THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 The Dewy Morn 
 
 1 flobcl. 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD JEFFERIES, 
 
 AI'THOR OF 
 
 'THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,' 'THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS,' 
 
 ' RED DEER,' ETC. 
 
 ' Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn, 
 And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade.' 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 publishers in (Driunarg to ^tjev JttajestjJ the Queen. 
 
 1884. 
 [All Rights Reserved.}
 
 I
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 ►f-se-j-- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HE sunbeams streamed over Ashpen 
 Hill into a broad lane, a little after 
 four in the morning. Felise was 
 walking slowly towards the hill, which was 
 yet at some distance, staying every moment 
 to glance aside into the green and dew-laden 
 hedges. On her right the hedge came to 
 the sward ; on the left a bank rose, and the 
 hedge went along the summit. 
 
 The fragrance of the dew, invisibly 
 evaporating, filled the air she breathed. 
 From sweet-green hawthorn leaves, from 
 
 VOL. I. i 
 
 [~» ?>-» ,r~* »»"» f~> f «. •*>,* 
 
 5650/
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 heavy grasses drooping, the glittering drops 
 dissolving brought with them the odour of 
 leaf and flower. The larks, long since up, 
 had sung the atmosphere clear of the faint 
 white mist left by the night. 
 
 She found blue veronica in a bunch of 
 grass under a dead thorn-branch, blown by 
 the winds months ago out from the hedge. 
 She lifted up the branch to Hing it aside, and 
 give the flowers more room and freedom ; 
 but she replaced it, reflecting that the thorns 
 would perhaps prevent passing sheep from 
 treading on them. 
 
 Upon the bank there was a cowslip ; one 
 stalk bore deep orange flowers, the others 
 bunches yet unopened, and clothed in delicate 
 green. Felise took the flower, which no bee 
 had yet sipped, put it to her lips, and then 
 placed it in her dress. 
 
 She stepped lightly round the smooth 
 brown boulder-stones with which the lane 
 was dotted in places — rude disjointed efforts 
 at paving — beside which grew bunches of
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 rushes, safe there from the cart-wheels. Not 
 even cart-wheels could stand the jolt over 
 these iron rocks. She walked sometimes on 
 the elevated sides of the ruts — the earth had 
 been forced up by the crushing weight of 
 waggon-loads ; they were grass-grown, and 
 the grass hung over the groove, along which 
 weasels often hunted. 
 
 Sometimes she trod the sward by the 
 bank, where it was short, and full of three- 
 leaved clover whose white bloom was not 
 yet out ; then, crossing to the opposite side, 
 she sauntered by the hedge there, letting the 
 hawthorn brush her skirt, and the soft green 
 hooks of the young bramble-shoots strive in 
 vain to hold her. 
 
 An ash-branch stood out to bar her path. 
 She stopped and touched it, and counted the 
 leaves on the sprays ; they were all un- 
 even. 
 
 In the grass ahead the pinkish ears of a 
 young rabbit stood up ; he was nibbling 
 peacefully, heedless of her approach. Not
 
 4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 till she was close did he raise himself to look 
 at her, first sitting on his haunches, then. as 
 if about to beg, then away into the burrow. 
 
 Her white hand wandered presently among 
 more blue veronica flowering on the slope 
 of the bank. She did not gather — she 
 touched only, and went on. She touched, 
 too, the tips of some brake, freshly-green, 
 and rising rapidly now day by day. A rush 
 of wings — a wood-pigeon came over ; he was 
 startled, and, swerving, went higher into the 
 air. 
 
 There was honeysuckle on the hedge 
 above the bank, too far to reach. She took a 
 hawthorn leaf, felt it, and dropped it ; then 
 pulled a bennet, or grass-stalk, and dropped 
 that ; then pulled a rush, and left it. A 
 lover might have tracked her easily by the 
 foot-marks on the dewy grass — by the rush 
 thrown down, and by the white handkerchief 
 which she had carried in her hand and un- 
 consciously dropped. A robin came to look 
 at the handkerchief before she had ofone
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 many minutes ; he thought perhaps there 
 might be a crumb, and he is, too, very in- 
 quisitive. 
 
 Felise sat down on a great trunk of oak 
 lying in. the lane by a gateway, and sighed 
 with very depth of enjoyment. There was 
 a yellow-hammer perched on the gate, and he 
 had been singing. When Felise approached, 
 •he ceased ; but seeing that she was quiet and 
 intended him no harm, he began again. His 
 four or five rising notes, and the long-drawn 
 idle-sounding note with which they conclude, 
 suited so well with the sunshine, they 
 soothed her still further. She sighed again, 
 and let herself sit loosely on the oak-trunk, 
 like the yellow-hammer. He had his back 
 humped, and all his body rested comfortably. 
 So did she ; she permitted her back to bow, 
 her shoulders to stoop, her limbs to relax, 
 and idle nature to have her own way. After 
 a while she sighed again. 
 
 She was bathing in the beauty of the 
 morning — floating upheld on the dewy
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 petals. A swimmer lies on the warm 
 summer water, the softest of couches, ex- 
 tended at full length, the body so gently held 
 that it undulates slightly with the faint swell. 
 So soft is the couch it softens the frame, 
 which becomes supple, flexible, like the water 
 itself. 
 
 Felise was lying on the flowers and grass, 
 extended under the sun, steeped in their 
 sweetness. She visibly sat on the oak-trunk 
 — invisibly her nature was reclining, as the 
 swimmer on the sun-warmed sea. Her 
 frame drooped as the soul, which bears it up, 
 flowed outwards, feeling to grass, and flower, 
 and leaf, as the swimmer spreads the arms 
 abroad, and the fingers feel the water. She 
 sighed with deep content, dissolving in the 
 luxurious bath of beauty. 
 
 Her strong heart beating, the pulses 
 throbbing, her bosom rising and regularly 
 sinking with the rich waves of life ; her 
 supple limbs and roundness filled with the 
 plenty of ripe youth ; her white, soft, roseate
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 skin, the surface where the sun touched her 
 hand glistening with the dew of the pore ; 
 the bloom upon her — that glow of the morn 
 of life — the hair more lovely than the 
 sunlight ; the grace unwritten of perfect 
 form — these produced within her a sense of 
 existence — a consciousness of being, to 
 which she was abandoned ; and her lips 
 parted to sigh. . The sigh was the expression 
 of feeling herself to be. 
 
 To be ! To live ! To have an intense 
 enjoyment in every inspiration of breath ; in 
 every beat of the pulse ; in every movement 
 of the limbs ; in every sense ! 
 
 The rugged oak-trunk was pleasant to her. 
 She placed her hand on the brown, stained 
 wood — stained with its own sap, for the bark 
 had been removed. She touched it ; and so 
 full of life was her touch, that it found a 
 pleasure in that rude wood. The brown 
 boulder-stone in the lane, ancient, smoothed, 
 and ground in times which have vanished 
 like a cloud, its surface the colour of old
 
 8 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 polished oak, reflecting the sun with a dull 
 gleam — the very boulder-stone was pleasant 
 to her, so full of life was her sense of sight. 
 
 There came a skylark, dropping over the 
 hedge, and alighted on a dusty level spot in 
 the lane. His shadow shot a foot long on 
 the dust, thrown by the level beams of the 
 sun. The dust, in shadow and sunshine — 
 the despised dust — now that the lark drew 
 her glance to it, was pleasant to see. 
 
 All things are joyously beautiful to those 
 who feel themselves to be ; but it is only 
 given to the chosen of nature to know this 
 exceeding delight. 
 
 In herself rapt, the whole face of earth 
 and sky ministered to her, each and all 
 that made up the visible world was flung 
 at her feet. They did homage — Felise, 
 queen of herself, was queen of all. 
 
 It was love without a lover — love absorbed 
 in itself. Her whole existence was quiver- 
 ing with love ; this intensity of life was love. 
 She was gathering from sunlight, azure sky
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 and grassy fields, from dewy hills and all the 
 morning, an immense strength to love. Her 
 parted lips sighed — there was such store and 
 warmth of love within them. Without a 
 thought she thought deeply, pondering, 
 weighed down on herself with weight of 
 feeling. Her own intense existence absorbed 
 her. 
 
 Till looking that w T ay, she saw that there 
 was now a broad space between the lower 
 rim of the sun and the hill she meant to 
 climb ; then she got up, and went on. She 
 had started in time to see the sun rise, from 
 its summit, but had idled and dallied with 
 flowers and green boughs on the way, and 
 lost the sunrise.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HE lane became more rugged ; then 
 there was a sudden dip, and in the 
 hollow of the dip a streamlet ran 
 across. A blackbird had been splashing in 
 the water ; and, as she came over the slope, 
 rose up loudly calling. He perched on the 
 hedge, looked towards her impudently from 
 his dark eyes, half a mind to defy her, so 
 bold was he in his beauty of blackest black 
 and tawny bill. But as she stepped nearer 
 he went off, again loudly calling and startling 
 every bird in the field. 
 
 The streamlet was so shallow the small 
 flints were only half submerged, and the 
 water was but a few inches wide. The sand
 
 THE DEWY MORN. n 
 
 which the blackbird had disturbed floated 
 quickly away, leaving it perfectly pure. 
 Felise stooped, dipped her fingers, and 
 watched the drops fall sparkling from them. 
 She felt the water ; she liked to touch al. 
 things — the sunlight shone the brighter on 
 her hand because it was wet. 
 
 Beyond the streamlet the lane rose rapidly, 
 rugged and narrow ; the hedges ceased, and 
 only a hawthorn-bush here and there ap- 
 peared on the banks. Presently it became a 
 deep white groove, worn in chalk. 
 
 Felise stepped quickly now, and in a few 
 minutes reached the foot of the hill, where 
 the lane, left the straight line, and went up 
 the Downs aslant, so that waggons might be 
 drawn up, which they could not have been 
 had the track been straight. 
 
 The moment Felise's foot touched the 
 sward, she began to run up the hill, making 
 direct for the ridge, like a hare, or a bee bent 
 for the thyme above. Her arched insteps, 
 like springs, threw her forwards ; her sinews,
 
 I 2 
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 strung and strong, lifted her easily. Her 
 weight did not press the turf — it was for the 
 time suspended between her swift bounds. 
 Rejoicing, her deep chest opened, the pliant 
 ribs, like opening fingers, made room for 
 cubic feet of purest atmosphere. The air 
 inhaled lifted her; she was lighter and more 
 swift. 
 
 Forced into the blood, the strong hill air 
 intoxicated her. She forgot all ; she saw- 
 nothing — neither the sun, the sky, nor the 
 slope itself ; her entire being was occupied 
 in putting forth her strength. Up — from 
 thyme-bunch to thyme-bunch ; past grey flat 
 flints ; past rusty ironstone fragments ; past 
 the parallel paths, a few inches wide, which 
 streaked the hill — up, straight for the 
 summit ! 
 
 A lark, startled, fled, but immediately 
 began to soar and sing. The landscape 
 widened beneath ; there were woods and 
 bright fields. She did not see the fields, or 
 woods, or hear the lark ; nor notice the flints
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 13 
 
 which, like lesser mile-stones, marked her 
 run. Her limbs grew stronger, her bounds 
 more powerful, as her breath was drawn in 
 long, deep inspirations. The labour in- 
 creased her strength ; her appetite for the 
 work grew as she went. She ran and drank 
 the wind to have more of herself — to have 
 the fulness of her own existence. The 
 great heart within her throbbed and bore 
 her, replying to her spirit. 
 
 More flints, more thyme — a stone-chat 
 flitted away — longer grass, more slippery, 
 the slope steeper, still — up ! 
 
 Yet the strong limbs could not bound 
 quite so far ; the feet fell as swiftly, but the 
 space covered was not so wide. There was 
 effort now. 
 
 Brave as may be the heart ol woman, yet 
 the high hills must try it. So great was the 
 rush of the aerated blood, it seemed to 
 threaten to suffocate her. The supple knees 
 could not straighten themselves ; they re- 
 mained slightly bent. The pliant ribs, opened
 
 i 4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 to their widest, seemed forced outwards by 
 an expansive power which must break them 
 to get free. Her head was thrown back : 
 she did not look now at the ridge ; she 
 looked up at the sky. Surely the summit 
 must be near ? 
 
 She would have dropped rather than give 
 up ; she would have dropped like a hunted 
 animal before she would have yielded. 
 
 The time when she knew she must fall 
 was numbered now but by seconds. The 
 strong air which at first gave such a sense 
 of vigour was now too strong ; it began 
 to take away her breath. She did not 
 feel her limbs ; they moved mechanically, 
 though still quickly. She saw nothing but 
 the sky. Five seconds more, and down she 
 must go : not even that great heart could 
 bear more. 
 
 But she was nearer than she knew. Sud- 
 denly the slope became less steep, where the 
 summit seemed planed away ; her feet went 
 along instead of having to be lifted. She
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 15 
 
 looked and saw the thorn-bush on the ridge 
 before her. She stopped by the bush ; she 
 had done it — the hill was conquered. 
 
 She could not stand quite still ; she 
 walked slowly forwards — the sudden relief 
 to her panting chest was unbearable if she 
 stood. Pant, pant ; throb, throb ! But her 
 heart sang in its throbs ; her eyes gleamed 
 with delight. She walked slowly in a circle, 
 and came back to the old thorn-bush. She 
 could stand now. She looked towards the 
 horizon, blue where it met the descending 
 dome of the sky. 
 
 First her gaze went straight out to the 
 farthest, where earth appeared immaterial like 
 the sky ; after that it travelled back to her, 
 over woods, the gleam of water, more 
 woods, which were less dense, and had 
 glades of . green meadows between them ; 
 then rested for awhile on a red roof among 
 sycamores and elms — home — then came 
 nearer. And now she looked down, having 
 previously looked out — down on the lane.
 
 1 6 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 and on the cornfields ; thatched roofs yonder 
 on the left, and early smoke rising ; an idle 
 windmill ; a church-tower, round which black 
 specks of daws were wheeling ; and corn- 
 fields, brightly green. Her heart sang 
 within her. She triumphed ; she was full of 
 her own life. 
 
 In all that vast plain there was not a 
 woman that could have done it, and not two 
 men. 
 
 There was nothing large, gigantic, or 
 Amazonian about her ; it was the perfection 
 of her physical nature, not size or training. 
 Her natural body had been further perfected 
 by a purely natural life. The wind, the sun, 
 the fields, the hills — freedom, and the spirit 
 which dwells among these, had made her a 
 natural woman ; such a woman as Earth 
 meant to live upon her surface, and as Earth 
 intended in the first origin of things : 
 beauty and strength — strength and beauty. 
 
 What a latent power of love was there 
 in that richness of blood, that depth of chest,
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 17 
 
 that greatness of heart ! Pure love, pure as 
 the spring-water that comes from the hills, 
 was there ready to be poured forth — always 
 full, always pouring, always the same and 
 always pure. 
 
 Felise walked along the summit of the 
 hill till she reached the place on the other 
 side where it sloped downwards. There the 
 dew had fully dried — it was the eastern 
 slope, and so received the full rays of the 
 sun from his earliest rising. In summer he 
 rises with his full rays, and steps at once in 
 all his fiery strength up over the eastern 
 horizon. The turf was perfectly dry ; she sat 
 down, facing eastwards. 
 
 Now, for the first time, she heard the larks 
 singing ; she had been too full of her own 
 thoughts and efforts to listen before. 
 
 vol. 1. 2
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HE had seen him so little, and yet 
 her passion had taken such hold 
 of her. She knew that she had 
 not come forth to see the sunrise and to 
 bathe in the light of morning. It was to 
 drink deep of the emotion which filled her ; 
 she must go out into the broad morning 
 where alone was room enough for the heart 
 to breathe. Filled and overflowing with 
 love, yet such is the insatiable nature of 
 passion that she, who thought of nothing 
 else, went to try and think still more. 
 
 All this had come at once, in a few weeks 
 — all this concentration and burst of desiring ;
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 19 
 
 and with so little cause, for she had scarcely 
 seen him. This proves that her heart had 
 been full of love to its utmost capacity long 
 before they had met ; that incident was 
 merely the outlet. 
 
 As she had roamed about the hills, and 
 wandered in the woods, or by the shore, 
 musing in deep enjoyment of the sunlight 
 .and the wind, love was coursing through 
 each vein, filling every throb of her heart. 
 It was this which gave such beauty to the 
 flower, such colour to the sky, such pleasant 
 coolness to the stream. She awoke to it 
 in the morning as the swallows came to the 
 eave by the window ; they had been coursing 
 long before through the air while she lay 
 sleeping. 
 
 She threw open her window and breathed 
 it — the sweet wind from the meadows brought 
 it. All day the sunlight poured it forth 
 upon the green grass and rustling leaves ; 
 she moved in it as she moved in the sun- 
 beams. By night it was with her. An 
 
 2 — 2
 
 2o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 inexpressible fulness of passion grew in her 
 breast. 
 
 But could this be ? Could anyone love 
 without an object ? Is it possible for the 
 heart to become full and yet without an 
 image ? Not perhaps with a small nature, 
 a narrow mind, a stunted being. With all 
 great hearts and true women it is always the 
 case ; they love first in themselves, they love 
 without knowing why, or whom — it is their 
 very life. If such a great and noble woman 
 were enclosed in a prison from youth, and 
 permitted no sight of man, still to the end 
 of existence she would love. The divine 
 flame lighted in her with life would burn on 
 to the last moment. 
 
 Felise's heart was lost before she saw him. 
 She lost it amid the flowers of the meadow, 
 the wind on the hill, by the rushing stream. 
 She lost it in her study among her books, 
 her poetry of old Greece — songs of the 
 ' Violet Land ' — her ' Odyssey ' and dramas of 
 Sophocles and ^schylus ; among the stars
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 21 
 
 that swept by over the hill ; by the surge 
 that ran up and kissed her feet. The pointed 
 erass stole it from her : the fresh leaves of 
 spring demanded it ; all things beautiful 
 took it from her. Her heart was lost long 
 since. 
 
 The streamlet in the woods is full before 
 the dove alights to drink at it ; the flower in 
 •the grass has expanded before the butterfly 
 comes. A great passion does not leap into 
 existence as violets sprang up beneath the 
 white feet of Aphrodite. It has grown first. 
 The grapes have ripened in the sun before 
 they are plucked for wine. 
 
 Her vigour of life was very great ; yet it 
 was not that that sent her to the fields and 
 woods, to the hilltop and the shore ; nor 
 the abounding physical vigour which forced 
 her broad chest through the clear green sea ; 
 nor the strong muscle hidden in the rounded 
 arm which drove her boat over the waves. 
 The soul that inspired the effort was the love 
 that was growing within her.
 
 22 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 There were women in the country far 
 larger of limb than she was ; more bulky of 
 arm and brawny of chest — strong as reapers. 
 They did not swim, though the sea was open 
 to them ; they did not row and spend whole 
 days upon the water ; they did not climb 
 the hills and wander in the solitary valleys. 
 They had the strength ; they could have 
 lifted a heavier weight than she could have 
 done ; they could have outworked her in 
 manual tasks, yet they exhibited no energy. 
 Such as were poor remained about their 
 cottages ; such as were better off stayed in 
 their farmhouses. The little circumstances 
 of daily life were enough for them, and they 
 were satisfied with the petty gossip of the 
 village and the market-town. 
 
 If there were any gala in the town they 
 were eager enough then to don their finest 
 and trudge, or ride as the case might be, 
 thither, earliest to arrive and last to leave. 
 Enterprise enough for that was in them. So 
 totally were they without imagination that a
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 23 
 
 flower-show, or a fete, or a fair roused them 
 to the highest pitch of excitement. The 
 band and the gay dresses, the noise and the 
 crowd supplied what was naturally lacking in 
 their minds. They had no colour within, 
 and so sought it without. 
 
 They rushed to the fete or gala ; for the 
 rest, day after day, week after week, month 
 .after month, they were satisfied indoors with 
 the petty things of the hour. The violets, 
 the honeysuckle, the roses later on, were 
 nothing to them ; the sea nothing. • It was 
 within walking-distance, as near as the gala- 
 field, but they never went to it. 
 
 Therefore it was not Felise's physical 
 vigour which made her seek the sun and the 
 hills, not that which made her row and swim. 
 Something else beside the abundant young 
 life of the blood was there to give the 
 impulse. The soul of her blood was the 
 passion within. 
 
 This gave the vigour to her white limbs 
 as she swam, supplying the force with
 
 24 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 which they thrust back the clear green sea ; 
 this pulled at the oar ; this lifted her as she 
 ran up the steep hillside. Her own heart 
 coloured the flower she gathered, and gave a 
 grace to the beech-trees beneath which she 
 wandered. From herself came the brilliance 
 of the sunlight, and the meaning in the 
 books she read. 
 
 They did not go out into the fields, or 
 wander in the woods, because they saw 
 nothing there but fields and woods, nothing 
 but grass and trees. 
 
