The Miller of Old Church | Page 7

turnpike. Remembering as he
passed the gate posts that he had spoken no parting word to the group
under the mulberry tree, he raised himself in his stirrups, and called
back "Good day to you. Many thanks," in his pleasant voice.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH DESTINY WEARS THE COMIC MASK
Putting his horse to a canter, Mr. Jonathan Gay rode through the old
gate into the turnpike. His still indignant look was fixed on the heavy
wheelruts ahead, while his handsome though fleshy figure inclined
slightly forward in the saddle after a foreign fashion. Seen close at hand
his face, which was impressive at a distance, lost a certain distinction of
contour, as though the marks of experience had blurred, rather than
accentuated, the original type. The bones of forehead and nose still
showed classic in outline, but in moulding the mouth and chin nature
had not adhered closely to the aristocratic structure beneath. The flesh
sagged a little in places; the brow was a trifle too heavy, the jaw a trifle
too prominent, the lips under the short dark moustache were a trifle too
full. Yet in spite of this coarseness of finish, his face was well coloured,
attractive, and full of generous, if whimsical, humour. A judge of men
would have seen in it proof that Mr. Gay's character consisted less in a
body of organized tendencies than in a procession of impulses.
White with dust the turnpike crawled straight ahead between blood-red
clumps of sumach and bramble on which the faint sunlight still shone.
At intervals, where the dripping from over-hanging boughs had worn
the road into dangerous hollows, boles of young saplings had been

placed cross-wise in a corduroy pattern, and above them clouds of
small belated butterflies drifted in the wind like blown yellow rose
leaves. On the right the thin corn shocks looked as if they were
sculptured in bronze, and amid them there appeared presently the bent
figure of a harvester, outlined in dull blue against a sky of burnt orange.
From the low grounds beside the river a mist floated up, clinging in
fleecy shreds to the short grass that grew in and out of the bare stubble.
The aspect of melancholy, which was depressing even in the broad
glare of noon, became almost intolerable under the waning light of the
afterglow. Miles of loneliness stretched on either side of the turnpike,
which trailed, without fork or bend, into the flat distance beyond the
great pine at the bars.
For the twentieth time since he had left the tavern, Mr. Gay, whose
habit it was to appear whimsical when he felt despondent, declared to
himself that he'd be damned if the game was worth half what the candle
was likely to cost him. Having arrived, without notable misadventure,
at the age of thirty, he had already reduced experience to a series of
episodes and had embraced the casual less as a pastime than as a
philosophy.
"If the worst comes to the worst--hang it!--I suppose I may hunt a
Molly Cotton-tail," he grumbled, bringing his horse's gait down to an
amble. "There ought to be good hounds about, judging from the
hang-dog look of the natives. Why in thunder did the old boy want to
bury himself and his heirs forever in this god-forsaken land's end, and
what in the deuce have mother and Aunt Kesiah done with themselves
down here for the last twenty years? Two thousand acres? Damn it! I'd
rather have six feet on the good English soil! Came to get rid of one
woman, did he?--and tumbled into a pretty puddle with another as soon
as he got here. By George, it's in the bone and it is obliged to come out
in the blood. A Gay will go on ogling the sex, I suppose, as long as he
is able to totter back from the edge of the grave."
As he approached the blazed pine, a spot of darkness, which he had at
first mistaken for a small tree, detached itself from the surrounding
shadows, and assumed gradually a human shape. His immediate

impression was that the shape was a woman and that she was young.
With his next breath he became aware that she was also beautiful. In
the fading light her silhouette stood out as distinctly against the mellow
background of the sky, as did the great pine which marked the almost
obliterated path over the fields. Her dress was the ordinary calico one,
of some dull purplish shade, worn by the wives and daughters of the
neighbouring farmers; and on her bare white arm, with its upturned
sleeve, she carried a small split basket half filled with persimmons. She
was of an almost pure Saxon type--tall, broad-shouldered,
deep-bosomed, with a skin the colour of new milk,