The Woodlanders | Page 9

returned for more, going to and fro
till her whole manufactured stock were deposited here.
This erection was the wagon-house of the chief man of business
hereabout, Mr. George Melbury, the timber, bark, and copse-ware
merchant for whom Marty's father did work of this sort by the piece. It
formed one of the many rambling out-houses which surrounded his
dwelling, an equally irregular block of building, whose immense
chimneys could just be discerned even now. The four huge wagons
under the shed were built on those ancient lines whose proportions
have been ousted by modern patterns, their shapes bulging and curving
at the base and ends like Trafalgar line-of- battle ships, with which
venerable hulks, indeed, these vehicles evidenced a constructed spirit
curiously in harmony. One was laden with sheep-cribs, another with
hurdles, another with ash poles, and the fourth, at the foot of which she
had placed her thatching-spars was half full of similar bundles.
She was pausing a moment with that easeful sense of accomplishment

which follows work done that has been a hard struggle in the doing,
when she heard a woman's voice on the other side of the hedge say,
anxiously, "George!" In a moment the name was repeated, with "Do
come indoors! What are you doing there?"
The cart-house adjoined the garden, and before Marty had moved she
saw enter the latter from the timber-merchant's back door an elderly
woman sheltering a candle with her hand, the light from which cast a
moving thorn-pattern of shade on Marty's face. Its rays soon fell upon a
man whose clothes were roughly thrown on, standing in advance of the
speaker. He was a thin, slightly stooping figure, with a small nervous
mouth and a face cleanly shaven; and he walked along the path with his
eyes bent on the ground. In the pair Marty South recognized her
employer Melbury and his wife. She was the second Mrs. Melbury, the
first having died shortly after the birth of the timber-merchant's only
child.
"'Tis no use to stay in bed," he said, as soon as she came up to where he
was pacing restlessly about. "I can't sleep--I keep thinking of things,
and worrying about the girl, till I'm quite in a fever of anxiety." He
went on to say that he could not think why "she (Marty knew he was
speaking of his daughter) did not answer his letter. She must be ill--she
must, certainly," he said.
"No, no. 'Tis all right, George," said his wife; and she assured him that
such things always did appear so gloomy in the night- time, if people
allowed their minds to run on them; that when morning came it was
seen that such fears were nothing but shadows. "Grace is as well as you
or I," she declared.
But he persisted that she did not see all--that she did not see as much as
he. His daughter's not writing was only one part of his worry. On
account of her he was anxious concerning money affairs, which he
would never alarm his mind about otherwise. The reason he gave was
that, as she had nobody to depend upon for a provision but himself, he
wished her, when he was gone, to be securely out of risk of poverty.
To this Mrs. Melbury replied that Grace would be sure to marry well,

and that hence a hundred pounds more or less from him would not
make much difference.
Her husband said that that was what she, Mrs. Melbury, naturally
thought; but there she was wrong, and in that lay the source of his
trouble. "I have a plan in my head about her," he said; "and according
to my plan she won't marry a rich man."
"A plan for her not to marry well?" said his wife, surprised.
"Well, in one sense it is that," replied Melbury. "It is a plan for her to
marry a particular person, and as he has not so much money as she
might expect, it might be called as you call it. I may not be able to carry
it out; and even if I do, it may not be a good thing for her. I want her to
marry Giles Winterborne."
His companion repeated the name. "Well, it is all right," she said,
presently. "He adores the very ground she walks on; only he's close,
and won't show it much."
Marty South appeared startled, and could not tear herself away.
Yes, the timber-merchant asserted, he knew that well enough.
Winterborne had been interested in his daughter for years; that was
what had led him into the notion of their union. And he knew that she
used to have no objection to him. But it was not any difficulty about
that which embarrassed him. It was that, since