 Felise carried with her a fresh colour for 
 each flower, a thought for every tree, a 
 feeling into the depths of the shadowy 
 woods. The beauty of the grasses and the 
 green wheat was in her ; she brought the 
 beauty to them. Slowly undulating the 
 wave approached her boat : the grey wave 
 poised itself a moment beside the boat, and 
 immediately bowed itself beneath her. She 
 saw down to the pale furrowed sand, and the 
 sea- weed in the shallow. In the clear water
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 25 
 
 there was nothing of itself, but her heart put 
 a feeling there — just as she let her hand 
 droop over into the sea. 
 
 With her soul grew her love ; this purest 
 of love, and yet strongest of passions. Her 
 young limbs became stronger, her young 
 chest broader, her shoulders and her back 
 finer : a firmer pulse throbbed in her veins. 
 So the soul enlarged as day after day of 
 musing passed, and those long half-conscious 
 reveries which are to the soul as sleep to the 
 frame. She rejoiced in the morning and the 
 sunrise, and felt the glowing beauty of the 
 day ; she saw the night and its stars, and 
 knew the grandeur of the earth's measured 
 onward roll eastwards, the hexameter of 
 heaven. 
 
 She saw these things because at her birth 
 love was born with her ; the flame was lit 
 with her life, and must burn till the end. 
 
 There are but few men, one only they say 
 in many, many years, in whom the fire of 
 genius is clear from youth. These are born
 
 26 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 —such cannot be educated up from common 
 material. There are but few women (though 
 more in proportion than such men) in whom 
 the divine flame of unutterable love exists 
 from the first moment of consciousness, still 
 growing with their growth. The mark of 
 love was stamped on Felise's forehead. 
 
 Hence the sweetness of the morning to 
 her ; hence the joy of swimming in the clear 
 green sea ; the pleasure of rowing ; of 
 running on the hills; the beauty of the 
 flowers. She brought to all a sone — the 
 song of her heart. So that it is true to say 
 that she loved before she had seen the object 
 of her love. Who should have her would 
 have a twofold Felise — the outward beauty 
 of the woman, the inward beauty of her 
 soul.
 
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 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ELISE listened to the larks as they 
 rose and sang — now one, now two, 
 now six or seven at once. They 
 did not soar to a great height ; but, starting 
 from a field of clover beneath, came up a 
 little above the level where she sat, and sang 
 like a chorus before her. She listened, and 
 in her heart silently asked the same as they 
 did aloud. Over their nests and their beloved 
 ones they uttered their verses, in melody 
 requiring "of the sun and of the earth 
 happiness for these, and for themselves per- 
 mission to live. 
 
 Chanting their welcome to the sun, they 
 breathlessly poured out a prayer demanding,
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 in a thousand trills, that the joy of day and 
 life might descend upon their homes. They 
 sank to the clover, but speedily came up 
 again, restless in their gladness, eager to 
 acknowledge the benefit of day, eager to 
 secure fulfilment of their hopes for their 
 young, fearful lest they had not expressed 
 themselves sufficiently, lest they had seemed 
 ungrateful. 
 
 Felise asked in her heart the same as they 
 did. Her overflowing heart asked happi- 
 ness for the image that now filled it ; for 
 herself only that she might contribute to his 
 happiness — that she might sacrifice herself — 
 that she might lay down her life for 
 him. 
 
 Of old, old time the classic women in the 
 ' Violet Land ' of Greece went out to the sun- 
 rise, and, singing to Apollo, the sun, prayed 
 that their hearts might be satisfied, and their 
 homes secured ; by the fountain they asked 
 of the water that the highest aspirations of 
 their souls might be fulfilled ; of the earth
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 29 
 
 they asked an abundance for those whom 
 they loved. 
 
 No more the hymn is heard to the sun ; 
 no more the stream murmurs in an under- 
 tone to the chorus of human hopes ; no more 
 the earth sees its wheat and its flowers taken 
 from it to be presented to it again upon the 
 altar in token of gratitude and prayer. 
 
 But still the larks, as then, and still the 
 thrushes, the fleeting swallows, and the 
 doves, address themselves to sun, and earth, 
 and stream, and heaven. Their songs vary 
 not, their creed does not change, their prayer 
 goes forth to the same old gods. 
 
 Have our hopes and hearts changed in the 
 centuries ? No ; not one whit. 
 
 Felise asked the same as many a deep- 
 breasted maiden in the days of Apollo and 
 Aphrodite. Only her heart was pure, 
 and uncontaminated even by any sensuous 
 myth. 
 
 The larks sang out of the fulness of their 
 hearts ; they were not conscious that they
 
 So THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 prayed, though in truth they did. Her 
 heart spoke without volition, she was not 
 aware she was praying. With all her being 
 she demanded that joy might reach her 
 beloved, that she might lie like the dust at 
 his feet, in her sacrifice her triumph. 
 
 Came the sun in all his cdory, and the 
 wind from the sea ; the deep azure sky was 
 over her, the woods and the green wheat 
 below. The hills were all her own ; there 
 was no one else to claim them in the morn- 
 ing. She alone looked at the sky, and it 
 was hers. Could she have done so, she 
 would have sfiven the wide earth and all its 
 fruits to her beloved. 
 
 The richness of the corn in the plain, and 
 of the luxuriant grasses in the meadow ; the 
 ancient oaks and the thousand elms ; the 
 hedges hung with honeysuckle, and where 
 the roses were coming ; the sweet waters, 
 and the flowers that stood bv them : all that 
 grew afar to the horizon. Nor was that 
 enough. The dim blue sea yonder, the
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 31 
 
 bright blue heavens, the glowing light ; she 
 would have given him all for his delight, as 
 a goddess of old time might have taken a 
 mortal in her chariot through the ether. 
 
 She was leaning on her arm, reclining on 
 the sward, and the throbs of her heart 
 vibrated through her arm to the earth. 
 Quickened by the violence of her run up 
 the hill it beat rapidly, causing her arm to 
 tremble slightly. It was meet that so noble 
 a heart should rest upon the boundless 
 earth. There the rudeness of its beat 
 diminished, and the vehemence of the vibra- 
 tion subsided. 
 
 But not so the vehemence of the passion 
 within. The glowing light and pleasant air, 
 the broad green wheat under, all the blue 
 above, the beauty of the world but fed the 
 flame. So much the more she entered into 
 the loveliness of the day, so much the more 
 grew the desire which was her life. 
 
 She had gone out at the dawn that she 
 might grasp it from the sun at his rising,
 
 32 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 that she might steal from the dewy grass and 
 the fresh leaves, and seize her love from the 
 purple sky. The sun had risen and the 
 morning was opening into day, but she was 
 insatiate, still she wished for more. She 
 had fed herself with the light, and dew, and 
 loveliness of the sunny morn, yet her hunger 
 crew with all she fed on. There was no rest 
 for her in the sunlight, on all the wide 
 earth. 
 
 If in the time to come she should have 
 her dream, would even then her heart be 
 satisfied ? Could she ever love enough to 
 relieve her love ? 
 
 The one over-mastering desire was to 
 give — nothing for herself, all for him. To 
 give him all things ; to ask nothing in re- 
 turn. Her desire was immeasurable — she 
 looked greedily on the earth spread out at 
 the base of the hill — that she might pour 
 plenty at his feet, that she might give him 
 the loveliness of all. 
 
 The larks were still singing, but she was
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 33 
 
 not listening now. Their notes were far 
 away, as if they sang higher than the clouds. 
 Tears gathered in her eyes, and dimmed the 
 view of the beauteous morn. Her breast 
 heaved once, and her breath paused in her 
 throat, checked by a sigh. A deep prayer 
 can but end in tears — a prayer like this 
 which has no words, but gives a life instead 
 of them. It was not sorrow, it was the un- 
 utterable depth of her joy in the love that 
 held her. 
 
 He knew it not — what of that? He 
 might never know — what of that ? She had 
 given her life to him, and it was a joy to her 
 that she had done so. But with that joy 
 there mingled the undertone of knowledge and 
 of thought, that she should never, never, not 
 even if his arms were about her, be able to 
 fully pour forth her heart, making him under- 
 stand her. How could he understand her ? 
 How could she ever tell him ? And all that 
 she could ever do for him under the happiest 
 circumstances could not amount to one 
 
 vol. 1. 3
 
 34 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 hundredth part of what she wished to do. 
 She felt in that moment of tears that the 
 fruition of human wishes can never equal the 
 desire. The limit is reached long, long 
 before. All falls so short. 
 
 Her breath came freely again, and she 
 saw the distant sea clearly — the mist in her 
 eyes was gone. Once more the larks sang 
 sweetly, and she listened. If we cannot 
 reach to ideal things, at least we can do much, 
 nearer to earth. The larks cannot rise to the 
 heavens, but they sing high above their nests, 
 and their voices are sweet to all below them. 
 
 Felise raised herself higher on her arm, 
 and looked boldly at the blue sea-line. Her 
 heart rose again ; the strong courage in her 
 inspired it. Bright and beautiful as the 
 morning she rose to her feet, dauntless and 
 resolute. Her will was strengthened by 
 love, made ten times stronger. Bold as the 
 sun, unabashed as the day, she would have 
 her will ; she claimed love as her right. 
 Come what might, she would be his.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 | HE sun had now grown fierce, and 
 Felise, rising from the ground, 
 walked along the hill, whose 
 summit gradually declined. These hills of 
 chalk are generally very steep in front, and 
 laborious to ascend if attempted there ; but 
 at the rear they are much easier, and present 
 no difficulty. In this they resemble human 
 life, for the aspiring, whether in letters, 
 politics, or commerce, find the utmost trouble 
 in climbing up the precipitous frowning brow 
 which defends the prize ; but once on the top, 
 sigh to observe that the back of the position, 
 which was hidden from them, could have 
 been easily ascended, and that after all they 

 
 3 6 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 are only elevated in a trifling degree above 
 their neighbours. 
 
 Immediately beneath the hill was a field of 
 clover, and beyond that wheat ; next came a 
 large wood, extending round the hill to the 
 left : a brightly-gleaming stream ran into and 
 was lost in the shade of the wood. To the 
 right were meadows, reaching as far as the 
 eye could see through the crowded trees in 
 the hedgerows. Among these Felise recog- 
 nised her home, a mile or more distant, the 
 roof and chimneys only visible above the 
 foliage. The line of the sea appeared where 
 another ridge of hill stooped, and rose again. 
 It was five miles to the shore. 
 
 Turning to her left, Felise went over 
 the ridge, and descended the slope, which 
 was very gradual, about half-way, till she 
 reached the shade of a solitary beech-tree 
 growing there. She had been so full of her 
 thoughts, and so insensible to her physical 
 sensations, that the sun had heated her 
 unpleasantly before she was aware of it,
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 37 
 
 and the cool shadow of the beech was a 
 relief. She leaned against its smooth trunk, 
 and looked over a hollow valley, or plain, 
 between several ridges. 
 
 They sloped down, one line behind the 
 other, and a third across these ; a fourth 
 farther away, drawn along in those gentle 
 outlines that look so easy to copy on paper, 
 and are so difficult. The pencil can rarely 
 hit the exact curve — there is always a 
 tendency to exaggerate ; and some of the 
 cleverest draughtsmen say the only method 
 by which these illusive lines can be rendered 
 is to gaze at them, and sketch without look- 
 ing at the paper — that is, to let the pencil 
 obey the mandate of the eye without the in- 
 tervening connection of the mind, yielding 
 the faculties entirely to the curve. 
 
 This enclosed plain was grass-grown ; a 
 few hawthorns were scattered about it, and 
 beneath where she stood three or four 
 beeches grew in an irregular group. She 
 was now facing in the opposite direction —
 
 3 8 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 her present right was her former left. A 
 rude track — merely two ruts in the sward — 
 went over the hill on her right. 
 
 Just as she was beginning to feel refreshed 
 in the coolness, her glance became sensible 
 of a movement in the distance. Something 
 had crossed over the third ridge, and de- 
 scended out of sight into the hollow between 
 it and the second. She did not look that 
 way in time to see what it was, but supposed 
 it to have been a shepherd. 
 
 While she leaned against the bole of the 
 tree idling, she took out her penknife, a 
 slight thing with a mother-of-pearl handle 
 and a thin narrow blade. Why are ladies' 
 penknives so feebly made ? Directly you 
 begin to cut with one, the blade shakes and 
 turns, or threatens to go right back, in spite 
 of the spring. 
 
 Felise took the blade itself between her 
 finder and thumb — as the handle was useless 
 she hafted it with her white fingers — and began 
 to cut out a slice of the bark of the beech.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 39 
 
 This tree has a rind, smooth, and readily 
 incised. It is not very thick, yet thick 
 enough for a marked notch to be left if a 
 strip be cut out. Felise forced the tender 
 blade through the bark, and drew two 
 parallel lines ; then she loosened and tore 
 out the thin strip between these, leaving a 
 straight perpendicular stroke, or |. The sap 
 glistened in the groove. 
 
 She did it in mere idleness, quite thought- 
 lessly, and without intent. Now see what 
 follows from one stroke, and how careful 
 people should be before they begin any- 
 thing. How can you tell where it may lead 
 you ? 
 
 She contemplated the glistening groove ; 
 and then, suddenly taking more interest in 
 the work, began to draw two more parallel 
 lines from the top of the first aslant to the 
 right. This incision was somewhat shorter ; 
 it did not descend quite so far as the | It 
 was connected with the first at the top. 
 When the strip of bark was peeled out there
 
 4 o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 were two glistening lines of sap, in shape 
 something like half the conventional arrow- 
 head on Government property — |S . 
 
 In a minute or two she began to add to 
 this piece of work a further stroke, ascending 
 from the descending one, also to the right, 
 which, when peeled, left a strange Ogham- 
 like character — [J . 
 
 So soon as she had done this she was 
 startled at her own deed, and tried to rub it 
 out with her soft hand, which was likely to 
 produce much effect on the bark of a tree. 
 Rub it as hard as she might, there was the 
 incision, and she could not make the bark 
 grow again. It is not so easy to undo what 
 has once been done. The beech would not 
 obliterate that mark in twenty years. The 
 very thought increased her trepidation ; her 
 cheek grew warm — everyone who passed 
 would see it for twenty years'. 
 
 The reflection that although they would 
 see it they might not understand it, did not 
 occur to her. What was so plain to her
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 41 
 
 must be evident to others. Guilty people 
 always imagine everyone is watching them — 
 that everyone detects their secret. Some one 
 might be looking now. She looked up, and 
 immediately drew close to the tree, hiding 
 behind it. 
 
 While these labours had been proceeding, 
 the figure which had appeared over the third 
 ridge, to disappear immediately in the hollow, 
 had come up again over the second ridge, 
 gone down into the second hollow, and was 
 at that moment, when she looked up, descend- 
 ing the first slope into the grassy valley at 
 her feet. It was a man on horseback. 
 
 When he reached the level sward, he 
 pushed his horse to full speed, and galloped 
 at a great pace straight across the plain. 
 He seemed to be making a bee-line across, as 
 if intending to ride up the opposite ascent. 
 
 Felise involuntarily grasped her penknife 
 so tightly that the point pricked her finger. 
 This drew her attention to the fact that a 
 beech-tree six or eight inches in diameter
 
 42 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 is not shield enough to conceal a well- 
 developed form ; or else she did not care to 
 hide now ; or else she was curious to see 
 which way he was going ; or else — a woman 
 has so many reasons for everything she does 
 it needs a volume to record them ; but what 
 she did was to step away from the tree, and 
 in front of it, into full view. 
 
 Her lips were slightly parted; her form 
 rose a little, for she had drawn herself up 
 unconsciously to her full height. Her eye- 
 lids drooped, and a dreamy expression came 
 into the beautiful grey of her eyes. The 
 deep attention with which she gazed partly 
 overcame the involuntary muscles, so that 
 her heart beat slower, and her breath was 
 scarcely drawn. 
 
 The horseman rode straight towards the 
 hill, but at the foot turned to the right, and 
 began to go round the valley. He had 
 changed his mind, or thought perhaps that he 
 should find no better place for a gallop than 
 in this natural circus.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 43 
 
 Instantly her breath came quicker, and 
 her heart beat faster ; the nerves had re- 
 lieved the muscles. He was not going away 
 yet. 
 
 In following the outline of the plain, he 
 must pass close to her, though much lower, 
 and just the other side of the clump of 
 beeches. The curve brought him nearer 
 "and nearer, till she thought he must see her ; 
 yet he did not appear to do so. Thud, thud 
 — an occasional click as the hoofs struck a 
 stray flint. He was looking straight at her ! 
 Surely he saw her ? No ; he rode on, and 
 his back was turned as the curve of the 
 grassy circus took him away. 
 
 Felise sighed, and then frowned ; she 
 could not understand it. She was in the full 
 view of everyone who entered the valley ; 
 she might have been seen from the opposite 
 side. Certainly their acquaintance was 
 slight ; still, he would hardly pass her like 
 that. 
 
 He had not, in fact, seen her at all, intent
 
 44 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 on his gallop, on his horse, and especially 
 upon his own thoughts. But to this circum- 
 stance the circular shape of the grassy circus 
 contributed ; for it is a curious fact that any- 
 one standing on the side of a round cavity, 
 or inside a round building, may be over- 
 looked. 
 
 Suppose a circular room ; stand close to the 
 wall, and if a person glance casually in at 
 the door, he will very likely fail to see any- 
 one there. Though she was now full in the 
 glowing morning sunlight, he did not see 
 her ; his mind was deeply engaged, and the 
 retina is not so sensitive at such moments. 
 He was riding fast to ride down his own 
 thoughts. 
 
 As he came round to the spot where the 
 rude track went over the hill to the right, 
 Felise's breath came slow again, lest he 
 should turn and 2:0 along the waggon-road, 
 which she knew would have led him home. 
 He did not — he came on ; and for the 
 second time passed her, unconscious of her
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 45 
 
 presence. The nearer he came the higher 
 grew the colour in her face and on her neck ; 
 as the strong horse took him away, so the 
 colour faded. When the sunlight suddenly 
 breaks forth from a cloud, how instantly the 
 flowers bloom afresh ! — so the quick rosy 
 flush lit up her delicate neck instantly, but it 
 sank back slowly. 
 
 In passing the group of trees he was so close 
 that the expression of his face was visible. 
 His forehead was a little contracted with a 
 frown ; the line it caused was not deep, so 
 that he appeared more hesitating than angry. 
 He was undecided ; he was seeking decision 
 from the unhesitating stride of his horse. 
 
 Comparatively his face was small for his 
 height ; he was not all face, as we see some 
 men, whose countenances seem to descend to 
 the last button of their waistcoats. His 
 head was in just proportion, the summit and 
 finish of his shape, as a capital of a 
 column. His hair had a shade like the gold 
 of Felise's, yet not in the least like hers, for
 
 46 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 his was deeper, browner, as if the sun had 
 burnt it, as it had his cheek. Had it not 
 been cropped so close, his hair would have 
 curled; in the days of Charles II. such hair 
 would have been of priceless value to a 
 cavalier, curled locks flowing to the 
 shoulder. 
 
 In outline his countenance was somewhat 
 oval, his features fine — a straight nose and 
 chin well marked, but not heavy. He had 
 a short beard, and his head showed the more 
 to advantage, because he had a good neck, 
 not too thick. His eyes were blue, and 
 framed in firmly-drawn eyebrows and long 
 lashes. Though well built, he was slender 
 rather than stout ; his hands were brown, but 
 not large. 
 
 The features indicated a temperament 
 almost too sensitive, feelings too delicate for 
 the roughness of life, which still has to be 
 sustained by the rude plough and by labour 
 in all weathers, as in the days of our most 
 remote ancestors.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 47 
 
 He rode without a saddle, only a bridle. 
 The horse was a large bay, almost large 
 enough for a weight-carrying hunter ; a hand- 
 some creature whose flanks mi^ht have been 
 polished like fine wood, they shone so. 
 Round spots on the skin were less dark than 
 the adjacent surface — a dappling or graining 
 which varied in hue as the animal turned, 
 and the light was reflected at a different 
 angle. 
 
 The third time he came round to the 
 waggon-track he drew rein, as if about to 
 change his course, and walked his horse. 
 Felise impatiently moved her foot, and the 
 dreamy expression in her eyes gave way to 
 one of annoyance. But he went by the 
 waggon-track, and continued along the 
 circus, still at a walking-pace. This time, 
 as he approached the beeches, he saw 
 her.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 r < 
 
 ml 
 
 HE knew he did, although no 
 alteration was perceptible in his 
 manner. Watching him so nar- 
 rowly, she felt that he had seen her, yet 
 there was no visible change. Eyes that love 
 have a way of seeing more than is under- 
 stood by scientific people, though they may 
 analyze light with the spectrum and the 
 polariscope, and all the other appliances 
 together. 
 
 At the beeches he rode slowly up towards 
 her. All at once he turned again, and 
 began to descend the hill away from her ; 
 then, as suddenly, slipped off his horse to
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 49 
 
 his feet, and walked towards her up the 
 slope. 
 
 ' Good-morning !' 
 
 He did not offer his hand ; their previous 
 acquaintance was extremely slight. She held 
 out hers, and he took it. 
 
 ' Can I direct you ?' he said, a little 
 awkwardly. 
 
