The Parsons Daughter of Oxney Colne | Page 9

tell, I say, at a word the plain and simple truth,

Captain Broughton had already asked that question. On the day before
he left Oxney Come, he had in set terms proposed to the parson's
daughter, and indeed the words, the hot and frequent words, which
previously to that had fallen like sweetest honey into the ears of
Patience Woolsworthy, had made it imperative on him to do so. When
a man in such a place as that has talked to a girl of love day after day,
must not he talk of it to some definite purpose on the day on which he
leaves her? Or if he do not, must he not submit to be regarded as false,
selfish, and almost fraudulent? Captain Broughton, however, had asked
the question honestly and truly. He had done so honestly and truly, but
in words, or, perhaps, simply with a tone, that had hardly sufficed to
satisfy the proud spirit of the girl he loved. She by that time had
confessed to herself that she loved him with all her heart; but she had
made no such confession to him. To him she had spoken no word,
granted no favour, that any lover might rightfully regard as a token of
love returned. She had listened to him as he spoke, and bade him keep
such sayings for the drawing-rooms of his fashionable friends. Then he
had spoken out and had asked for that hand,--not, perhaps, as a suitor
tremulous with hope,--but as a rich man who knows that he can
command that which he desires to purchase.
"You should think more of this," she had said to him at last. "If you
would really have me for your wife, it will not be much to you to return
here again when time for thinking of it shall have passed by." With
these words she had dismissed him, and now he had again come back
to Oxney Colne. But still she would not place herself at the window to
look for him, nor dress herself in other than her simple morning
country dress, nor omit one item of her daily work. If he wished to take
her at all, he should wish to take her as she really was, in her plain
country life, but he should take her also with full observance of all
those privileges which maidens are allowed to claim from their lovers.
He should contract no ceremonious observance because she was the
daughter of a poor country parson who would come to him without a
shilling, whereas he stood high in the world's books. He had asked her
to give him all that she had, and that all she was ready to give, without
stint. But the gift must be valued before it could be given or received,
he also was to give her as much, and she would accept it as beyond all
price. But she would not allow that that which was offered to her was

in any degree the more precious because of his outward worldly
standing.
She would not pretend to herself that she thought he would come to her
that day, and therefore she busied herself in the kitchen and about the
house, giving directions to her two maids as though the afternoon
would pass as all other days did pass in that household. They usually
dined at four, and she rarely in these summer months went far from the
house before that hour. At four precisely she sat down with her father,
and then said that she was going up as far as Helpholme after dinner.
Helpholme was a solitary farmhouse in another parish, on the border of
the moor, and Mr. Woolsworthy asked her whether he should
accompany her.
"Do, papa," she said, "if you are not too tired." And yet she had thought
how probable it might be that she should meet John Broughton on her
walk. And so it was arranged; but just as dinner was over, Mr.
Woolsworthy remembered himself.
"Gracious me," he said, "how my memory is going. Gribbles, from
Ivybridge, and old John Poulter, from Bovey, are coming to meet here
by appointment. You can't put Helpholme off till to-morrow?"
Patience, however, never put off anything, and therefore at six o'clock,
when her father had finished his slender modicum of toddy, she tied on
her hat and went on her walk. She started with a quick step, and left no
word to say by which route she would go. As she passed up along the
little lane which led towards Oxney Combe, she would not even look to
see if he was coming towards her; and when she left the road, passing
over a stone stile into a little path which ran first through the upland
fields, and