdom for their narrow and appreciative little set; he gave of his best to every one with royal generosity, and he gave of his best to her. He saw that she was really interested in history, and that it pleased her to hear him talk about it. Out then came his stores of knowledge, all for her special service! But that was only half of the process; he taught her by finding out from her what she knew, and then returning her knowledge to her two-fold enriched. She was eager to learn, and he was interested in her eagerness. It was his nature to be kind and chivalrous to every one, and he was therefore kind and chivalrous to his little secretary. He saw her constantly in "school hours," as he called the time spent in dictating, and out of school hours too. He took such an interest in all matters connected with the village that he was to be found everywhere, now gravely contemplating the cows and comparing them with Mr. Benbow's herd, now strolling through the market-place, and now passing stern criticisms on the butter and poultry, of which he knew nothing. Once he even tried to sell Joan Hammond's butter to Mrs. Benbow.
"I assure you, ma'am," he said to the landlady of the Green Dragon, "the very best cooking butter in the kingdom! Taste and see."
"But it isn't cooking butter!" interposed Joan hastily.
But she laughed all the same, and Hieronymus, much humbled by his mistake, made no more attempts to sell butter.
He seemed thoroughly contented with his life at Little Stretton, and in no hurry to join his friends in Wales. He was so genial that every one liked him and spoke kindly of him. If he was driving in the pony-carriage and saw any children trudging home after school, he would find room for four or five of them and take them back to the village in triumph. If he met an old woman carrying a bundle of wood, he immediately transferred the load from herself to himself, and walked along by her side, chatting merrily the while. As for the tramps who passed on the highroad from Ludlow to Church Stretton, they found in him a sympathetic friend. His hand was always in his pocket for them. He listened to their tales of woe, and stroked the "property" baby in the perambulator, and absolutely refused to be brought to order by Mrs. Benbow, who declared that she knew more about tramps than he did, and that the best thing to do with them was to send them about their business as soon as possible.
"You will ruin the reputation of the Green Dragon," she said, "if you go on entertaining tramps outside. Take your friends over to the other inn!"
She thought that this would be a strong argument, as Hieronymus was particularly proud of the Green Dragon, having discovered that it was patronized by the aristocrats of the village, and considered infinitely superior to its rival, the Crown Inn opposite.
But the historian, so yielding in other respects, continued his intimacies with the tramps, sometimes even leaving his work if he chanced to see an interesting-looking wanderer slouching past the Green Dragon. Joan had become accustomed to these interruptions. She just sat waiting patiently until Hieronymus came back, and plunged once more into the History of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, or the Attitude of the Foreign Powers to each other during the latter years of Henry VIII.
"I'm a troublesome fellow," he would say to her sometimes, "and you are very patient with me. In fact, you're a regular little brick of a secretary."
Then she would flush with pleasure to hear his words of praise. But he never noticed that, and never thought he was leading her further and further away from her surroundings and ties, and putting great distances between herself and the exciseman.
So little did he guess it that one day he even ventured to joke with her. He had been talking to her about John Richard Green, the historian, and he asked her whether she had read "A Short History of the English People." She told him she had never read it.
"Oh, you ought to have that book," he said; and he immediately thought that he would buy it for her. Then he remembered the exciseman's library, and judged that it would be better to let him buy it for her.
"I hear you have a very devoted admirer in the exciseman," Hieronymus said slyly.
"How do you know that?" Joan said sharply.
"Oh," he answered, "I was told." But he saw that his volcanic little companion was not too pleased; and so he began talking about John Richard Green. He told her about the man himself, his work, his suffering, his personality. He told her how the young men at Oxford were advised to travel on the Continent to expand their minds, and if they could not afford this advantage after their university career, then they were to read John Richard Green. He told her, too, of his grave at Mentone, with the simple words, "He died learning."
Thus he would talk to her, taking her always into a new world of interest. Then she was in an enchanted kingdom, and he was the magician.
It was a world in which agriculture and dairy-farming and all the other wearinesses of her everyday life had no part. Some people might think it was but a poor enchanted realm which he conjured up for her pleasure. But enchantment, like every other emotion, is but relative after all. Some little fragment of intellectuality had been Joan's idea of enchantment. And now it had come to her in a way altogether unexpected, and in a measure beyond all her calculations. It had come to her, bringing with it something else.
She seemed in a dream during all that time; yes, she was slipping further away from her own people, and further away from the exciseman. She had never been very near to him, but lately the distance had become doubled. When she chanced to meet him her manner was more than ordinarily cold. If he had chosen to plead for himself, he might well have asked what he had done to her that he should deserve to be treated with such bare unfriendliness.
One day he met her. She was riding the great white horse, and David rode along beside her. She chatted with him now and again, but there were long pauses of silence between them.
"Father has made up his mind to sell old Nance," she said suddenly, as she stroked the old mare's head. "This is my last ride on her."
"I am sorry," said David kindly. "She's an old friend, isn't she?"
"I suppose it is ridiculous to care so much," Joan said; "but you know we've had her such a time. And I used to hang round her neck, and she would lift me up and swing me."
"I remember," said David eagerly. "I've often watched you. I was always afraid you would have a bad fall."
"You ran up and caught me once," Joan said, "And I was so angry; for it wasn't likely that old Nance would have let me fall."
"But how could I be sure that the little arms were strong enough to cling firmly to old Nance's neck?" David said. "So I couldn't help being anxious."
"Do you remember when I was lost in that mist," Joan said, "and you came and found me, and carried me home? I was so angry that you would not let me walk."
"You have often been angry with me," David said quietly.
Joan made no answer. She just shrugged her shoulders.
There they were, these two, riding side by side, and yet they were miles apart from each other. David knew it, and grieved.