 1 Oh, I know the way !' 
 
 ' I did not know ; I thought ' 
 
 ' I came up to see the sunrise,' she said, 
 explaining ; ' but I was too late.' 
 
 ' It is a beautiful morning,' said he. 
 
 No very brilliant conversation yet ; as a 
 matter of fact, people who are tete-a-tete for 
 the first time in their lives do not talk 
 brilliantly. Much, however, may be con- 
 veyed by tone and manner. 
 
 He did not look at her more than courtesy 
 demanded : he looked at the sward, at the 
 tree, anywhere but at her ; yet his nature 
 was truthful. 
 
 She looked straight in his face ; she did 
 
 vol. 1. 4
 
 5o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 not disguise her wistful glance. If he could 
 only have let himself gaze into her eyes \ 
 But he would not. Her ri^ht hand moved 
 restlessly ; she almost put it on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 They were both bareheaded. She held 
 her hat in her left hand ; he had taken off 
 his when he saluted, and had not replaced it. 
 The bright sunlight shone on her golden 
 hair, and on his short brown-gold locks. 
 Their shadows touched on the sward. 
 
 ' I have been watching you riding,' she 
 said. ' I wish I could ride like that without 
 stirrups.' Implied flattery, Felise. 
 
 ' It is very easy.' 
 
 H But you went very fast ; and such a big 
 horse, too.' 
 
 ' So much the easier ; the motion is so 
 
 much more pleasant than with a small 
 
 » 
 horse.' 
 
 ' Let me stroke him,' .she said. 
 
 Together they walked a few steps down 
 
 the slope ; the bay had quietly set himself
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 5I 
 
 to feed on the sweet sward. She stroked 
 him, and admired him. There was an 
 emphasis in her manner as if she would 
 rather have stroked certain brown-gold locks 
 near her.' She asked him twenty questions 
 about his horse Ruy. 
 
 He answered all, but merely answered 
 them, without any enthusiasm or desire to 
 continue the conversation. Twice he said 
 time was going on, and touched his watch- 
 chain, but did not look at his watch for 
 courtesy's sake. 
 
 Felise glanced hastily round to find some 
 subject to talk of. The trees — what trees 
 were they ? She knew perfectly well. 
 
 ' Beeches,' he said ; ' they grow on a 
 chalky soil.' 
 
 ' Where does that road lead to ?' pointing 
 to the waggon-track. 
 
 ' To Welcombe.' 
 
 As if she had not followed it twenty times, 
 till she could look down upon his house. 
 Anything to make him stay, to make him 
 
 4—2
 
 52 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 speak, that she might see him, and hear his 
 voice. 
 
 1 You have not called for a very long 
 time.' 
 
 As if he was on visiting terms. He had 
 called once on mere formal business. 
 
 ' How is Mr. Goring ?' he was obliged to 
 ask. 
 
 Then followed three or four sentences — 
 three or four moments more' — about her 
 uncle's health, and his fondness for planting 
 trees. 
 
 ' Why does he not look at me ?' she 
 thought. ' Can I not make him look at me ?' 
 Then aloud, sharply : 'Mr. Barnard !' 
 
 He could not help but look, at the sound of 
 his name. He saw a face full of wistful 
 meaning upturned to him. Her golden hair 
 had strayed a little on her forehead, three or 
 four glistening threads wandered over it, 
 askincr some loving hand to smooth them 
 back. The white brow without a stain, a 
 mark, a line ; no kiss there but must be
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 53 
 
 purified by the touch ; it was an altar which 
 could not be tainted — which would turn taint 
 to purity. Large grey eyes that seemed to 
 see him only — to whom the whole world, the 
 hills round them, the sky over, was not — 
 eyes that drew his towards them, and held 
 his vision in defiance of his will. If once 
 you look over the side of a boat into the 
 clear sea, you must continue looking — the 
 depth fascinates the mind. Some depth in 
 her rapt gaze fascinated him. 
 
 Her eyebrows arched — not too much 
 arched — the curve of the cheek, roseate, 
 almost but not quite smiling, carried his 
 thought downwards to her breathing lips. 
 Her lips were apart, rich, dewy, curved ; 
 they kissed him by their expression, if not in 
 deed. In that instant his heart throbbed 
 violently ; the beat rose to thrice its usual 
 rate. 
 
 The first moment of awaking to a happy 
 morning, the daylight that means a joyful 
 event ; the first view of the sea in youth, when
 
 54 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 the blue expanse brings tears to the eyes — in 
 these there is some parallel to the sudden, 
 the extreme, and the delicious feeling that 
 shot through him. To reach the ideal of 
 human happiness it is necessary to be for 
 the moment unconscious of all, except the 
 cause. For that moment he had no con- 
 sciousness except of her, such was the power 
 of her passion glowing in her face. 
 
 Even Felise, eager to retain him with her, 
 and unhesitatingly employing every means, 
 could not maintain that gaze. Unabashed 
 and bold with love, she was too true, too 
 wholly his, to descend to any art. Her 
 gaze, passionate as it was, was natural and 
 unstudied ; therefore it could not continue. 
 Her eyes drooped, and he was released. 
 
 Immediately, as if stung to a sense of his 
 honour, he placed his hands on the horse, 
 sprang up, and seated himself. 
 
 'I — I have much to do,' he said, em- 
 barrassed to the last degree, and holding out 
 his hand.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 55 
 
 She would not see it. She took the 
 bridle, and stroked Ruy's neck, placing her 
 cheek almost against the glossy skin. Obey- 
 ing the pressure of his knee, Ruy began to 
 move slowly. She walked beside him, hold- 
 ing the bridle ; but Ruy's long stride soon 
 threatened to leave her behind. For very 
 shame, he could not but stay. At a touch 
 Ruy halted. She looked up at him ; he 
 carefully avoided her glance. The horse, 
 growing restless, began to move again ; 
 again, for courtesy's sake, he was compelled 
 to check him. Not a word had been spoken 
 while this show was proceeding. 
 
 Barnard's face grew hot with impatience, 
 or embarrassment, or a sense that he was 
 doing wrong; in some manner not at the 
 moment apparent. Sideways, she saw his 
 glowing cheek. It only inflamed her heart 
 the more ; the bright colour, like the scarlet 
 tints in a picture, lit up his face. Next he 
 controlled himself, and forced his features 
 and attitude to an impassive indifference.
 
 56 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 He would sit like a statue till it pleased her 
 to let him go. Ruy pulled hard to get his 
 neck free that he might feed again. 
 
 She stooped and gathered him some grass 
 and gave it to him. Twice she fed him. 
 Barnard remained silent and impassive. 
 Still not a word between them. The third 
 time she gathered a handful of grass, as she 
 rose her shoulder brushed his knee. She 
 stood there, and did not move. Her warm 
 shoulder just touched him, no more ; her 
 golden hair was very near. She drew over 
 a tuft of Ruy's mane, and began to deftly 
 plait it. Barnard's face, in defiance of him- 
 self, flushed scarlet ; his very ears burned. 
 He stole half a glance sideways ; how lovely 
 her roseate cheek, the threads of her golden 
 hair, against the bay's neck ! Ruy was turn- 
 ing his nostrils round to touch her, and ask 
 for more grass. She swiftly plaited his 
 mane. 
 
 At that moment another horse neighed 
 over the hill ; they both looked round — no
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 57 
 
 one was in sight. But Ruy answered with a 
 neigh, and in the same instant stepped 
 forward. Barnard pressed his knee ; Ruy 
 began to move faster. Barnard bowed ; his 
 voice was temporarily inarticulate, and he 
 was gone. 
 
 In a few minutes, he gained the waggon- 
 track ; and, without looking back, pressed 
 Ruy at a rapid pace up the ascent, and dis- 
 appeared over the summit. She went back 
 to the beech, and in the shadow watched the 
 next ridge. In five minutes man and horse 
 came into view, climbed, and went down, 
 like a ship at sea beneath the horizon. She 
 saw them for the third time passing over the 
 third ridge, and then, knowing that she should 
 not see them any farther, turned to go. She 
 soon regained the lane, where a farmer on 
 horseback overtook and passed her, raising 
 his hat. It was his horse that had neighed 
 to Ruy. 
 
 Felise walked swiftly, and in the centre of 
 the lane. The dew had dried from the blue
 
 58 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 veronica and the cowslip. Instead of wander- 
 ing from side to side, looking at the llowers, 
 and touching the green sprays, she went 
 straight on. She did not notice a black- 
 bird's noisy note as he sprang up startled 
 from among the young brake fern. The 
 oak-trunk which had formed her seat was 
 not looked at. Her mind was full of one 
 thought, and she did not regard outward cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 A shepherd with his dog at a gateway saw 
 her go by ; a man riding a thill-horse met 
 her, and forced his horse, with the harness 
 hanging and jingling, up into the nettles and 
 brambles, to give her a royal right of road ; 
 ten or twelve haymakers, men and women, 
 were filing across the lane out of one field 
 across to another. They halted, and let her 
 pass through their ranks. Some children 
 with them shouted joyously at the sight of 
 her. Neither the touching of hats, nor the 
 curtseys, nor the voices of the children 
 calling to her, attracted her a moment. Her
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 59 
 
 mind was full of one thought, and she saw 
 nothing. 
 
 At home she immediately ran upstairs, 
 shut the door, and sat down. In another 
 moment she got up to look at herself in the 
 glass. Her cheeks w T ere scarlet, partly the 
 exertion, partly sunburn, partly excitement. 
 The sun had scorched her face ; love had 
 scorched her heart. What had she done ? 
 Was it well, or wrong ? Did he under- 
 stand ? He must have understood. Yet, 
 perhaps, he might not have done so ; he 
 would not look at her. Their eyes had met 
 but once. 
 
 Her face, her neck, flushed scarlet ; she 
 felt as if her very fingers tingled with shame. 
 That she should have shown him so plainly 
 her meaning — that she should have actually 
 held his horse by the bridle to stay him from 
 leaving her ! 
 
 With as violent a revulsion of feeling she 
 laughed, caught up a brush, and brushed 
 her hair, and revelled in the thought of her
 
 60 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 boldness. She wished she had done 
 more. 
 
 ' Why did I not hold his hand instead 
 of his horse's bridle ?' she asked her- 
 self. 
 
 Suddenly she burst into tears, leant back, 
 and became perfectly pale. A faintness 
 came over her; everything before her eyes 
 was black as if it was night. She did not 
 faint — she slowly recovered ; and, going to 
 the window, began to sing in a low voice. 
 A girl came round the corner of the 
 house. 
 
 ' Mary, bring me a rose for my hair.' 
 
 In that simple country household, Mary 
 Shaw was their only attendant. She was, 
 however, young and good-looking, pleasant, 
 and almost a friend. There was much 
 affection between them. 
 
 1 You must be main lear [very hungry],' 
 said Mary, when she brought the rose ; ' you 
 have been up Ashpen.' 
 
 ' I am — very hungry,' said Felise.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 61 
 
 1 Such a nice breakfast waiting for you.' 
 
 ' I couldn't eat a morsel,' said Felise. 
 ' How long the days are ! I wish it was 
 night !' 
 
 1 It isn't seven yet,' said Mary. 
 
 4 Oh dear ! These summer days are so 
 long !' 
 
 ' Yesterday you was saying how glad you 
 were they was so long.' 
 
 ' So I am.' 
 
 ' There now ! who's to know what you 
 means ? That's how all eood-lookins ladies 
 goes on — that's how they worries the men- 
 folk.'
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FTER Barnard had ridden over the 
 third ridge, uphill and down, at 
 a merciless rate, he checked his 
 speed : first to a trot, then to a walk, and 
 finally halted altogether. Next he turned 
 Ruy's head away from home (a change Ruy 
 did not much like), and slowly retraced the 
 route he had come away from Felise 
 Goring. 
 
 But at first not very rapidly. It is the 
 first few steps that are difficult, even in sweet 
 things : hesitation, trembling, indecision ac- 
 companies them. Once well started on the 
 flowery path, and the pace constantly ac- 
 celerates. In ten minutes he was at full
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 63 
 
 gallop back towards her. He had not the 
 least idea what he was going to do — what 
 excuse he should make for returning — 
 whether he would go so near as to speak, or 
 what. 
 
 He soon saw that she had left the spot. 
 He rode up to the solitary beech and dis- 
 mounted, mechanically repeating what he 
 had done when she was there. So great 
 criminals go through a dumb show in their 
 sleep of guilt ; so great pleasure leads us to 
 step again in our happy foot-marks. He 
 looked at the beech, because she had been 
 there, and caught sight of the incision in 
 the bark. What was this ? 
 
 The cuts were so thin, he guessed at once 
 it was her work : a man would have slashed 
 out larger strips. He traced the lines with 
 his finger : one straight descending stroke, 
 and a small V attached to it at the top on 
 the riofht side. When his finder reached the 
 end of the ascending groove, involuntarily 
 he drew it down the uncut bark, as if another
 
 6 4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 straight stroke had been there, and recog- 
 nised in an instant what the incomplete 
 character stood for ; i.e., M. A capital M — 
 his own initial ; Martial Barnard. 
 
 He took out his own knife, and cut the 
 stroke necessary to complete the letter. 
 
 Hurrying to Ruy, who was feeding, he 
 got up, and rode round the hill, and into the 
 lane. Though so far behind at starting, his 
 speed was thrice hers ; he thought he could 
 easily overtake her. But she had progressed 
 farther than he anticipated, and he found him- 
 self near her home without seeing anything 
 of her. Then he asked himself what should 
 he do if he did overtake her ? Could he 
 ride up — could he speak to her ? What 
 could he say ? 
 
 At this moment when Barnard let his 
 horse walk, Felise was scarcely a hundred 
 yards in front, but concealed by a turn of 
 the lane. 
 
 * M,' he said to himself, 'might stand for 
 many other names — for Martin, for Mark ;
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 65 
 
 perhaps, after all, it was only a freak — an 
 accidental resemblance to an M, and no 
 letter was intended.' 
 
 But the look — the look which had held 
 him ; the depth of those beautiful eyes ; the 
 wistful expression of the face — he saw it 
 before him as he saw it at the moment. 
 Should he ever forget it ? — he felt that it 
 would never fade. As he thought of it, he 
 looked down, and saw the plaited piece of 
 mane. He cut it off, and put it in his 
 pocket-book. 
 
 But in the pocket-book there were dates, 
 and entries referring to — no matter ; he 
 took the plait from the pocket-book, and 
 placed it with his watch. 
 
 His conduct ? To forget past vows ; to 
 follow another woman ; to let his mind dwell 
 upon this new face — could anything be more 
 despicable ? 
 
 He turned Ruy with some violence, and 
 walked him back up the lane. But why 
 should he be better than others ? Why set 
 
 vol. 1. 5
 
 66 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 up to be so ultra-honourable ? Was he not 
 free in the eyes of the world ? 
 
 As he pondered, still with her face before 
 him, he saw a handkerchief, white and 
 delicate of texture, almost under Ruy's 
 hoofs ; for the horse, left to himself, had 
 chosen to walk on the sward near the hedge. 
 Martial got down, and picked up the hand- 
 kerchief. There were the initials ' F. G. ' in 
 the corner. It exhaled a slight perfume, 
 the sweet delicate odour of the beautiful 
 woman to whom it belonged, and he kissed 
 it. With this he might ride up to her house 
 even ; it would be an excuse. 
 
 No ; he could not — he must not. He re- 
 mounted, and pursued his way along the 
 lane, round the hill, back to the solitary 
 beech with the glistening letter cut in its 
 bark. 
 
 He reproved himself for permitting him- 
 self even to think of her ; so he spoke aloud, 
 as it were, mentally. At the same moment 
 he was inquiring, Did that look mean any-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 67 
 
 thing ? If so, was it real — was it true ? Or 
 was she heartless, and merely using a lovely 
 face to play upon him ? Surely she was too 
 beautiful ; and yet — why should she select 
 him for such a glance ? Their acquaintance 
 was but trivial, and Barnard, to do him 
 justice, was without conceit. She could not 
 mean it ; and yet, and yet ! 
 
 And so the summer day wore on. To one 
 it was too long, because she did not know 
 how lone it would be before she saw him 
 
 o 
 
 again ; the other took no heed of the 
 glorious sunlight, because a face floated 
 before him. 
 
 5— 2
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OME ten or twelve days afterwards 
 Felise started to bathe, telling 
 Shaw to follow in a quarter of an 
 hour with her towels. It was about eleven, 
 and all the dew long since dry ; the garden- 
 path was hedged on either side with 
 peonies, whose large flowers hung heavily. 
 Open the folio-petals like the leaves of a 
 book, and you will find the imperial purple 
 of the heavens at sunset deep within the 
 volume. 
 
 Beyond the peonies h'er skirt rustled on 
 grass, grown high under apple-trees, and the 
 shade of the apple-boughs crossed her 
 shoulder as she walked. She saw her uncle.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 69 
 
 Mr. Goring, at a distance, busy at his bees. 
 A swarm hung from an apple-bough, and, 
 clad in his net, he was charmine them into 
 a hive. Gardening and bee-keeping, plant- 
 ing trees, and all similar pleasure-work, is of 
 no interest unless you do it yourself. He 
 did everything himself, and knew every 
 shoot, because he had himself pruned the 
 branch. 
 
 Felise went on along a filbert-walk — 
 Goring's own planting — then out by a yew- 
 hedge higher than her head, and past the 
 sundial. On the northern side of the sun- 
 dial, under a sycamore, with the tall yew- 
 hedge in the rear, a seat was placed ; it was 
 Felise's favourite resort, because there was a 
 view of the distant hills, and in the afternoon 
 of the sunset, from this place. He had 
 planted the grounds so thickly with trees 
 that this was almost the only spot where a 
 view could be obtained. 
 
 Next she walked beside a hawthorn-hedge. 
 Goring had made a gravel walk parallel with
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 the hedge, which led through the meadow to 
 a copse at hand. There was a narrow valley 
 between two slopes covered with wood ; a 
 copse had always been there, but Goring 
 planted the summit each side with beech, 
 and dotted American scarlet oaks about, 
 besides cutting green walks among the 
 ash, where, on turning a corner, you came 
 unexpectedly on a bed of flowers or straw- 
 berries. 
 
 So soon as she reached the copse and had 
 put her hand on the wicket-gate she heard 
 the rush of falling waters. For some reason 
 it was not audible till the wicket was reached, 
 thence at every step in the wood it increased 
 in volume of sound. A little stream from 
 the chalk hill ran through the wood ; years 
 and years ago it had been banked up, and 
 a pool made, in which there were trout. 
 The pool was large enough for a boathouse ; 
 by the boathouse was a special compart- 
 ment constructed for Felise. for bathing 
 
 purposes.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 71 
 
 Here she had learnt to swim ; Goring 
 taught her. Surrounded by wooded hills, 
 and absolutely private, there could not have 
 been a choicer place for bathing. The sea 
 was so near — five miles is very little to coun- 
 try people — and Felise displayed so wilful a 
 resolution to go out upon it at all times and 
 seasons, that Goring never felt safe till she 
 could swim. Of course she beat her teacher. 
 ' Papa ' — he was only her uncle, though, as 
 she had never known her parents, she called 
 him papa — was getting grey. She could 
 beat him swimming — three to one. 
 
 Felise moved more slowly in the ash-wood, 
 listening to the rush of the water as it fell 
 over the hatch of the pond. It rendered her 
 thoughtful. Climbing up the embankment 
 which held the water in, she sat down on 
 the beam of the hatch. Behind her the 
 water dropped in an arch, ten feet deep, into 
 a gully nearly crossed by ferns, which per- 
 petually nodded. The spray struck them 
 and bent them down ; they rose up and were
 
 72 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 struck down again ; and so on all day and 
 night. 
 
 Before her the pool stretched out, an acre 
 or two, broad at this end and deep, and 
 narrowing up to a point where the stream ran 
 in. The wood came down close on three 
 sides ; on the fourth, at her left hand, was a 
 narrow strip of sward. The boathouse, on 
 the right, was in shadow, being overhung by 
 beeches ; all the rest of the mere in bright 
 sunshine. 
 
 Felise put up her sunshade and listened to 
 the rush of the cataract. Though it seemed 
 to fill the ear, the notes of a blackbird in 
 the wood were distinct above it ; they pierced 
 the diffused sound of the waterfall. A chaf- 
 finch perched close to her ; there were some 
 long-winged flies floating about ; the finch 
 darted out and took these almost from under 
 her parasol. 
 
 She was thinking. She had been up to 
 the downs, and had visited the beech-tree 
 three times since. She looked for her mark
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 73 
 
 cut in the bark, and found it had been com- 
 pleted. Some one had added the stroke 
 which rendered it intelligible as an ' M.' Who 
 could have done that ? Her first thought 
 was that it was Martial ; he had returned, 
 seen what she had been doing, guessed, and 
 finished it. 
 
 This was what had actually taken place ; 
 but first thoughts are not always accepted. 
 If he had done it, then her secret was out. 
 Could it be called a secret after that inter- 
 view ? Her cheeks burned ; she had so de- 
 sired he should know, yet now she supposed 
 he did know, she recoiled. For a moment 
 only, however. If he had guessed and had 
 completed the letter, then she was only too 
 glad. 
 
 But had he ? He had tried so hard to get 
 away from her. He did not take the least 
 interest in her. Possibly he thought her bold 
 — troublesomely bold ; then he would not be 
 likely to have returned to the spot where she 
 had been a weariness to him. It must have
 
 74 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 been some shepherd lad whiling away the 
 slow hours in the shadow of the beech who 
 had carved the last stroke: of the letter. 
 
 Yet she did not know. Heart said one 
 thing- : thought another. Heart said, ' He 
 did it ; he is not quite indifferent to me ; he 
 has been here ; he knows — he understands.' 
 Thought said, ' He is entirely indifferent ; my 
 face, my form does not please him ; why 
 should he come back ? Oh no ! this was the 
 work of a shepherd lad.' Yet she did not 
 know. But if he had returned once, perhaps 
 he would come acrain ; so she went to the 
 place three times, waited for an hour or two, 
 and saw nothing of him. Of course not ; he 
 did not care. He never <jave her a thought. 
 
 Yet she did not know. He might have 
 revisited the spot at some other time of the 
 day. So the battledore and shuttlecock of 
 argument and suggestion continued in her 
 mind. But the fact was indisputable that 
 she did not see him ; nor did he call to see 
 her.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 75 
 
 If he really understood her — if he cared to 
 understand her — surely he would have called. 
 Though their families were not on visiting 
 terms, a gentleman can generally make some 
 pretence if he wishes to call. He had not 
 been — he had not even ridden by, for she had 
 been in the garden, and watching the road 
 half the time. He did not want to come. 
 Therefore it was not he who had completed 
 the letter on the tree. 
 
 He did not care about her. She picked up 
 a small stone and pitched it at a lazy trout 
 idling; at the surface of the still water. The 
 fish shot away into the depths instantly ; but 
 her thoughts did not go away into oblivion. 
 
 He did not care for her. But he must 
 care for her; she must make him care. It 
 was impossible to influence him unless she 
 could see him, speak to him, convey her 
 heart to him, not only by words, but by those 
 innumerable little ways which speak louder. 
 
 The weeks would lengthen into months, 
 the months into years, and still perhaps he
 
 76 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 would not come ; he would never cafe for her 
 unless she could converse with him. In- 
 fluence depends wholly on personal contact. 
 No magic is known by which one person 
 can attract another if outside the sphere of 
 personal communication. Unseen, unspoken, 
 how affect ? 
 
 She began to feel the immeasurable weight 
 of separation which has slowly ground so 
 many weary hearts to the very dust of 
 desolation. 
 
 She realized for the first time in her life 
 the powerlessness of women. They cannot 
 stir, they cannot move in the matters that 
 concern them most dearly ; they are helpless ; 
 at the mercy of the petty events called cir- 
 cumstance. If by any happy chance circum- 
 stance threw her into Martial's society, in 
 time he might love her. By chance only. 
 How many years till that chance, happened ? 
 Possibly enough it might never occur at all. 
 
 Time would go on. He would see fresh 
 faces — faces that pleased him better — he
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 77 
 
 would be wiled away by some other woman, 
 fortunate in the fate of circumstance. A 
 thousand little incidents might drift him 
 farther away than he was now. She could 
 not interfere. Strong and resolute as she 
 was, what could she do ? 
 
 Felise instinctively glanced all round her ; 
 she looked at the wood ; at the path down 
 the embankment ; the nodding ferns ; at the 
 beeches far up on the summit each side ; 
 across at the willow-grown streamlet. She 
 felt suddenly alone. She was by herself, not 
 merely in the physical sense of no other 
 person being near, but alone morally. 
 Recognising that she could not command 
 the society she desired, forced her to feel 
 absolutely solitary. A crowd would have 
 made no difference, she would have felt the 
 same. 
 
 She could wait ? Yes, like ' Mariana in 
 the moated grange,' in the sunshine, in the 
 evening, in the morning, still with the same 
 burden on her lips, ' He cometh not.'
 
 7 8 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 Hundreds, shall we not say rather thou- 
 sands, do so wait. I saw a face, a woman's 
 face, at a window to-day, as I was strolling 
 past a residence the style of which betokened 
 wealth. Upon that face waiting had set its 
 seal unmistakably. She was waiting — she 
 had been waiting years. No end to waiting. 
 Such faces are common enough. Woman's 
 life seems to be nothing but waiting, some- 
 times. 
 
 She had unconsciously placed her elbow 
 on her knee, and leant her face on her hand ; 
 the very thought of waiting bowed her down 
 into an attitude of pensive regret. 
 
 How bitter it is to be a woman sometimes ! 
 On the other hand, no one triumphs like a 
 woman when she does triumph. Csesar's 
 spoils and car rolling through applauding 
 Rome, are but gewgaws to the triumph of a 
 woman.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I HE very thought of the waiting de- 
 pressed her ; as if a darkness had 
 fallen on her heart in the midst of 
 the sunshine. Her gloom had increased till 
 it verged on anger — the two are near together ; 
 gloom and anger are like twins. She grew 
 angry, she knew not with what, and stood 
 up. The blackbird who had been singing 
 uttered a loud ' ching-ching,' as if alarmed at 
 her change of attitude ; a moorhen at the 
 other end of the little lake scuttled into the 
 bulrush-flags. 
 
 She stood up in the sunshine, lowering her 
 sunshade, drawn to her full height, her 
 features set, a slight flush on her cheeks. A
 
 80 THE DEWY MORN. ' 
 
 silent and unchangeable resolve had been 
 forming in her mind. She would, she must, 
 she would have him with her. If he did not 
 love her — if he could not love her — there 
 was the end. But he should be in her 
 society ; he should feel her presence ; he 
 should see the meaning in her eyes ; if she 
 had any beauty he should come within reach 
 of its power. He should talk with her, sit 
 by her, do as she was doing ; not once, or 
 now and then — continually, till by degrees his 
 heart warmed, if it could warm towards her. 
 
 The forms of society were nothing to her 
 — she had already broken them. What the 
 world said did not trouble her. She was 
 reckless, ready for the most violent effort. 
 She did not care ; she would. She did not 
 stamp her foot, the resolve was too deep to 
 require a tangible emphasis ; there was no 
 fear of its vanishing. 
 
 Her features resumed their natural ex- 
 pression, her attitude became easy, but her 
 cheeks grew hotter. Though she looked
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 81 
 
 straight in front she saw nothing. Her 
 whole consciousness was rapt in resolution. 
 
 It lasted a moment, and then the question 
 arose, How ? 
 
 Immediately she raised her sunshade, and 
 sat down again. It is curious that when we 
 act, we stand ; when we think, we sit. The 
 difference is discernible in actors on the stage : 
 so long as they address each other standing, 
 the play is followed with interest ; the moment 
 they sit down, though the dialogue be ever 
 so brilliant, people take up their opera-glasse 
 and look round them. 
 
 Stage-players should always stand — it lends 
 a force to the smallest incident. To lie down 
 is more effective than to sit, it is next to 
 standing ; as, for example, the power Sarah 
 Bernhardt exercises extended on a sofa — not 
 a chair. 
 
 Felise thought and sat down. She asked 
 herself. How could this be accomplished ? 
 She thrust away from her mind the contem- 
 plation of the powerlessness of women, and 
 
 vol. i. 6
 
 82 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 concentrated her ideas upon the way it could 
 be done. She would not submit ; she would 
 not wait, to the burden of ' He cometh not.' 
 She would force circumstances to her will, 
 and mould her fate in her hands. The pre- 
 cipice was perpendicular, yet she would scale 
 it It was natural for a woman to attempt 
 the impossible. 
 
 All the strength of her limbs seemed to 
 support her resolution. Should she who 
 could race up the steep hillside, who could 
 swim, not only in this level lake, but in the 
 swelling sea, who could run apace with the 
 hounds — should she tamely stand by and see 
 her prize fall to another winner in life's 
 battle ? 
 
 The strong limbs, the deep chest, the in- 
 tense sense of life within her, urged her to 
 the effort, and promised success. 
 
 Her face would never be seen at a window 
 as the face I observed. Her nature was too 
 strong, too vehement ; if she failed, she would 
 be utterly broken ; if she failed, the end would
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 come quickly. She could not live without 
 her love. 
 
 Some dim presentiment of this perhaps 
 passed through her mind, for a tear came into 
 her eyes. If he could not love her when she 
 had gained her immediate object, what then ? 
 Of that possibility she dared not think. 
 
 The question was, How ? How obtain 
 access to him — how bring him into her 
 society ? Not for once, or twice, but day by 
 day. To be with him hour after hour ; her 
 heart beat faster at the idea of it. To look 
 into his face ; to hear his voice ; to come to 
 understand his thoughts ; to have one exist- 
 ence with him — the happiness would be 
 almost too great. That alone — merely to be 
 in his society — would be sufficient reward for 
 all the sacrifice she could make. It must be, 
 but how ? 
 
 Has anyone thought for an instant upon 
 the extreme difficulty of knowing a person ? 
 Really to know him, or her, to speak in a 
 friendly way, to visit and re-visit, and con- 
 
 6—2
 
 8 4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 verse without reserve, and become company 
 with, and part of their group. Acquaintance 
 is often difficult enough to acquire ; to really 
 come to know a stranger, or comparative 
 stranger, is most difficult. 
 
 People's entire destiny depends upon those 
 whom thev know. One's friends lift one or 
 depress one to their level. A^ genius is 
 raised up to the skies, or struggles unnoticed 
 in the grimy ranks accordingly as his ac- 
 quaintances happen to be first-class or third- 
 rate. Some men arc fortunate from their 
 youth, and are thrust forward upon the gilded 
 shoulders of money and title till the world 
 accepts them. So all-important is it on what 
 level we begin life. 
 
 We cannot select our company. Our 
 power in this matter is simply negative ; we 
 can avoid what is notoriously bad, but we 
 cannot thrust ourselves in upon the good. 
 A soldier may steadfastly refrain from the 
 canteen, but he cannot invite himself to the 
 officers' mess.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 85 
 
 The greatest difficulty in the world is to 
 know people. How are you even to let them 
 understand that you wish to know them — 
 which would often expedite the desired end 
 very considerably ? Reflect upon the vast 
 multitude of people who enter and depart 
 from London every day in 2,200 trains. 
 How can you know any one of these ? 
 
 There is a pretty woman in every train. 
 This is a physiological fact which I have 
 often observed, but how are you going to get 
 introduced to them ? 
 
 It is possible to be invited to the same 
 dinner-party, to belong to the same club, the 
 same hunt, to go so far as to salute whenever 
 meeting, and yet not to know one another. 
 The cordial greeting, the pressing invitation, 
 the glad spirit is wanting. It is a nod and 
 nothing more. 
 
 But for a woman to introduce herself to 
 a man — to select her acquaintance and her 
 friend from the ranks of the other sex — is it 
 not almost impossible ?
 
 S6 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 We live in little groups. These groups 
 have not been formed upon any definite 
 principle ; they have grown up in the course 
 of time, partly from family causes, partly from 
 casual introductions, also from causes that 
 defy analysis. Each of these little groups is 
 complete in itself, and those outside it cannot 
 get in. Observe a train, you will find that 
 it runs upon rails ; another train may be near, 
 but cannot move itself upon those rails ; each 
 train has its metals. These groups remain 
 in their Lrrooves. 
 
 Yet the singularity of the thing is that 
 although perseverance, application and ad- 
 mitted merit will not prevail to get an out- 
 sider into such a group, the merest outsider 
 may enter at a moment's notice by some 
 little chance. 
 
 Women consequently marry inside this 
 group, with some one with* whom they have 
 been brought into contact through family 
 connections. Or else they leap, as it were, 
 quite beyond the group, and are carried away
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 87 
 
 by a total outsider accidentally met. If they 
 do not belong to any group, and do not meet 
 an outsider, then they have to continue un- 
 married. They cannot choose their friends, 
 or their partners ; they can refuse (the nega- 
 tive) ; they cannot select. 
 
 Some method is clearly required by which 
 people without scandal or solecism might 
 communicate with each other, and make it 
 understood that they wish to be acquainted. 
 At the present moment, even a man cannot 
 ride up to a house and say, ' Sir, I admire 
 your niece (or your daughter). Permit me to 
 visit you. So-and-so are my references. I 
 await your reply after you have made in- 
 quiries.' But why not ? It would be quite 
 reasonable ; people would soon agree to the 
 custom. 
 
 However, the ladies would demand a 
 corresponding right. Could they not be 
 permitted to send a card with a few litho- 
 graphed words in a conventional sentence 
 amounting to a permission to visit them ?
 
 88 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 The very novelists, with all their ingenuity, 
 have been troubled for ages to discover a 
 means of introducing their characters to each 
 other. Sometimes they cause their heroes 
 to break a leg and be carried into a stranger's 
 house, where they are nursed, and win a 
 heart. Or a horse runs away with the lady, 
 who is gallantly rescued. In real life such 
 events are as rare as legacies. A lady, in 
 Boccaccio's collection of stories, ingeniously 
 uses the confessional as a means of securing 
 a lover, showing that the difficulty was felt 
 even then. 
 
 Half the flower-shows, the working-parties, 
 the ' causes ' got up and pursued so zealously, 
 are only supported because people uncon- 
 sciously recognise in them a means of mixing 
 with each other.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HERE was nothing in the position 
 of Felise Goring or Martial 
 Barnard to prevent their know- 
 ing each other. They were much in 
 the same position. Felise depended upon 
 her uncle, who possessed a comfortable 
 house, the most beautiful grounds (laid out 
 and planted by himself) ; who could provide 
 a bountiful table, but could scarce summon 
 up a coin. She had little beyond some fine 
 pearls, once her mother's. As for Barnard, 
 he occupied a very large farm ; his family 
 had been once well-to-do, but he really had 
 nothing. Outwardly he was a desirable 
 match — his family had had something of a
 
 9c THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 county reputation — financially speaking, he 
 was undesirable. His education, his manners, 
 his ideas, were much above his pocket. An 
 impecunious pair ; neither of them had any- 
 thing to recommend them. 
 
 But there was no obstacle whatever in 
 their position to prevent their knowing each 
 other, except the insurmountable one that 
 they did not know each other in the 
 social sense. Their families had not visited ; 
 their connections did not belong to the same 
 group. The houses were not more than 
 three miles apart, but they were effectually 
 isolated. Such cases must occur to every- 
 one ; there must be thousands of them. 
 There was nothing between — only separa- 
 tion. 
 
 They had met thrice. Once in the pre- 
 vious autumn, when Felise was following the 
 harriers on foot, for she ran as swiftly as 
 Atalanta. They sat near each other at lunch. 
 Once Barnard called upon Mr. Goring in 
 the winter in reference to some formal
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 91 
 
 business about the water-course. The third 
 time was on Ashpen Hill, just after sunrise. 
 There had been no formal introduction, and 
 there was nothing in these accidental meet- 
 ings likely to lead to their meeting again. 
 
 The difficulty lay in the vacancy, as it 
 were — the lack of anything to lay hold of. 
 No slender thread existed by which com- 
 munication could be effected. Without a 
 doubt Felise would not have hesitated to 
 have gone at once straight up to his hall- 
 door ; but then — oh, the cunning of woman ! 
 — she knew (their cunning comes without 
 teaching) that to be too openly forward, 
 especially if there were witnesses, as there 
 would be, would probably defeat the object. 
 
 Still there was nothing she would not do if 
 necessary. She must ; she could not live 
 without his society. But if possible it should 
 be effected insidiously, so that the object 
 might not be too immediately displayed. 
 
 Felise ran over several expedients in her 
 mind as she sat on the beam of the hatch.
 
 92 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 Feigning an interest in some old book, and 
 pretending to have heard that he possessed 
 it, she could call and ask for the loan. 
 Walking a loner distance she could become 
 faint and weary while passing, and beg to 
 rest. She might trespass on the grounds 
 and sketch till she was seen. Most likely 
 some one's curiosity would bring them out to 
 talk to her. 
 
 There were some ladies at his house, 
 cousins she believed, not very young ; these 
 might be useful if once spoken to. On the 
 other hand, very likely they would detect her 
 purpose, and set obstacles in her way. Or 
 she could whip the stream for trout till she 
 crossed his path as he went his rounds about 
 his farm ; he could hardly avoid coming to 
 speak to her. Perhaps he would attend some 
 of the public entertainments occasionally 
 given in the town of Maasbury, a few miles 
 distant. She could manage to leave the 
 building at the same moment, and confront 
 him in the doorway.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 93 
 
 She must see him, and he must see her 
 face. Perhaps if he saw it frequently, it 
 might please him. 
 
 She went and knelt at the edge of the still 
 pool, and looked over at her own reflection in 
 the water. Felise made no affected secret to 
 herself of her beauty ; she knew that she had 
 beauty, and did not conceal it from herself in 
 any form of self-depreciation. She delighted 
 in it ; it pleased her intense, vigorous life to 
 look at it. She enjoyed a sensuous repose 
 while contemplating her face, or even her 
 bare arms sometimes as she dressed her hair. 
 She enjoyed herself. 
 
 Her eyelids drooped slightly, the expres- 
 sion of her eyes became softer, her lips parted 
 in the very least ; it was something like how 
 she looked when love was throbbing in her 
 veins — only not so vehement, because she was 
 receiving instead of giving. Her own exist- 
 ence came back to her. The glow of youth and 
 loveliness was reflected back into her mind. 
 How beautiful it must be to be beautiful !
 
 94 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 How delicious it is, even for the plainest of 
 us, to sit before that which is beautiful, and 
 sink into a semi-unconscious state of happi- 
 ness ! For it is happiness to gaze at that 
 which is lovely, whether, a living face or a 
 pictured one. 
 
 What lovelv faces some of the Italian 
 painters have chosen for the Madonna ! No 
 theological persuasion is needed to induce us 
 to gaze at her. Such beauty naturally creates 
 a sense of delicate reverence ; it delights and 
 purifies at once. An evil thought is im- 
 possible before it ; the heart, for the moment 
 at least, becomes morally beautiful in corre- 
 spondence with the pictured face. 
 
 Felise orazed down at herself in the still 
 clear water, and enjoyed her own beauty. 
 She loved herself for being beautiful. This 
 was apart from thought of Martial ; it was 
 herself for herself ; just as she joyed in her 
 strength when she swam, in her swiftness 
 when she ran. A sensuous and yet a deli- 
 cate pleasure.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 95 
 
 And Martial ? It was a triumph to her to 
 look at herself — he must see her face fre- 
 quently ; could he refuse to love ? 
 
 But men vary in their standards of loveli- 
 ness, and some do not apparently care for it 
 at all. Differ as they may, however, unless 
 perfectly indifferent, there are some whose 
 beauty is so apart and distinct, that it must 
 be acknowledged. Yet not necessarily loved. 
 
 If Martial admitted her beauty in time, 
 would he even then love her ? He mi^ht 
 admire and turn away. 
 
 Still gazing at her face, Felise thought she 
 discovered something more there than loveli- 
 ness ; she thought she saw the power to call 
 forth passion in another's breast. In that 
 thought she dreamed in the midst of the 
 day. 
 
 Of all time all that have lived have been 
 covetous of possessing this power ; see the 
 legends which have been invented of charms, 
 which concealed about the person rendered 
 the wearer attractive ; read the sorceries of
 
 96 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 ancient Rome ; go across then to Scandi- 
 navia, and listen to the bugle whose sound 
 drew the maidens to the player. Man and 
 woman alike, so do not condemn woman. 
 
 Some failings are far more desirable than 
 that which passes for virtue. This is one of 
 them. Felise did desire to be loved ; she 
 acknowledged it to herself; she dreamed in 
 the thought that perhaps she possessed the 
 power — if only he could see her face fre- 
 quently. If! 
 
 Rising from the water's side she went on 
 to the boathouse, and shut herself in the 
 compartment prepared for dressing. 
 
 The idle trout were floating but just be- 
 neath the surface of the illumined pool. 
 Now and then one would touch the surface 
 with the tip of his lips, causing the tiniest 
 ripple, which immediately returned to the 
 level. He seemed as if he had a partial 
 mind to the midges which moved to and fro ; 
 nothing could be easier for him than to take 
 them. In fact, he had not the least appetite ;
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 97 
 
 he was merely idling. Had a skilled angler 
 cast the line so gently as not to cause the 
 least splash, had the most tempting fly been 
 dropped on his very mouth, the trout would 
 have regarded it without interest. 
 
 Some greenfinches came down to drink at 
 the shallow edge, where there was a strip of 
 sward. After they had sipped they departed 
 up the valley over the wood, laughing in their 
 gossip as they went. A dove flew up into 
 a beech on the same side of the pool, but did 
 not ' coo ;' he remained perched and ob- 
 servant. Several times a thrush brought 
 food for her young who were hidden in the 
 ferns and tall grasses by the sward, and each 
 time returned without descending to them, as 
 if there was a stoat lying in wait. 
 
 Among the grey-green bulrushes, farther 
 up the pool where it contracted, the moorhen 
 was now feeding again complacently, and two 
 black little ones swam beside her. Under 
 the shadow of willows by the shore, there the 
 golden lamps of the yellow iris shone. Sun- 
 
 vol. 1. 7
 
 98 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 light lit up the broad clear surface — so clear 
 that the rays penetrated nearly to the bottom 
 even in the deeper parts. Continually flow- 
 ing, the roar of the cataract over the hatches 
 rose like the excited sound of a multitude 
 crying for the show to begin. A pleasant, 
 soothing rush of splashing water ; the very 
 sound diminished the summer heat.
 
 fe' 'J^ii^ ' 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ELISE opened the door of the 
 bathing-room, and stepped out 
 upon the platform before it. She 
 stood in the shadow of the beeches behind ; 
 all the rest of the pool was in bright light. 
 Her bathing-tunic was blue, bordered with 
 white, and fringed with gold — such a tunic as 
 might have been worn by a Grecian maiden. 
 It was loose about her shoulders, they were 
 nearly bare ; her arms quite so. In the 
 shade the whiteness and purity of her skin 
 was wonderfully beautiful. It gleamed in 
 the cool shade, more so than the yellow iris 
 flowers, though they had the advantage of 
 bright colour.
 
 ioo THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 The beauty of a perfect skin is so great, to 
 gaze at it is happiness. The world holds no 
 enjoyment like the view of beauty. 
 
 Her white feet were at the very edge of 
 the dull boards, so that her reflection was 
 complete in the water had anyone been look- 
 ing from the opposite shore. She put up 
 her hands to settle the strings of pearls in 
 her hair, to make certain that they would not 
 come loose. It was Felise's fancy to wear 
 her pearls — her only jewellery and dowry — 
 when she bathed out of doors in the sun- 
 shine. She decked herself for the bath — 
 the bath not only in water, but in the air and 
 light — as if she had been going to a temple 
 in the ancient times. 
 
 With her hands employed at the back of 
 her head and arms raised, the contour of her 
 form was accentuated. The deep broad 
 chest, the bust, the hips, filled out. The 
 action of lifting the arms in this manner 
 opens the ribs, decreases the waist, slightly 
 curves the back, and extends and develops
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 101 
 
 every line. A sculptor should have chosen 
 her in such an attitude. 
 
 In a moment, lifting her hands and joining 
 them high above her head, she dived — the 
 pearls glistened as she passed out of the 
 shadow into the sunlight, and the water hid 
 her completely. 
 
 The dove flew, startled from his branch in 
 the beech ; a swallow that had been coming 
 to drink, as he flew, mounted again into the 
 air. 
 
 She rose at some distance from the diving- 
 platform, and immediately struck out slowly, 
 swimming on her chest. Her chin was well 
 out of water, and sometimes her neck ; her 
 chest held so large a volume of air that she 
 was as buoyant as a water-bird. It needed 
 no effort to keep afloat ; all her strength was 
 at liberty to be used in propulsion. Swim- 
 ming towards the hatch, presently she turned 
 and came back to the platform, then out 
 again into the centre of the pool, where she 
 floated, dived under, and floated again.
 
 io2 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 Gathering enegry from practice and the 
 touch of the water, she now swam on her 
 side, following the margin of the pool all 
 round, so as to have a larger course. Twice 
 she went round without a pause — swimming 
 her swiftest, equal, in a direct line, to several 
 hundred yards. Still joying in the sunlight 
 and the water, she continued again for the 
 third circle. Her passage was even swifter, 
 her vigour grew with the labour. 
 
 The water drew back the tunic from her 
 right shoulder, which shone almost at the 
 surface ; her white right arm swept back- 
 wards, grasping the wave ; her left arm was 
 concealed, being under her, and deeper. It 
 is the fastest, the easiest, and the most grace- 
 ful mode of swimming. In the moment 
 when her rounded right arm was sweeping 
 backwards, clearly visible in the limpid water 
 —just as the stroke was nearly completed — 
 the sculptor might again have obtained an 
 inspiration. For at that moment there was 
 repose in action, the exertion of the stroke
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 103 
 
 finishing, the form gliding easily, the left 
 cheek resting as if reposing on the surface. 
 
 At the completion of the third round, 
 Felise swam to the shallow grassy shore, 
 where Shaw was now waiting for her. 
 
 ' Oh, how you do panck !' (pant), said 
 Shaw, laughing, as Felise walked up out of 
 the water on to the turf, and sat down at the 
 edee of the shadow of the beech. Her 
 breast was heaving with the labour, her deep 
 grey eyes shone as if enlarged ; there was a 
 slight increase of colour in her face. She 
 •was not in the least exhausted ; she was ex- 
 hilarated to the utmost. Shaw chatted beside 
 her ; Felise neither heard nor heeded, she 
 was full of the influence of the air and light 
 and limpid fountain. 
 
 There was something almost sacred to her 
 in the limpid water, in the sweet air, and the 
 light of day. The flower in the grass was 
 not only colour, it was alive. The water 
 was not merely a smooth surface, the air not 
 merely an invisible current, the light not
 
 104 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 merely illumination. As if they had been 
 living powers, so they influenced her. A 
 feeling entered her from them : the light, the 
 air, the water, the soft sward on which her 
 hand rested, life came to her from them. 
 
 With them she felt her own life, she knew 
 her own fulness of existence. Like this the 
 maidens of ancient Greece sang to the 
 stream when they filled their urns. Even 
 Socrates the wisest sat pondering in reverence 
 by the stream. Felise was full of the deli- 
 cious influence of the great powers of nature. 
 This susceptibility rendered her love so rich 
 and deep. 
 
 She sat leaning on her left hand, her knees 
 lying sideways, and her right hand on her 
 ankle ; the upper part of her form in shadow* 
 her limbs in the brilliant light. The beams 
 fell on her white rounded knees ; the right 
 knee being uppermost was entirely in light, 
 but it cast a partial shadow on the left one. 
 
 Twins in exquisite whiteness and shape 
 they reposed together, the under one a little
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 105 
 
 in advance. The knee-cap (which in woman 
 is small), slipping naturally aside, left a space 
 on the summit of each knee smooth and 
 almost level, perhaps in the least degree 
 concave. Upon these lovely surfaces the 
 light rested lovingly ; in the wide earth there 
 was no spot the sun loved so well. 
 
 The rounded supple knee is where the 
 form hinges ; there all is poised. They are 
 the centres from which beauty rises. With 
 the knee all grace begins ; they bend, and at 
 the same moment the neck bows, and the 
 forehead droops. Resting on them firmly 
 the shape rises, the neck is straightened, and 
 the brow thrown back. All is poised on 
 the knee. 
 
 Because of its varying mood of grace 
 the knee can with difficulty be seized in 
 sculpture or painting. The least flexure 
 alters the contour. Now from head to foot 
 it is the flesh that is beautiful, that which 
 covers and conceals the bones and muscles 
 under its texture. Such is the rule,
 
 io6 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 to express beauty you must delineate the 
 adipose tissue ; the knee is the excep- 
 tion. 
 
 Here the bone — the knee-cap — is but thinly 
 covered, and there is cartilage and sinew ; not 
 much more than the skin hides them. Here 
 is the only place where the bone and sinew 
 can approach the surface — can be recognised 
 — and yet not interfere with the sense of 
 loveliness. Why so ? 
 
 Because at this centre motion commences ; 
 the idea of motion is inseparable from it, motion 
 in graceful lines. In walking it is the knee 
 that gives the step, in the dance, stooping 
 to gather flowers, bending to prayer ; from 
 the knee passion springs to the arms of her 
 lover. We have seen these movements and 
 admired them, and the eve transfers their 
 grace to the knee. 
 
 But it is also of itself shaped. There alone 
 the bone and sinew assume an exquisite form. 
 I cannot tell you why the human heart yearns 
 towards that which is rounded, smooth,
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 shapely ; it is an instinct in the depth of our 
 nature. 
 
 The knee is so very human, so nearly 
 sorrowful in its humanity ; sorrow seeks its 
 knees, sadness bends on them, love desiring 
 in secret does so on its knees. They have 
 been bent in many moods in so many lands 
 so many many centuries past. Human life 
 is centred in the knee. In the knee we 
 recognise all that the heart has experienced. 
 
 Beautiful knees, the poise and centre of the 
 form ! Were I rich, how gladly I would 
 give a thousand pounds for a true picture of 
 the knee ! and if the coloured shadow on 
 convas were worth so much, how many times 
 multiplied the value of the original reality ! 
 
 However indifferent the person may be — 
 the individual — to see the knee is to love it 
 for itself. 
 
 The shadow of the upper one partially 
 encroached on the lower ; round about the 
 under knee, too, the short grass rose. Im- 
 mediately behind, the least way higher than
 
 io8 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 the upper knee, the bullion fringe of the 
 tunic drooped across the white skin. Her 
 left hand rested among the daisies ; her feet 
 reached nearly to some golden lotus flowers. 
 
 The left, or under foot, was much hidden 
 by the grass ; the grass touched warm, having 
 been hours in the sunshine. The upper foot 
 was visible, and two straight strokes — two 
 parallel dimples crossed the large toe (the 
 thumb of the foot) at the second joint. 
 
 She held her ankle lightly with her right 
 hand, so that her right arm descended beside 
 her body. Bare from the shoulder in its 
 luxurious fulness, it reposed against her. 
 The slight pressure of its own weight 
 enlarged it midway between the shoulder 
 and the elbow. But the left arm being 
 straightened appeared, on the contrary, 
 largest at the shoulder. 
 
 That shoulder — the left — raised a little 
 higher than the other, On account of her 
 position, was partly bare, the tunic having 
 slipped somewhat. Unconsciously she pressed
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 109 
 
 her cheek against it, feeling and caressing it. 
 Her shoulder lifted itself a little to meet the 
 embrace of her cheek, and the tunic slipped 
 still more, giving it and that side of her 
 bust freedom to the air. She liked to feel 
 herself ; the soft skin of the shoulder met the 
 softer cheek ; her lips touched the place 
 where arm and shoulder are about to mingle. 
 Shaw thought Felise had finished bathing, 
 and kneeling behind her, undid her hair, 
 which fell and reached the grass. It was 
 somewhat wavy, very thick and long, and 
 delicate in texture. As it descended it con- 
 cealed the beautiful shoulders like a mantle. 
 She took her strings of pearls from Shaw, 
 and held them in her right hand ; she valued 
 them greatly, and scarcely cared to let even 
 Shaw carry them. 
 
 A red butterfly came by and hovered 
 about her knee, inclined to alight, but per- 
 ceiving that it glistened with the water, flew 
 onwards over the pool. 
 
 Felise moved her feet among the grass,
 
 no THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 she liked to feel it ; she extended her foot to 
 the golden lotus flowers. But the moment 
 of luxurious enjoyment of the sunlight and 
 the air, the liberty of the tunic, was over ; 
 her active nature reasserted itself; she rose 
 and walked towards the bathing apartment 
 to dress. 
 
 ' There's a rabbit in the ferns,' said Shaw, 
 following her ; ' I heard him rustle twice. 
 Wonder why you won't talk to-day, now. If 
 I was to run round the water like you swim 
 round, I should die of pancking [panting], I 
 should.' 
 
 She looked as if such exertion would over- 
 come her : short, plump, and merry. 
 
 Felise took no heed of Shaw's chatter ; 
 she was thinking how to accomplish her 
 resolution.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FEW days after Barnard met Felise 
 on Ashpen, he was walking by the 
 side of the little estuary where the 
 trout-stream entered the sea. It was a lonely 
 spot, but he looked round to see that no one 
 was near. Then he took from his pocket 
 Felise's handkerchief, and the piece of mane 
 which she had plaited ; and rolling them care- 
 fully up round a heavy pebble, he stepped to 
 the edge of the low cliff and hurled the 
 pebble as far as he could into the sea. 
 
 Next, he walked home rapidly, mounted 
 Ruy, and rode up to the solitary beech-tree 
 on the downs, under which Felise had stood. 
 The letter ' M ' showed much more plainly
 
 ii2 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 now the sap had dried — it appeared very- 
 distinct. Barnard got off his horse, and 
 taking out his knife cut a circle round the 
 entire letter, which he then tore off, leaving 
 nothing but a circular mark on the tree. 
 The strip of bark he broke in pieces, and 
 flung in various directions ; then re-mounted, 
 and rode home. Thus he got rid of every 
 trace of that morning's interview. 
 
 He would not be fooled any more ; or, 
 rather, he would not fool himself a second 
 time. Why should he persuade himself into 
 a state of feeling that was not natural to 
 him ? Felise was nothing to him. 
 
 To understand his proceedings it is neces- 
 sary to very briefly recount a part of his 
 history. Like every young man when he 
 surmounted his teens, he thought it was 
 proper for him to fall in love. There was a 
 young lady in Maasbury town, the daughter 
 and heiress of Mr. Wood, a wealthy wine 
 merchant, from whom the Barnards had had 
 their wine for some years. Rosa was a few
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 113 
 
 months younger than himself, bright and 
 talkative ; in appearance of the middle 
 height. She had a low forehead with much 
 dark hair about it — the forehead was not 
 really low, but the hair came down it. 
 
 Her eyes were brown, the eyebrows well 
 arched, the lips a little thin, but red and 
 laughing. Perhaps her smile was the most 
 effective of her attractions, but she had a 
 very fair figure, and much of the glow of 
 youth in her cheek. Rose was indeed de- 
 cidedly good-looking, not so much from any 
 especial quality as the aggregate of her 
 appearance. She was clever, and fond of 
 reading, and she was the heiress to the mer- 
 chant's money. No one could have found 
 fault with Barnard's choice ; the lady was 
 eligible in every way. 
 
 Accordingly he began to pay his addresses 
 to her in a manner which soon distanced 
 every competitor. In the first place he was 
 handsome, and in rather an unusual style ; 
 full of life and animated. He was the pre- 
 
 vol. 1. 8
 
 ii4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 sent representative of a good family. He 
 rode a splendid horse. It was very nice to 
 go over to the Manor House Farm on a 
 picnic. Then there was no other gentleman 
 in the neighbourhood at all his equal ; they 
 were boors in comparison, and a woman 
 naturally likes to carry off the leading indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 Barnard had received an exceptionally 
 good education, and, what is much more im- 
 portant, he had moved in good society as a 
 lad when manners are formed. Some rich 
 and high-placed friends had taken him with 
 them into houses in London not easy to 
 enter. They had designed him to occupy a 
 forward place, and even talked of Parlia- 
 ment. But a quarrel accidentally arose be- 
 tween them and Barnard's parents, and the 
 boy had to suffer because his elders dis- 
 agreed. Barnard returned to the country 
 and the somewhat solitary life of a farm- 
 house. 
 
 By nature his ideas were elevated and
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 115 
 
 aspiring ; he read much, and of the most 
 varied authors, and some of the spirit of the 
 great dramatists and poets entered into his 
 mind. Youth is always romantic ; Martial's 
 romance was heightened by a quick imagina- 
 tion which coloured evervthinor As he 
 moved about the hills, and by the sea, his 
 ideas went with him, and the scene was filled 
 with fip-ures and thoughts. 
 
 When he fell in love with Rosa — or be- 
 lieved that he had done so — he transferred 
 these romantic imaginings to her. He sur- 
 rounded her with a cloud (as the immortal 
 goddesses were enveloped), and hid the real 
 woman from himself by the fervour of his 
 fancy. Though he did not write verses, he 
 looked upon her, and acted towards her, as a 
 poet might. There was a delicate refinement 
 in all the attentions he paid her which could 
 only proceed from a sensitive and highly- 
 wrought nature. 
 
 Rosa really loved him, but she was not in 
 the least what he thought ; he had conferred 
 
 8 — 2
 
 u6 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 upon her attributes which she was incapable 
 even of understanding. She would have made 
 a good wife under ordinary circumstances, 
 but she was commonplace. She loved with- 
 out passion ; she had neither the fire of love 
 nor of ambition. There really was no fault 
 to be found with her ; but she was not what 
 Martial fancied she was. 
 
 This lad's courtship continued for some 
 two years, during which he exhausted every 
 extravagance a poetical nature is capable of. 
 Every exalted sentiment in his favourite 
 poets and dramatists he associated with 
 Rosa. 
 
 Towards the end of the two years, how- 
 ever, a change began to take place. We all 
 know how slowlv the tide rises or ebbs, and 
 so in life. Alterations commence and pro- 
 ceed a considerable length before they are 
 recognised. A certain feeling of weariness 
 overcame him. He went to see her as fre- 
 quently as ever, yet he found himself less 
 eager to start, and felt a sense of freedom
 
 THE DEWY MORN. u 7 
 
 when the evening was over and he rode 
 home. 
 
 He received an invitation to visit a friend 
 for a fortnight, and upon his return it seemed 
 to him that Rosa had completely changed. 
 Where was the grace, the beauty, the glow 
 that had fascinated him two years ago ? 
 Where was that indefinable attraction he had 
 experienced so powerfully ? He could look at 
 her now without emotion. 
 
 The truth was the dream was fading, and 
 he was beginning to see the woman as she 
 was, and not as he had painted her to him- 
 self. He had poured out all his heart to her 
 — now he had nothing further to give, he saw 
 her as she really existed. 
 
 He had met her too soon. If he had not 
 known her till he was forty, possibly he 
 might have married her as a matter of judg- 
 ment. 
 
 Once a lover sees his mistress as com- 
 monplace, the spell is over. Rosa wearied 
 him, and he soon found his attendance upon
 
 n8 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 her a burden. Yet he was bound by his 
 own previous conduct to continue it. 
 
 An incident now occurred which should 
 have been welcome to him, as giving him his 
 freedom, but which he considered to bind 
 him still more strongly. His cousins, who 
 resided at the Manor House free of ex- 
 pense, required a sum of money to convert a 
 lease into a freehold. Their fortune consisted 
 of the lease of several well-situated houses in 
 a fashionable watering-place, which they sub- 
 let to great advantage. The houses had not 
 many years now to run, and they were be- 
 moaning themselves at the prospect of losing 
 their income, when an unexpected oppor- 
 tunity occurred to purchase the freehold at a 
 moderate price. 
 
 They begged Barnard to let them have 
 the money in payment of an old debt due 
 from his father to their father. One brother 
 had borrowed from the other, and had never 
 been able to repay the principal without en- 
 dangering his position. True, he had re-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 119 
 
 paid sums of ^50 and ^100 on several 
 occasions ; true, the children (these ladies), 
 since their father's death, had resided at the 
 Manor House. 
 
 Their education had been paid for, and 
 since they came to womanhood an annual 
 sum equal to the interest on the loan had 
 been handed over to them. The actual loan 
 in these varied ways had been returned 
 over and over again, yet it had never been 
 formally repaid. 
 
 Martial was too young and too generous 
 to plead these things, and the extremely 
 exhausted state of his own finances. He 
 promised to let them have the money, but he 
 had to borrow it, and the knowledge of this 
 came to Mr. Wood's ears. 
 
 Mr. Wood had never supposed Barnard to 
 be wealthy ; still, when a man lives in a 
 fine house — almost a mansion — -keeps a good 
 table, and rides a good horse, even a keen 
 merchant can sometimes scarcely believe he 
 is deep in the abyss of poverty. But when
 
 i2o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 he found that Barnard had been borrowing 
 money he made inquiries, and discovered 
 that the accepted suitor of his daughter and 
 heiress was really penniless. 
 
 Mr. Godwin, the a<rent or steward of the 
 estate of which the Manor House Farm was 
 a part, had even been heard to say that 
 Barnard only remained a tenant upon suf- 
 ferance, for his rent was in arrear. 
 
 As a matter of course, Mr. Wood upon 
 this informed his daughter and Barnard one 
 evening that their engagement must be 
 broken off for the present. If Barnard suc- 
 ceeded some day in regaining a position, he 
 would be welcome indeed. If not, as a 
 gentleman, he must see that Rosa could not 
 be his. Not to prejudice Rosa's chances, 
 Barnard must in future be more sparing in 
 his visits. 
 
 From different causes the lovers received 
 this intelligence calmly enough. Rosa shed 
 a few tears, and then reflected that after all 
 Martial could still call once a week. In time
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 121 
 
 the seasons would alter ; there would be good 
 crops, and Martial would have money. Be- 
 sides, they were both very young, and by- 
 and-by, when Mr. Wood saw how constant 
 she was to Martial, he would relent ; she 
 was sure he would. Her estimate of the 
 circumstances was probably accurate. She 
 did not weep any more, but went about her 
 usual employment cheerfully. 
 
 Martial worked himself into a fever of 
 excitement (not that he let her see his irri- 
 tation), but his annoyance was with himself, 
 because he did not feel any indignation. 
 He knew, if he would admit the truth to 
 himself, that it was a welcome release from 
 an irksome position. But he ought to have 
 been burning with indignation — he ought to 
 have called upon all the gods, and at least 
 persuaded Rosa to elope with him. 
 
 Instead of which, a sense of complacency 
 stole over him. He could walk and ride and 
 read without the inward necessity of asso- 
 ciating every idea with Rosa.
 
 122 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 But just in proportion as he felt this sense 
 of complacency, so he resolved to force 
 himself to remain faithful to his first choice, 
 to confirm all his vows, and ultimately to 
 carry them into effect. He wrote in this 
 vein to Rosa, promised eternal constancy, 
 and when he saw her, renewed his promises ; 
 yet even in the act of speaking he could not 
 help noticing that her eyes showed no trace 
 of midnight tears, nor did her manner seem 
 the least decree less cheerful. 
 
 Still, no matter what he thought, he must 
 conscientiously carry out his plighted word ; 
 it was his duty ; the duty of every lover. 
 He ought to do it ; the fitness of things 
 demanded it. To be constant under all cir- 
 cumstances was the role of his position. 
 Romance ruled him as powerfully as ever, 
 although his illusions had ceased. Each 
 week his one call became more and more a 
 labour ; each week he resolved more firmly 
 to fulfil the original understanding to the 
 letter.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 BOUT three months after this ex- 
 planation and the repudiation of 
 the engagement, it happened one 
 day that Martial was following the harriers 
 on the hills, when, to his surprise, he ob- 
 served a lady running on foot with such 
 speed that she kept pace with the horsemen. 
 He could not help noticing her grace, and 
 admiring the swiftness with which she ran. 
 He saw her quite close several times during 
 the day. 
 
 As he rode homewards, he stopped to 
 speak with a friend, who asked him to take 
 some refreshment (a collation had been on 
 the table all day for passing sportsmen), and
 
 i2 4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 it so happened that a lady whom Felise had 
 met in the field had brought her there for the 
 same purpose. By accident Martial sat op- 
 posite Felise, and her face from that hour 
 was painted irremovably in the chamber of 
 his mind. 
 
 He did not see her again in the field, for 
 Felise fancied that she had attracted undue 
 attention. Bold as she was in her own love's 
 cause, she was sensitive to observation at 
 other times, and she did not run again after 
 the harriers. 
 
 But in the winter it happened that a little 
 matter of business arose between Barnard 
 and Mr. Goring about a watercourse in which 
 both were interested, and in order to settle 
 it amicably a personal interview was desir- 
 able. Barnard rode over, and for the second 
 time met Felise. On this occasion the inter- 
 view was even shorter and more formal, but 
 it was long enough to confirm Martial's first 
 impression. 
 
 Week after week, as he sat by Rosa, he
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 125 
 
 saw the face of Felise. He did not feel the 
 least emotion of love for Felise, but he saw 
 her face before him. Day by day his weari- 
 ness increased, till his position towards Rosa 
 became intolerable. He could not endure 
 her ; it was a misery to him to spend even 
 the short time now permitted in her pre- 
 sence. It was not hatred, it was worse — it 
 was utter ennui and dislike. The more this 
 grew upon him, so much the more, according 
 to his code, he was bound to conscientiously 
 attend her. 
 
 No fresh-sprung passion for Felise mingled 
 with this revulsion. All his ideas of Felise 
 were simply admiration, the admiration given 
 to a picture. The singular loveliness of her 
 features and the grace of her form took a 
 deep hold of his artistic nature, but his heart 
 did not throb. Her influence was negative. 
 She had not inspired him with passion, but 
 she had thrown up the object of his previous 
 admiration into unpleasant relief. 
 
 He now saw only too plainly that Rosa
 
 i26 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 was only pretty ; pretty, because she was 
 young. He did not like a low forehead 
 overhung by a quantity of dark hair. Her 
 figure was not full ; her shape looked flat to 
 him now ; her walk was clumsy ; and he 
 observed that she brought down the toe of 
 her boot after the heel, making a second 
 stump distinctly. These two clumping noises 
 irritated him. Somehow her dresses never 
 suited her, though they were expensive ; her 
 conversation was insufferably insipid. In 
 fact, he was for ever unconsciously com- 
 paring her with Felise, and continually find- 
 ing out additional defects. 
 
 All he wanted was to be free ; he did not 
 want Felise, but he wished to be free of 
 Rosa. 
 
 He looked back upon his extravagances 
 with such disgust as to feel ready to kill 
 himself for having committed them. The 
 quotations, for instance,, from his favourite 
 poems, which he had applied to Rosa — he 
 put the very books away out of sight, that
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 127 
 
 they might not remind him. Unless it was 
 necessary, he carefully avoided entering the 
 town, simply because she lived there ; yet he 
 called every week, and paid her the same 
 attentions. 
 
 The disgust with which he looked back 
 upon his own former sentiments was much 
 stronger than the dislike he felt towards 
 Rosa herself. Though he now saw her 
 defects so distinctly, he could not help 
 owning that she had committed no fault. 
 His anger was with himself. 
 
 Despite his efforts to forget, and despite 
 the putting away of his books, every now 
 and then he caught himself applying the old 
 quotations to Felise, to whom they fitted 
 exactly. 
 
 This rendered him still more irritable ; 
 nothing on earth should ever induce him to 
 commit such fooleries again. He did not 
 love Felise, and he did not want to love her. 
 Had he not read about love he should never 
 have loved at all, nor understood what it
 
 128 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 meant. Such reading ought to be destroyed, 
 placing, as it did, stilted and unreal ideas 
 into young people's heads. 
 
 A man did not need anything of the kind ; 
 a man ought to be quite independent of such 
 fancies ; a man should be quite free and 
 independent, and walk about, and whistle, 
 and think of nothing-. Fellows who were 
 always paying court to women became effe- 
 minate and contemptible. A woman's ser- 
 vitor, such as he had been — and still was 
 — was despicable. He despised himself 
 thoroughly. He easily found examples in 
 history to support his new views, such as 
 that of Alexander the Great, who conquered 
 the world, and was reported indifferent to 
 women. But Mark Antony quitted the 
 stage at the end of a petticoat. Ignominious ! 
 
 At the same time, he was always thinking 
 about the beautiful face of the woman he had 
 seen but twice. Several times he rode to- 
 wards Mr. Goring's house, thinking that he 
 might see her in the garden as he passed,
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 129 
 
 but on approaching turned back, accusing 
 himself of disloyalty to Rosa. After these 
 rides he had fits of contempt, despising him- 
 self for even thinking of a woman. 
 
 Still, he reasoned that it was quite possible 
 to admire beauty, and yet to be perfectly 
 heart-whole, and to avoid the absurdities of 
 which he had been guilty. Artists employed 
 the most handsome models they could find, 
 but did not fall in love with them. His 
 admiration of Felise was purely artistic. 
 Any other woman — if as beautiful — would 
 have suited him as well to look at. 
 
 Currents of thought or emotion go on for 
 a long time in the mind before a step is 
 taken. The step came at last ; Barnard 
 began to omit his weekly call upon Rosa. 
 First, he missed a week, then a fortnight, 
 then three weeks. The commonplace woman 
 for a time was perfectly satisfied with his 
 explanations — the pressure of work in the 
 spring season, and so on. It was quite right 
 he should attend to the farm, since, if not, he 
 
 vol. 1. 9
 
 130 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 could not marry her. The intervals between 
 his visits were tedious, still they passed. 
 
 But when Barnard did not call for an 
 entire month, an uneasy feeling came over 
 her. She began to think about him in a 
 different strain, and soon recollected number- 
 less trifling - circumstances which increased 
 her anxiety. Rosa had never encouraged 
 his extravagances, but she missed them. 
 Certainly Barnard was not so attentive as he 
 had been. 
 
 At last she determined to go over and see 
 him, and did so. He accompanied her home, 
 and, so far as outward manner was concerned, 
 she found him unchanged. Her subtler 
 instincts being aroused, she was all the same 
 confirmed in her dread that Barnard was 
 beginning not to care for her. As he did 
 not call again, nor write, she was sure that 
 he had ceased to love her. 
 
 This commonplace woman, accordingly, 
 after weeping silently out of sight at night 
 for a little while, composed herself, and ad-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 131 
 
 dressed a short letter to her former lover. 
 In a few simple sentences she told him that 
 she saw plainly enough he was tired of her ; 
 and that being so, she wished him to con- 
 sider himself perfectly free. She loved him 
 with her whole heart, and she should always 
 be his. That was all ; there was no passion 
 in the letter, but it was strictly true — she 
 would always be his, 
 
 Barnard was deeply hurt — not at her con- 
 duct — but at his own. He felt a most pitiful 
 coward to have won a woman's heart and 
 then to have left her like this. He was 
 utterly ashamed of himself — this bitterness 
 was the punishment of his romantic follies. 
 Without the least trace of conceit on his part, 
 he was aware that Rosa really loved him. 
 Wherever he went, or whatever he did, here 
 was a woman always thinking of him, and 
 always adhering to him. Easy to absent 
 himself from her presence, impossible to turn 
 her mental gaze away. 
 
 The question may be asked, whether it 
 
 9—2
 
 132 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 was not better for him to have broken with 
 her. than to have remained at her side always 
 wishing to be away. 
 
 If anyone is disposed to greatly blame 
 Barnard, two things must be borne in mind: 
 firstly, that there had been no viciousness in 
 his conduct ; secondly, his youth. Even 
 now he was but five-and-twenty. Not for 
 an instant had he foreseen the result of his 
 folly, and he now sincerely regretted it. 
 Still, there the result was. 
 
 The cruelty to Rosa was very great. No 
 fault, no frivolity, an earnest quiet girl, and 
 suddenly cast down from the position of 
 sedate happiness she reasonably expected. 
 The circumstances were very hard upon her. 
 Suppose, for a moment, we exonerate Mar- 
 tial from all blame, how cruel it was to Rosa 
 that Felise should possess so beautiful a 
 face ! 
 
 The mere fact of Felise's existence was a 
 cruelty to her. The existence of one woman 
 is incompatible with the happiness of another.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 133 
 
 But for Felise's existence Barnard was in no 
 degree responsible ; fate had prepared this 
 thing for Rosa to ' thole,' that fine old 
 English word which conveys the sense of 
 enduring at the hands of something irresist- 
 ible. 
 
 Martial saw the cruelty of it all to her, and 
 that pity made him feel tenderer towards her 
 than he had done for a long, long time. 
 Forgetting her commonplaceness and his 
 weariness, he thought of her in a sorrowful, 
 far-off way, which, if Rosa could have known 
 and understood, would have burnt her heart 
 like molten iron. But for all his tenderness 
 he did not go to her. 
 
 The bitterness of his extravagances re- 
 coiled on his own head. Memory constantly 
 brought back to him some sentiment he had 
 uttered, or fancied he experienced, and which 
 now mocked at him. 
 
 There is nothing more terrible while it 
 lasts than for a man to despise himself. 
 
 After several days spent in this way, Mar-
 
 i 3 4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 tial said to himself that he must do one of 
 two things — either he must £o back to Rosa 
 and honourably carry out his promise, no 
 matter at what cost to himself, or he must 
 sell off the stock and emigrate. In the back- 
 woods of America he could hide himself, and 
 perhaps in time forget. 
 
 Though he was the tenant of fifteen hun- 
 dred acres, his finances were in such a 
 critical condition that to sell off and quit 
 would be perhaps the wisest thing to do 
 while yet fifty pounds remained to his credit. 
 He should not sec any beautiful faces in the 
 backwoods. His rifle would console him; 
 he took it down and looked at it — it was 
 one of Lancaster's small oval bores.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WAYED first one way and then the 
 other, Barnard rose one morning 
 extremely early, bridled Ruy, and 
 started for the hills, resolved to ride to and 
 fro till he had made up his mind, and then 
 to abide by the decision he came to. 
 
 Destiny arranged that that very morning 
 Felise, with her heart full of love for him, 
 went up on the hill to see the sun rise. 
 
 Now, when Barnard at last saw her, he 
 naturally rode in that direction. As he ap- 
 proached he recollected the unfortunate cir- 
 cumstances in which he was placed, and half 
 turned away. Something, however, caused 
 him to again turn, and speak to her. Yet he
 
 136 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 could not look at her — he felt like a felon. 
 He tried to leave her — his admiration of her 
 beauty compelled him to stay ; yet all the 
 while bitterly conscious of the cruelty to 
 Rosa. With an effort he was conquering 
 the charm, when he met her gaze so full of 
 wistful meaning, charged with passion. 
 Proof as he was to love, his heart beat quick 
 and heavily ; he felt dizzy for the moment. 
 
 Recovering himself, he re-mounted his 
 horse, but Felise held the bridle and plaited 
 a lock of Ruy's mane. His face grew hot 
 with shame and a feeling he could not under- 
 stand. At last a passing horse neighed, Ruy 
 answered and moved, and Martial went 
 without a word, for in fact, such was the 
 conflux of his feelings, he could not speak. 
 
 When he had ridden a mile or two, and 
 was descending towards his own house, sud- 
 denly he began to ridicule himself. Why 
 should he not speak to her ? Why should 
 he be so sentimental about Rosa ? Why 
 should he not have enjoyed the moment ?
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 137 
 
 Was he to be bound down more than other 
 men ? What other man with such a face 
 before him would have rudely parted without 
 a word ? 
 
 Round he turned and galloped back after 
 Felise ; but, just as he was on the point of 
 overtaking her, his mood again changed, and 
 he rode back. 
 
 On finding Felise's handkerchief, once 
 more her beauty became the uppermost 
 thought ; he took it with him, and placed the 
 lock of plaited mane in his pocket — not in 
 his pocket-book, which contained entries of 
 the dates — the epochs of his courtship of 
 Rosa, the first kiss, the whispered ' Yes.' 
 
 He kept the handkerchief for a few days. 
 That passionate glance dwelt in his memory; 
 every time he thought of it, his heart 
 quickened its pace involuntarily. Barnard had 
 had experience enough to feel that such a look 
 must have a meaning. Yet it could not be, 
 she could not care for him ; she had hardly 
 seen him, and with all his faults, Barnard
 
 138 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 was not so conceited as to suppose that a 
 woman could fall in love with him at first 
 sight. 
 
 Was she then a coquette ? Never. Such 
 a face could not be that of a flirt. A woman 
 with a face as lovely as the Madonna might, 
 by stress of circumstance, if her heart was 
 deeply engaged, be drawn to folly — if too 
 great love be folly. 
 
 But she could not coquet ; she could not 
 leign ; whatever she was, she must be true. 
 What, then, could she mean ? In studying 
 this problem he found himself forgetting the 
 cruelty to Rosa. 
 
 All at once he began to abuse himself. 
 What did it matter to him what she meant ? 
 he did not feel the least interest in her, except 
 as something to look at ? These sentimental 
 questions belonged to that school of love 
 whose tenets he had forsworn. How ever 
 could he be so foolish as to occupy himself 
 again with such follies ? 
 
 This tendency must be crushed in the
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 139 
 
 beginning. Nothing should induce him to 
 commit such follies, and to submit to such a 
 loss of independence a second time. 
 
 So he walked down to the sea, hurled the 
 handkerchief and the lock of Ruy's mane into 
 the waves, and afterwards cut out the letter 
 4 M ' from the beech, getting rid of every 
 material trace of his interview with Felise. 
 
 According" to some philosophers, human 
 
 « 
 
 beings should be strictly kept from the view 
 of anything lovely or desirable, in order that 
 they may enjoy peace of mind and devote 
 their lives to duty. It is certainly a fact that 
 if we once see an interesting picture we like 
 to see it again ; and if we can, we purchase it, 
 and hang it on our walls to look at day by 
 day. 
 
 Martial's picture being in his mind, could 
 not be hurled into the sea like the handker- 
 chief wrapped round a pebble. Felise's face, 
 that passionate gaze, haunted him, and argued 
 with him. 
 
 The Picture said : ' You can look at me
 
 i4o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 without the least harm to yourself. Of 
 course you are quite indifferent now, your 
 heart is dead — it is an extinct volcano. Such 
 ashes as remain are in no danger of igni- 
 tion. At your time of life, after your expe- 
 riences, you are superior to that sort of 
 thing. You are able to sit by the fire with- 
 out burning yourself. As a man, it is your 
 right to enjoy some pleasure in the world. 
 But there, no man would hesitate a moment 
 — you are a coward ; you are afraid your 
 fresh resolutions would break down ; you 
 cannot trust yourself; you are still full of your 
 original extravagant sentiment.' 
 
 ' It is false,' said Martial. ' I can gaze at 
 you without an emotion.' 
 
 ' Then do so,' said the Picture, ' and prove 
 yourself what you pretend to be.' 
 
 ' I defy you,' said Barnard ; and accord- 
 ingly, saddling Ruy, away he rode and passed 
 by Mr. Goring's house, thinking to see 
 Felise in the garden. He repeated this 
 several times, but it so chanced that Felise
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 141 
 
 was not to be seen. Barnard observed that 
 the garden in front by the road was merely 
 a lawn ; possibly she would be more fre- 
 quently in the flower-garden at the rear, or 
 fishing, or boating, at the trout-pond, of 
 whose existence he was aware, having often 
 followed the course of the stream. 
 
 For certain reasons, which will appear 
 presently, Barnard had now to make his 
 journeys on foot. One evening he came 
 over, entered the copse (there was no keeper), 
 and, remaining well hidden in the brushwood, 
 succeeded in s^etting- a distant view of Felise. 
 
 She was sitting by the sundial, where she 
 could see the sunset. 
 
 Next morning Martial made another 
 attempt, and as he was coming through the 
 copse, very nearly stepped out right in front 
 of her, as she sat on the beam of the hatch 
 by the pool. 
 
 He crouched down behind the fringe of 
 ferns. Alarmed at his presence the black- 
 bird ceased to sing ; the thrush dared not
 
 142 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 enter the fern to feed her young, which had 
 left the nest ; and the dove, though he 
 alighted in the tree, did not coo. 
 
 The Picture said : ' Here is a splendid 
 opportunity to study me.' Martial studied 
 it. He was so near that every change of 
 expression was visible. He wondered why 
 she had not heard him walking in the wood, 
 but soon saw that she was absorbed in 
 thoucrht. 
 
 O 
 
 To know her thought was impossible — to 
 trace its varying course easy. When she 
 stood upright he understood that she was 
 full of resolution. Presently she knelt at the 
 water's edge and brooded over her own re- 
 flection. She was then dreaming, but of 
 what ? 
 
 Next she went round to the boathouse, 
 and I think if Martial had known what was 
 going to happen he would have taken the 
 opportunity, while her back was turned, to 
 steal away through the wood. I think so. 
 Some things, however, are great temptations ;
 
 THE DEWY MORN. i 43 
 
 and a very, very great temptation renders a 
 fall worthy, and ennobles the guilty. Still 
 he had no idea but that she was going to 
 row on the little lake. 
 
 Suddenly she appeared on the platform in 
 her bathing-tunic, and lifted her arms while 
 she readjusted the pearls. 
 
 He said to himself, ' If I could only carve 
 that attitude in marble !' The next instant 
 she dived. 
 
 A good swimmer himself, he understood 
 and appreciated the grace and strength with 
 which she swam round the pool, especially 
 when on her side. But when she came out 
 of the water on the sward and sat down 
 within three or four yards of the fringe of 
 fern behind which he was concealed, he 
 became so agitated he dreaded every 
 moment he should forget himself and rustle 
 the bushes beside him by some exclamatory 
 movement, for such slight movements are 
 exclamations. 
 
 The dew upon her knees, wet from the
 
 i 4 4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 limpid water, glistened in the sunshine. Till 
 this instant he had never met anything that 
 answered to the poetry — the romance — in 
 his heart. Full as he was of the deepest 
 admiration of beauty, till this moment he had 
 never seen it. 
 
 It was his own idea of loveliness — the 
 idea within him — which he had applied to 
 Rosa, and endowed her with what she had 
 not, as the sunset colours a dull wall. 
 
 Before those beautiful knees he could have 
 bowed his forehead in the grass, in the purest 
 worship of beauty. They were sacred ; a 
 sense of reverence possessed him. 
 
 A sudden accession of fresh life filled him, 
 as if he had inhaled some potent life-giving 
 perfume — such as the ancient enchanters 
 threw into the flames. 
 
 He had been crouching, now he knelt — 
 the slight rustle he caused was that which 
 Shaw heard. His breathing became so low 
 it seemed to have ceased. It was like the 
 first view of the sunlit sea, never again
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 145 
 
 experienced, never forgotten ; a moment of 
 the most exalted life. This wondrous loveli- 
 ness purified and freed his soul from the 
 grossness of material existence. 
 
 Such is woman's true place, to excite thus 
 the deepest, the best, the most exalted of 
 man's emotions. At such a moment she is 
 the visible representation of something higher 
 than logical expression can be found for. To 
 use the words in another sense, she is the 
 tangible expression of a ' truth higher than 
 the truth of scientific reasoning.' 
 
 There never lived anyone more capable 
 of appreciating beauty than Martial ; he 
 was almost too sensitive, because the very 
 violence of his emotion prevented him from 
 feeling the pleasure he might have done. It 
 was a passion more than a pleasure. 
 
 Fortunate boy to have seen such beauty ! 
 Fortunate Paris before whom the three god- 
 desses came ; such a moment was worth a 
 thousand years. 
 
 After she had gone with Shaw, Martial 
 
 vol. 1. 10
 
 i 4 6 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 remained in the fern for some time, basking 
 in the memory of her. 
 
 The day that followed he felt exhilarated, 
 as if he were drinking champagne. He had 
 a secret spring of delight within ; he had 
 only to recall what he had seen. 
 
 He said to himself after a time : ' I have 
 seen her, and I do not love her. My follies 
 are over. Her beauty has only caused an 
 aesthetic admiration. She is only a picture 
 to me, and I have convinced myself that I 
 can look safely upon the picture.' 
 
 How joyful this was ! (The cruelty to 
 Rosa was quite forgotten.) He should never 
 again do anything foolish, never more commit 
 extravagances or cultivate moral sentiment. 
 He was quite superior to it. Never before 
 had he known such freedom ; all the casuistry 
 he had imbibed from books of love had dis- 
 appeared. The proof of it could be observed 
 in this circumstance. It w r as laid down in all 
 of them that if you looked upon unparalleled 
 beauty you must love it ; but he had looked
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 147 
 
 — he had been, and still was, in a trance of 
 admiration — yet he did not love. On the 
 contrary, the sight had given him liberty — 
 perfect freedom of the heart. 
 
 He was happier than he had been for two 
 years, because his self-contentment had re- 
 turned. He had recovered his youth. 
 
 He could use every opportunity of study- 
 ing the picture. But he would not speak to 
 her, nor let her come to an interview with 
 him. He would not be wearied with glances 
 — such follies were at an end. She should 
 be kept at a distance whence, unruffled by 
 frivolity, he could admire her calmly as a 
 work of art. 
 
 10 — 2
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OU will not have a rise,' said Shaw. 
 ' 'Tis too bright. Let me come 
 and tickle them ; the water's low.' 
 She would have pulled off her shoes and 
 stockings and tickled the trout under the 
 stones in high delight if Felise had permitted. 
 They were standing in the porch, Felise 
 with her fly-rod ; Shaw just touching her 
 here and there to complete her toilet, as an 
 artist adds little touches daintily after the 
 picture is finished. Felise had lately been 
 singularly particular about her dress when 
 she went trout-fishino-. There was some- 
 thing of a set, preoccupied expression on 
 her face.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 149 
 
 On the contrary, Shaw's round rosy coun- 
 tenance was full of change, lively, with some 
 sly humour. Her blue eyes sparkled ; her 
 brown hair was disordered with work and 
 hurry; her neck, without a collar, was soft, 
 white, round — these peasant girls often have 
 good necks ; her figure plump, so that hooks 
 and eyes were constantly bursting. She 
 loved her mistress dearly, and yet almost 
 feared her. Shaw's was one of those faces 
 that prepossess at once, so sweet, good- 
 natured, and happy. 
 
 1 Where are the flies ?' said Felise ; ' you 
 have forgotten the flies.' 
 
 Shaw rushed upstairs and rummaged 
 about. On her return, panting, she declared 
 she could not find them. 
 
 1 Go and look again !' 
 
 Shaw went, and again returned empty- 
 handed, out of breath, and puffing. 
 
 'You are too plump,' said Felise. ' I will 
 go and see.' 
 
 Shaw blushed at the allusion to her plump-
 
 150 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 ness till her white neck was rosy, but insisted 
 on searching a third time. Before she got 
 upstairs Felise found the fly-book in her 
 pocket, so forgetful had she been. 
 
 1 Now, isn't that just like it ?' said Shaw. 
 ' They would say you was in love,' blushing 
 again herself. 
 
 Felise went across the lawn (Goring and 
 his man Abner Brown, as usual, were at work 
 in the garden), and across the road into the 
 meadows opposite. She did not try a cast 
 here, for the stream was shallow and so near 
 the hamlet the boys would be certain to have 
 disturbed everything. Farther down she 
 crossed by a footbridge, and left the bank 
 of the brook to make a short route across by 
 Glads Mill. In the rickyard by the mill she 
 paused a moment to look down into the mill- 
 pool. 
 
 To construct the pool it had been neces- 
 sary to excavate deeply in the chalk ; the 
 water was far down, and the precipitous sides 
 arose like walls from the surface. At one
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 151 
 
 end the water entered in a cascade, having 
 been led here by a winding water-carrier. 
 If anyone fell into the pool they could not 
 escape, however well they might swim ; to 
 climb up the chalk was impossible, but to 
 prevent such an accident the edge of the 
 pool was fenced. 
 
 Scarcely anyone ever passed without at 
 least casting a glance down into the deep 
 dark water, which, it was said, the sunshine 
 never reached. Black and still, unruffled 
 while the wind blew above, it was always 
 the same, and always waiting — waiting like 
 Fate. The chaunt of the old millwheel, its 
 quivering boom as it rolled round heavily, 
 was re-echoed in the hollow, and the rush of 
 the cascade formed a hissing undertone. 
 
 Standing in the doorway, leaning on the 
 hatch, the miller touched his forehead as she 
 went on into the meads again. Some were 
 already mown, and the grass turning to hay ; 
 in some the grass rose almost to her knee ; 
 then there were pastures full of buttercups.
 
 152 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 The hot summer sun shone on the brook, 
 and, as Shaw had foreseen, she did not get 
 a rise. 
 
 Felise cast where the stream rushed round 
 a boulder ; she tried at a fall — at the bend 
 where a streamlet joined the brook, where 
 a shallow broke up the water ; but she never 
 threw twice. The fly touched the surface 
 and was snatched away, and she walked on 
 to the next likely place. With a curl of her 
 wrist the line rushed out and dropped, and 
 was immediately withdrawn ; so quickly was 
 it done that it hardly interrupted the rapid 
 pace at which she walked. By degrees she 
 began to miss all the places not very attractive, 
 and tried only those which she knew were 
 the best, and which she could not pass while 
 making any pretence at fishing. 
 
 Throwing at one of these, her fly caught in a 
 bush on the opposite side. A boy who had 
 been haymaking, but had left his rake to 
 watch the fishing, eagerly rushed forward, 
 and had already one foot in the water to
 
 THE DEWY MORN. ' 153 
 
 wade across and release it, when she jerked 
 the rod sharply, snapped the gut, and went 
 on. The boy remained sitting on the bank, 
 with one foot in the stream, wondering at 
 her. 
 
 Felise did not attach another fly, but cast 
 the line just as it was without a bait. She 
 could walk faster, having to use less care not 
 to entangle the hooks. 
 
 From the pools, where the bright sua 
 illumined the bottom, the trout rushed to 
 shelter under dark roots of trees, as her form 
 suddenly appeared on the bank. At the 
 shallows and eddies the trout sought the 
 deeper water or distant stones. Fly-fishers 
 step gently, somewhat back from the bank, 
 careful not to alarm the fish by sudden 
 appearance or any jerking movement. 
 Felise strode on swiftly, dipping her flyless 
 line from time to time. She did not follow 
 the curves of the brook, walking across the 
 bends and so joining it again. 
 
 The farther she advanced the less attention
 
 i54 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 she paid to the brook, till she ceased even 
 pretending to cast. Her pace now became 
 slow, and she lingered, especially by path- 
 ways ; sometimes she walked up and down 
 instead of straight on ; sometimes she leaned 
 against a tree, or sat on a rail, all the time 
 glancing round — upon the watch. 
 
 These were Martial's fields. The grass 
 was his by the brook, the green wheat on 
 the hills close by, the copse on the slope. 
 
 Presently she wandered from the brook 
 towards the copse, along an old and partly- 
 disused rugged track between green nut-tree 
 bushes that shut out all but the sun above. 
 June roses flowered on the briars arching 
 over the narrow lane, and honeysuckle, 
 creamy-white, touched her shoulders as she 
 passed. Felise, who had been so fond of 
 wildflowers, did not notice the first wild 
 roses, or the honeysuckle. Her heart was 
 dry and heated as the sun heated the 
 
 qround. 
 
 A little way apart from the disused lane
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 155 
 
 stood an ancient barn by the wood. The 
 great doors were gone, the planks as they de- 
 cayed taken for firewood ; the vast hollow 
 within was empty but for a broken plough. 
 Swallows flew in and out carelessly to their 
 nests on the crossbeams. Two high Spanish 
 chestnut-trees stood by the barn, and she sat 
 down under one of them. 
 
 In the olden times of farming, when wheat 
 was really golden, there had been a pros- 
 perous homestead much farther down in the 
 valley, and the wheat was stored in this 
 great barn. The homestead was now occu- 
 pied as a cottage by a labourer, the barn was 
 empty, and the farm thrown together with 
 others and joined to Barnard's large holding. 
 Like many other deserted buildings, the barn 
 was reputed to be haunted — a sort of partial 
 reputation, for if asked no one could say what 
 shape its spectre took, or what crime it was 
 supposed to be expiating. Standing solitary, 
 its desolation alone seemed to have suggested 
 the idea. The places where man's footsteps
 
 156 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 and life have once been retain for years 
 a memory of his presence in the guise of 
 shadowy apparitions. 
 
 The swallows had the barn by day, the 
 bats by night ; the owls had deserted it — they 
 like mice, and there were no mice where 
 there was no grain. The spot was absolutely 
 solitary ; hedges and trees hid the brook 
 and meads ; the wood on the hill closed the 
 view in front. A rabbit who had been 
 feeding, and at the sound of Felise's foot- 
 steps hid behind some nettles, finding her to 
 stay quiet, came out again to nibble. 
 
 There were songs in the wood, though it 
 was now the heat of the day, and the call of 
 the cuckoo ; Felise did not hear. When the 
 heart is full it absorbs the senses to itself — 
 hearing, sight, all are possessed by its 
 passion. 
 
 This was the fourth time she had been 
 here. The rod was a mere pretence ; her 
 object was to cross his path and meet him, as 
 if by accident. But she had not been success-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 157 
 
 ful, though she knew he must be frequently 
 in the fields. She had stayed near where his 
 haymakers were at work, near where others 
 were weeding the arable lands ; by the paths, 
 and had not seen him. When weary of wait- 
 ing about, it had become her custom to resort 
 to the solitude of the deserted barn, and there 
 rest unseen. 
 
 Since her resolution was formed that morn- 
 ing at the trout-pool before her swim, she had 
 accomplished nothing. Separated, without 
 word or glance, how was it possible to 
 advance her wishes ? Felise's strong and 
 eager nature was already weary of this slow 
 process of waiting till chance should throw 
 him in her way. Sooner or later, if she per- 
 severed in haunting the locality, she must 
 meet him ; but how long would it be first ? 
 
 Time seems so much longer in summer ; 
 the morning and the evening are far apart, 
 and there is space between them for such a 
 multitude of feelings, or for the same feeling 
 to repeat itself so often. The long days
 
 153 
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 became very heavy upon her ; she could not 
 endure the waiting. 
 
 Felise started again from the ancient barn, 
 and instead of returning to the brook followed 
 the foot of the hill beside the wood. Some 
 wheat-fields succeeded ; after awhile she 
 came round the hill and stepped into a 
 private roadway which led direct to the 
 Manor House. Erect and unfaltering she 
 went straight towards Martial's residence.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 EN minutes or so after she had 
 quitted the chestnuts by the barn, 
 Martial himself stepped out from 
 the wood, having waited till he considered 
 she was far enough away not to see him. 
 He followed her at a distance, taking care to 
 keep some hedge, or bush, or other object 
 between them. 
 
 The study of this work of art had led him, 
 day after day, on foot down towards Mr. 
 Goring's, sometimes as far as the trout-pool, 
 sometimes more openly to the mill. He 
 caught a glimpse of her occasionally in the 
 garden or in the road, as she crossed to visit 
 one or other of her cottagers. Presently he
 
 i6o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 discovered that she was fishing the brook, 
 and as he knew every mead and every hedge 
 it was not at all difficult for him to follow her. 
 and yet remain himself unobserved. 
 
 Three times he had followed in this way, 
 watching her motions with an opera-glass 
 when he could not safely approach very near. 
 The movement of her arms, the shape of her 
 figure as she cast the fly, her pose when she 
 leaned against a tree or sat down to rest 
 herself — not the least inclination of her 
 beautiful form escaped him. He forgot him- 
 self, he lost himself utterly in the abstraction 
 of his intense observation. 
 
 The third time (the fourth to Felise) 
 becoming bolder, Martial contrived to pursue 
 closer than he had hitherto done, and he was 
 able to do this because she walked rapidly 
 and did not look behind her. He now be^an 
 to notice several things : first, she fished 
 down stream, which is contrary to the maxims 
 of the fly-fisher ; next, she walked quickly 
 and near the edge of the brook, while fisher-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 161 
 
 men usually move gently and stand back 
 from the bank ; thirdly, she never gave a 
 second cast, and she passed several pro- 
 mising places without a trial — but all these, it 
 was true, might arise from her inexperience 
 of fly-fishing. 
 
 But when a boy suddenly rose out of the 
 brook — startling him by so sudden an appear- 
 ance — and offered him the gut and the three 
 flies which he had waded over and secured, 
 Martial began to think there must be some- 
 thing else beside inexperience in all this. 
 
 ' Her be fishing without any fly,' said the 
 boy. 
 
 Martial walked on cogitating, and by-and- 
 by saw that Felise slackened her pace where 
 two or three footpaths crossed the fields he 
 occupied. There she walked up and down, 
 and seemed to be waiting. She had quite 
 forgotten the fishing ; she was waiting — for 
 whom ? 
 
 He saw now that the fishing was merely a 
 pretence — who would attempt fishing in 
 
 VOL. I. I I
 
 1 62 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 earnest such brilliant mornings, and the water 
 low, too ? She was waiting for some one. 
 
 Martial did not care for her in the least ; 
 she was nothing to him (nor any other 
 woman), a mere stranger afar off, a picture. 
 His indifference to her was absolute. Yet 
 such is the vanity of a man, that when it 
 occurred to him she was seeking a rendez- 
 vous with a lover — some one else — his heart 
 thumped and his brow contracted. 
 
 He remembered the passionate glance she 
 had once given him ; he said to himself 
 bitterly, ' These women are all alike, false, 
 deceitful, unworthy of serious consideration. 
 How fortunate that I have done with them !' 
 
 Then he settled himself to wait angrily for 
 the appearance of the lover, that he might 
 see how base a woman could be. After a 
 time Felise went away to the barn ; he pur- 
 sued and watched her from the wood. He 
 saw the swallows descending over her head 
 to the great doorway of the barn. He 
 thought he saw a certain sadness in her
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 163 
 
 countenance ; doubtless she was disappointed 
 that the lover did not come. 
 
 He followed her again when she left the 
 barn : he could not understand w T here she was 
 going now, when to his astonishment she 
 walked straight up to his house ; the door 
 opened, and she disappeared within. 
 
 Immediately it flashed across his mind that 
 it miodit be himself she was endeavouring to 
 meet. Read by such a light the glance she 
 had given him became less deceitful ; yet he 
 could not think it. Why should she desire 
 to meet him ? He had not sought her. 
 Though he had all the vanity which is 
 proper to and becomes a man, Martial was 
 without the least trace of that conceit — a 
 completely different thing — which leads fools 
 to imagine every woman in love with them. 
 
 That a woman might want for some pur- 
 pose of her own to deceive him with pas- 
 sionate glances he could grant to himself. 
 That a woman should really desire his society 
 he did not think possible. 
 
 1 1 — 2
 
 1 64 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 But why had she gone to his house ? 
 Those paths by which she had lingered were 
 on his tenancy ; he used them constantly. 
 What was the secret meaning of these 
 acts ? 
 
 Indifferent as he was to her, he waited 
 impatiently for her to reappear. He would 
 not go in while she was there ; to meet and 
 speak to her would be contrary to his resolu- 
 tion to have nothing more to do with such 
 follies. It was some time, perhaps an hour, 
 before Felise came out, the eldest Miss 
 Barnard with her ; Miss Barnard took her 
 across the fields, and was evidently showing 
 her a shorter way home (as if Felise did not 
 know). 
 
 Martial went indoors and waited for his 
 cousin. He had no need to ask any questions ; 
 Miss Barnard commenced at once to tell him 
 how Miss Goring had been trout-fishing, and 
 felt fatigued from the sun, and had begged a 
 glass of milk. How she had stayed and 
 chatted, and how pleasant she was and singu-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 165 
 
 larly handsome, and so interested in Dante 
 and all that related to Italy. 
 
 Miss Barnard had lent her her album of 
 scraps about Dante, and had been invited to 
 visit at Beechknoll. How delightful it was 
 to make the acquaintance of some one of an 
 intellectual turn at last ; you know they are all 
 so prosaic, they talk nothing but corn and 
 sheep at Maasbury — and so on, and so on. 
 
 Martial pondered, still more puzzled. 
 Felise weary, Felise fatigued ! The woman 
 he had seen keep pace with the harriers, 
 who had gone up on the highest hill to see 
 the sunrise, who swam round and round the 
 trout-pool faster than he could have done 
 himself! Felise weary — never! And if so, 
 why to his house ? There was a cottage 
 (the former homestead) nearer. No, there 
 was something else at the bottom of this. 
 Felise had evidently flattered his cousin's 
 hobby. Deceit again. A work of art might 
 be beautiful, yet it was nothing but false 
 paint.
 
 166 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 He did not believe that she had called 
 merely from fatigue, nor that she felt any 
 interest in Dante. What, then, was her 
 object — could it possibly be himself ? 
 
 How fortunate he was not at home, so 
 that she had not the slightest opportunity of 
 practising her glances upon him ! How for- 
 tunate that his days of folly were over ! 
 Martial congratulated himself; after all, as 
 everyone must commit some foolishness, it 
 was better to have got it over, as he had 
 done, in early youth. The experience was so 
 valuable, and would protect him. 
 
 A little restless after all this thinking, 
 Martial did not remain at home, but ascend- 
 ing the hill, watched the picture walking 
 home as far as he could with his opera-glass. 
 
 Felise had found the eldest Miss Barnard, 
 who chanced to be at home, a pleasant lady, 
 dark and comfortable-looking, with a manner 
 which at once put people at their ease. She 
 made her unannounced visitor welcome ; in 
 such visits, where people do not know each
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 167 
 
 other, they run over a string of subjects to 
 find something to answer for conversation. 
 So Miss Barnard brought out her photo- 
 graphs of Dante subjects, and presently her 
 scrap-book, containing the allusions and re- 
 ferences to Dante she had collected from 
 current literature. 
 
 This middle-aged English lady, who had 
 never been out of England in her life, and 
 probably never would, had conceived an 
 extraordinary admiration of all that was 
 Dantesque. 
 
 I think that those who have an imaginative 
 corner in their hearts are better than those 
 who have not. They have a shrine — to a 
 shrine we bring our aspirations ; there they 
 accumulate and secretly influence our lives. 
 
 Unscrupulous Felise looked at the Dante 
 collections with kindling interest, listening the 
 while for the creak of an opening door, for 
 the heavier footstep which foretells a man, 
 watching even the spaniel in the armchair, 
 who would be sure to start up at the approach
 
 1 68 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 of his master. Unscrupulous Felise — has love 
 ever any scruples ? — pressed Miss Barnard 
 to visit them at Beechknoll, and at last, having 
 stayed as long as possible, left, not at all 
 dissatisfied. Although she had not seen 
 Martial she had opened up communication 
 between the two houses. Something had 
 been gained. She walked homewards in a 
 happier, or at least a less restless, condition 
 of mind.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FTER passing the old mill and the 
 deep, dark pool, she turned aside 
 from her homeward path, and 
 crossed to a cottage by the roadside. She 
 entered the garden by a wicket in the hedge ; 
 oak-trees spread their broad boughs above 
 the thatched roof, and the border of the 
 garden was gaudy with tulips, wallflowers, 
 and parti-coloured daisies. Every inch of 
 the enclosed ground was green with some 
 vegetable or other ; a minute and microscopic 
 care had evidently been spent on every 
 spadeful of earth the garden contained. 
 One would hardly believe that so small a 
 plot could produce so great a variety.
 
 iyo THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 The flagstones before the door were white 
 and clean ; there was no porch, and the door 
 was open. Felise looked in, but there was no 
 one within ; she sat down, however, on a stool 
 outside the door, and soon noticed something 
 moving behind the screen of green which 
 concealed the small extent of the garden. 
 
 An aged man, much bowed, supporting 
 himself with a hoe and a walking-stick, 
 slowly came towards her ; he had been 
 weeding. 
 
 ' She bean't at home, she bean't,' he said, 
 alluding to his wife. ' I was a-trying to do a 
 little bit of weeding. And how do Abner do, 
 miss ? Do he do now ? A' was a sprack 
 boy. I hope he suits Mr. Goring.' 
 
 This hope he had expressed every time 
 Felise had called these four years, during 
 which his son, who was still a boy in his 
 eyes, had assisted Mr. Goring in the garden. 
 Felise petted the old people ; Godwin, the 
 estate-aQfent or land-steward, had been heard 
 to say that she spoiled the whole village.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 171 
 
 ' Sit down/ said Felise, offering him the 
 stool ; but the old man, with trembling 
 eagerness, refused it, and brought himself 
 out another, upon which he crouched, his 
 elbows on his knees. 
 
 ' You didn't have much luck a-fishing, now, 
 did you ?' he said. ' Bless you, miss, there 
 bean't half the fish there was in the brook 
 when I was a boy, and they bean't so eager 
 for the fly. As I was a-saying, I hopes 
 Abner be useful now ; I don't know what we 
 should do if it weren't for he, for I can't do 
 no work, nor my old missus neither. She be 
 gone to get some wood to bile the kettle ; 
 hope as Mr. Godwin won't catch her. He be 
 a hard man, Miss Goring ; 'tis amazing how 
 he can be so hard.' 
 
 ' You are not allowed to gather the dead 
 wood now, then ?' 
 
 'Not since Lady Day, miss. No; Mr. 
 Godwin he came round and give them all 
 notice that he should summon any of them 
 as took the wood. There was something I
 
 172 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 wanted to tell you, miss — didn't Abner tell 
 'ee ? Maybe you haven't seen him to-day. 
 But as I was saying, I hoped to get about 
 and do a bit of hoeing this spring — but bless 
 you, I can't do it. I got out in the road, and 
 I was obliged to sit down on the Mint-heap. 
 'Tis hard to be old, miss, and be twisted 
 with the rheumatism. Perhaps my missus 
 will recollect what it was when she comes in, 
 if you will wait a moment, miss.' 
 
 I The garden looks very nice,' said Felise. 
 1 What a lot of trouble you take with it !' 
 
 4 Ah, that I do,' said the old man brightly. 
 ' I bides in un a'most all the day, and I 
 thinks about un most of the night — I kind o' 
 lives by he. They will never take me away 
 from my garden, will they, miss ? They 
 couldn't do that now, surely.' 
 
 I I should think not, indeed.' 
 
 4 How be the barley looking, miss ? Did 
 you notice as you was agoing along. There 
 be generally some barley at the foot of the 
 hill on Mr. Barnard's land. A' be a likely
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 173 
 
 young man, but they do say the farm bean't 
 looked after as it should be. Young blood 
 is young blood, and what with riding about 
 and sporting — let me see, what was I going 
 to say ? You knows the barley, miss ; it 
 have got black knots on the stalk. Bless 
 you, I could use to do everything with the 
 barley — I was a barleycorn man in my time. 
 I could plough, that was the first thing ; and 
 sow the seed, miss ; and hoe it, don't you see, 
 when it came up — it be a pretty plant now 
 the barley, bean't it ? And I could reap it, 
 and thrash it when we used to have the 
 flails, and malt it — that's what a-many 
 couldn't do. Many's a winter I've spent 
 a-malting — there's always a good fire. And 
 I could brew the beer, and drink it too, 
 afterwards^— ha ! ha !' 
 
 The barleycorn man chuckled at the 
 thought of his exploits with the beer. 
 
 ' Have you got any ale for your dinner?' 
 said Felise. 
 
 ' Bless 'ee now, where should we get any
 
 i 7 4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 ale from ? Abner don't bring any home, 
 except what he carries in hisself.' 
 
 Felise opened her purse ; there was a 
 solitary half-crown in it. The coin had been 
 there this month past, while she deliberated 
 what she should do with it. Coins were 
 very scarce at Beechknoll. 
 
 She gave the old man the silver, and told 
 him to buy a pound or so of beefsteak and 
 a little ale. 
 
 The poor old fellow was dried up for lack 
 of blood in his veins ; his stiffened joints 
 cracked as he moved ; his cheeks were a dull 
 yellow like creased parchment ; he was alive, 
 but there was scarcely a drop of blood in 
 him. Good juicy meat and the ale to which 
 he had been accustomed in his youth was 
 what he needed. He thanked her, but very 
 quietly, with a subdued voice, very different 
 to the high squeaky treble in which he had 
 been talking ; and, after thanking her, 
 he remained silent. His chatter came 
 from his head, which was growing feeble ;
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 175 
 
 his silence from his heart, which was yet 
 alive. 
 
 1 What is it they say about Mr. Barnard's 
 farm ?' said Felise. 
 
 4 He be young blood, you see, miss,' began 
 the old man, glad to be garrulous again, and 
 to escape from feeling to gossip. ' They do 
 say he be short of money ; some say he have 
 had to borrow.' 
 
 ' The Barnards are not very rich, then,' 
 said Felise partly to herself, happy that at 
 least there was not that obstacle between 
 her and Martial, to whom she could bring no 
 dowry. 
 
 ' Bless 'ee, no ; they bean't rich ' But 
 
 he was interrupted by a step on the path, 
 and his * missus ' came through the wicket in 
 the hedge. ' What, ain't you got no wood ?' 
 said the old man. 
 
 ' He've took it away,' said the old lady, 
 curtsying to Felise. ' I be terrable glad to 
 see you, miss ; there be something I wants to 
 tell you '
 
 176 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 * I knowed there was something,' said the 
 old man. 
 
 ' Who took your wood away ?' asked 
 Felise. 
 
 ' Why, Mr. Godwin, to be sure. Do you 
 call that a gentleman, now ? He took my 
 faggot away from me hisself.' 
 
 ' Not the dead sticks you had gathered ?' 
 
 ' Yes, he did ; he took it away and throwed 
 all the sticks in the hedge, and dared me to 
 touch any more, or to step on his land or 
 the Squire's land after 'em.' 
 
 ' It is very arbitrary,' said Felise. 
 
 The angry old lady ran on at great length, 
 bitterly reproaching the steward. Mr. God- 
 win had forbidden them to touch the fallen 
 branches ; last autumn he forbade them to 
 gather the acorns, though brought to him for 
 sale. As they no longer worked upon the 
 estate, being too old, they must not gather 
 wood or acorns, or even mushrooms. 
 
 1 He be the meanest man as ever lived,' 
 said the old woman. ' A' be as rich as ever
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 177 
 
 can be. Now, you knows Martha — little 
 Martha ; she went a-blackberrying last year, 
 and Godwin he met her and took her black- 
 berries from her — that he did. I suppose 
 the Squire doan't know nothing about it, but 
 Godwin says 'tis the Squire's rights. But 
 you come in, miss — you look here !' cried the 
 old woman, rushing indoors and returning, 
 before Felise could follow, with a letter in 
 her hand. 
 
 The letter contained a formal notice to 
 quit the cottage and garden. It seemed 
 that the steward had several times warned 
 the aged couple that they must leave ; but, 
 no notice being taken of his verbal orders, a 
 legal instrument had at length been sent. 
 
 * Ah, I knowed there was something,' said 
 the old man. ' But, bless you, they won't 
 turn I out of my garden, now — will they ?' 
 
 1 That they will, you old fool !' said his 
 
 wife, shaking him ; ' you'll have to go. And 
 
 there bean't no place for us but the workus, 
 
 as I knows on. There bean't another cottage 
 
 vol. 1. 12
 
 178 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 in this place ; they be all full up to the 
 roof.' 
 
 1 Lodgings must be got for you some- 
 where,' said Felise, 'and Abner will help.' 
 
 ' But there bean't no lodgings,' said the 
 old woman ; ' and my old man, he won't live 
 away from his garden.' 
 
 'They may as well bury me,' said the old 
 man, dropping on his stool. ' They there 
 peas be fine to-year ; there'll be another dish 
 there soon. I thinks the apples be set well 
 to-year.' 
 
 1 1 will speak to papa — to Mr. Goring,' 
 said Felise. ' Perhaps Abner has told him. 
 We will do what we can for you, be certain. 
 
 I cannot think Mr. Godwin really means ' 
 
 she hesitated, for she knew the hardness of 
 his character. 
 
 ' Ah, yes, he do mean it !' said the old 
 lady. 'He be one of they as do mean 
 things, and do 'em too ; I hopes as his new 
 horse will pitch him in the road and break 
 his neck!'
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 179 
 
 ' No— no.' 
 
 ' Ah, but I do though ! There's the old 
 man gone pottering down to they peas. It 
 be shameful, bean't it, how we be served ! 
 And after we have a- worked here all our 
 lives — he have a-worked here nigh seventy 
 years, and I have a-worked fifty-five afore I 
 was took bad and couldn't do no more. It 
 be shameful, miss, it be ! and thank you very 
 much, but it ain't no good you trying — old 
 Godwin be a flint !' 
 
 Felise went on homewards, eager with the 
 impetuosity of her nature to do something to 
 right this wrong. I have, in part, literally 
 translated the language in which the old 
 couple spoke, that it might be more easily 
 intelligible ; they did not say ' ah,' but ' aw ;' 
 ' un ' for ' him ' and ' it ' indiscriminately ; they 
 pronounced ' v ' for ' f,' ' aa ' for ' a,' and so on. 
 
 Mr. Godwin was a very hard man, yet he 
 had but slightly strained the unwritten laws 
 of country life in ordering this aged and 
 helpless couple to leave their dwelling. Nine 
 
 12 — 2
 
 180 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 out of ten cottages belong to the land- 
 owner, though the immediate supervision — 
 the letting — is entrusted to the tenant on 
 certain conditions. There are, as a rule, 
 fewer cottages than are needed, so that there 
 is a struggle for them, especially on the part 
 of the young who wish to be married. From 
 this scarcity of cottages most young couples 
 reside for years with the parents of the wife 
 or husband, an arrangement never very satis- 
 factory. 
 
 The chief condition of cottage-occupation 
 is that the cottager shall work for the farmer 
 upon whose farm the cottage is situate. Or 
 at least, if not for him, for some one on the 
 estate. The moment any difference arises, 
 the labourer has not only to leave his employ- 
 ment but his home. This, if he be a married 
 man, generally means that he must leave the 
 hamlet, because all the other cottages are full. 
 The custom is the last relic of feudal times, 
 for while this condition endures the labourer 
 must still be a serf.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 181 
 
 It is a custom fatal to the cottager's social 
 progress, in reality injurious to the interests 
 of landowner and farmer — especially to the 
 landowner — and diametrically opposed to 
 the interest of the country at large, because 
 it forces the agricultural population to be 
 nomadic instead of settled. 
 
 Injurious as it is to those who maintain 
 it, this feudal survival will probably be fought 
 for with the utmost bitterness when the 
 question comes before Parliament. Once 
 abolished, and people will wonder why it 
 ever existed. 
 
 This aged and helpless couple broke the 
 unwritten law, for having grown old they 
 could no longer work. They occupied a 
 cottage without giving any return in the 
 shape of labour upon the estate. They were 
 in the way — there was the workhouse for 
 them — they could not want a home at their 
 time of life. 
 
 Many a warm-hearted old farmer has such 
 a couple in a cottage on his farm, and permits
 
 1 82 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 them to linger there till death. The un- 
 written law is not always so harshly inter- 
 preted. Still, it exists, and Godwin, a man 
 of the hardest character, interpreted it 
 according - to his nature. 
 
 But the occupants of the cottage had 
 broken the law in another manner ; their son, 
 Abner, worked for Mr. Goring, who was not 
 a tenant of the Squire, and consequently 
 while Abner lived in a landlord's cottage 
 he took the power (horse-power if you like) 
 of his muscles off the estate. Some one 
 else had the benefit of his strength. 
 
 There was, too, the possibility of Abner 
 marrying and taking his wife home to his 
 parents, after the country fashion. By-and- 
 by he would become the actual occupant, 
 while his horse-power was expended on 
 another's land. Those who occupied houses 
 on the estate must work for the estate ; if not, 
 they must go. 
 
 To go, to an aged and helpless couple of 
 eighty-four and seventy, meant the workhouse.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 18 
 
 o 
 
 By the most cruel and iniquitous rule it is 
 possible to imagine, it is not permitted to 
 give assistance from the poor-rates to the 
 oldest, the most helpless, and deserving of 
 the population if they dare to live at home. 
 They must go to the poorhouse, that 
 abomination of desolation. This most brutal 
 regulation would arouse the indignation of 
 every educated person in the country if what 
 it means could be plainly exhibited. 
 
 Abner's crime was unpardonable — he was 
 living in a house belonging to the estate, and 
 working for a man independent of the estate. 
 Mr. Goring owned the land he occupied ; he 
 was not only independent, but a resolute 
 upholder of every species of independence. 
 He was paying Abner about two shillings a 
 week more than he would have earned if in 
 the employment of a farmer. 
 
 The young man was intelligent, and had a 
 loyal manner — J do not know how else to 
 describe it — he took an interest in what he 
 was doing, and therefore to Mr. Goring he
 
 1S4 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 was worth more than an ordinary labourer. 
 But this was an extremely unpopular arrange- 
 ment both with farmers and labourers. The 
 labourers hated to see one of their own class 
 paid better than themselves ; the farmers 
 objected because it was an example which 
 might lead other men to ask for more. 
 
 Felise knew little of these matters — she 
 had of course heard of them, but you could 
 hardly expect her to enter into such affairs. 
 She was, however, well aware of Godwin's 
 hardness, and his character for harsh inter- 
 ference. Godwin and her uncle had had 
 many and many a set-to ; in fact, quarrels 
 were continually occurring between them. 
 Godwin had frequently threatened litigation, 
 but had never resorted to it, yet with 
 curious inconsistency called once a month on 
 an average to invite Goring and Felise to his 
 house, which was not more than half a mile 
 distant. They had never accepted the 
 invitation.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 NTERING the garden by a side- 
 path, Felise heard two voices in 
 loud altercation, or rather one 
 voice stridently asserting itself over the other, 
 and she paused where she could see the 
 disputants through the open window\ 
 
 Goring in the whitest of white shirt-sleeves 
 — just as he had left his spade — was standing 
 by the mantelpiece, resting his firm chin on 
 his hand, and steadfastly regarding the 
 steward. His high forehead, partly bald, 
 and flecked at the temples with grey among 
 the brown of his hair, expressed calm intellect 
 reposing in itself. Not the nervous, eager 
 brain which seeks preferment and must thrust
 
 1 86 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 itself to the front ; the intellect which reposes 
 and reflects. 
 
 There was almost too much mind for 
 action behind that noble forehead ; it was the 
 thinker, not the doer. The clear, steel-blue 
 eyes under their thick eyebrows, the set 
 mouth and the firm chin, at the same time 
 indicated an immovable will ; a man who 
 would have his way without the least outward 
 noise or ostentation. His strong frame — a 
 trifle bowed, as those of men usually are who 
 work with their hands for pleasure or profit 
 ■ — and great breadth were fully exposed by his 
 negligent costume ; his brawny throat, indeed, 
 was visible. 
 
 ' If only papa would work among men 
 instead of among trees, what a leader he 
 would be !' thought Felise. 
 
 Mr. Godwin, with his hat on (not an in- 
 tentional rudeness), stood by the table on 
 which he struck his fist, clad in dark brown 
 and wearing gaiters. He was of full average 
 height, stout, and strongly built; he appeared
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 187 
 
 capable of exceptional endurance. His fist 
 on the table was brown as a piece of oak 
 that had been exposed all the winter to the 
 action of the weather. His face was neither 
 ruddy, brown, nor black, but a mixture of 
 the three ; it was ruddy from a fulness of 
 blood ; it was brown from wind and rain ; it 
 was black from sun. His face might have 
 been cast in bronze, so remarkable was the 
 appearance of hardihood. 
 
 His features were regular, and, except that 
 the cheeks were somewhat too full, might 
 even have been said to be handsome, but 
 they were cast in a set expression ; his 
 mouth — the worst feature, being without 
 curve — did not smile ; his brow had a line 
 constantly there. This fixidity, and the ex- 
 tremely weather-beaten hue of his complexion, 
 seemed to announce a concentration of cha- 
 racter that made most people shrink from 
 him. Mr. Goring was brown from the sun, 
 yet beside Godwin he looked fair. 
 
 Godwin's voice was loud ; he hurled his
 
 1 88 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 words and shut his lips tight immediately ; 
 but his language was correct, for he was well 
 educated. Possibly his exceptionally hardy 
 nature had something to do with his pitiless 
 character. A man with thousands in his 
 pocket, but who was content with a coarse 
 fare of bread and bacon, or even bread and 
 cheese, was not likely to feel much senti- 
 mental sympathy for weaker beings. 
 
 His family had all been alike; 'hard as 
 crab-apples ' was the saying of the country- 
 side. 
 
 Every tenant upon the estate spoke in 
 the highest terms of Mr. Godwin to his 
 neighbour. At the public dinners Mr. God- 
 win was mentioned with the deepest respect. 
 1 A shrewd, first-rate man, Godwin ; knows 
 his business ; a good fellow, too, at bottom.' 
 Alone, in private, there was not a man who 
 did not hate him ; but not a man would 
 have dared to admit as much even to his 
 wife. 
 
 In Mr. Goring's calm glance there was
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 189 
 
 perhaps some little admixture of amused 
 disdain. Godwin glared with his colourless 
 grey eyes, the angrier because he could not 
 impress the person he was attacking. 
 
 ' You cannot show a scrap of paper/ Felise 
 heard Godwin saying. ' I'm certain there is 
 no such deed. You have no more right to 
 fish than you have to give that rascally 
 labourer of yours more money than anyone 
 else.' 
 
 1 I believe,' said Mr. Goring, 'that the law 
 permits me to pay what wages I please.' 
 
 1 It does not permit you to trespass and to 
 leave gates open, so that cattle stray and do 
 damage. You'll have to pay for it, Goring — 
 mark my words ! What right has she to 
 trample down the grass and do every species 
 of mischief? Even if you do possess, or 
 claim to possess a right to fish, it does not 
 extend to her.' 
 
 ' Was it me, then ?' asked Felise suddenly, 
 coming to the window. 
 
 1 You are the culprit,' laughed her uncle.
 
 i 9 o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 ' Why, you have the rod in your hand — 
 you're caught.' 
 
 Godwin looked at her, and instinctively 
 removed his hat. He growled something in 
 his throat. He did not speak, but he had 
 the grace to be silent. 
 
 ' You are accused of poaching, trespassing, 
 and doing every species of mischief,' said 
 Mr. Goring. ' Come in and defend your- 
 self.' 
 
 Felise smiled, and went round the house 
 to the front door ; but on turning the corner 
 started, became pale, flushed again, and then 
 stepped quickly towards a horse Abner had 
 care of. It was Ruy — Martial's horse. 
 
 Was he here, then ? 
 
 She stroked Ruy's neck, looked inside the 
 hall, returned, stroked him again ; in her 
 agitation she scarce knew what to do, or say, 
 or think. 
 
 • Is Mr. Barnard here ?' she said at last. 
 
 ' No, miss,' replied Abner. 
 
 « But— but '
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 19 1 
 
 1 Mr. Godwin came on him,' said the 
 man. 
 
 Godwin ridinQf Martial's favourite — how 
 was this ? Felise instantly felt that there 
 was something wrong, and Godwin's dark 
 face appearing at that moment in the hall 
 seemed sinister to her. His pale grey eyes 
 — colourless like water — shone in the shadow 
 of the doorway. She could not ask him any 
 questions, but she did not withdraw her hand 
 from Ruy's neck. The horse rubbed his 
 face against her shoulder. 
 
 * I've just bought him,' said Godwin, soften- 
 ing his voice as much as he could. ' Do you 
 like him ?' 
 
 < Yes.' 
 
 He began to gather the bridle in his hand, 
 taking it from Abner. Godwin was so near 
 her that her dress touched him. She felt his 
 direct glance beating upon her, as the hard 
 sun beats on an exposed rock. There was 
 no cessation in his glance. 
 
 She remembered the remark of the
 
 iQ2 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 cottager that Barnard was not rich, that 
 young blood spent money. Could it be that 
 Martial was in difficulty ? How else came 
 he to part with his horse ? Her heart 
 quailed ; quick sympathy confused her. She 
 did not move aside that Godwin might mount, 
 but stood by Ruy. 
 
 Godwin's colourless eyes were bent un- 
 swervingly upon her face ; he had the bridle 
 in his hand, but he was in no haste. 
 
 In her agitation Felise did nothing but 
 stroke Ruy, who was growing impatient for 
 his manger — so affection is wasted upon 
 those whose sole thought is provender. 
 
 ' I am afraid I gave too much for him,' 
 said Godwin. 
 
 Mr. Goring smiled ; the idea of Godwin 
 giving too much for anything was good. 
 
 Felise was running over in her mind 
 everything she could think of that would 
 be likely to draw out the truth, yet without 
 betraying her interest in Barnard. 
 
 ' Have you had him long ?' she asked.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 193 
 
 ' No, only a week or two/ 
 
 ' From whom did you buy him ?' — as if she 
 did not know. 
 
 ' Barnard of Manor House.' 
 
 ' Did you give much ?' 
 
 ' Seventy pounds.' 
 
 ' Why did he want to sell ?' 
 
 ' Wanted the money ; but I dare say 
 there's something wrong with the horse. I 
 shan't find it out for a month or two — 
 Barnard's too sharp for me.' 
 
 Mr. Goring, in the porch, smiled sarcas- 
 tically. If Godwin gave a man the character 
 of sharpness, it went without asking that he 
 was anything but shrewd at such matters as 
 a horse-deal. 
 
 Still stroking Ruy — her dress rustling 
 against Godwin, Felise for the second time 
 delayed the impatient horse ; just as she had 
 on the hills one morning. 
 
 ' Mr. Godwin wants to mount,' said Goring 
 at last. 
 
 ' I forgot,' said Felise, and moved away ; 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 the steward, however, did not seem in any 
 great hurry. He got up leisurely enough, 
 but reined Ruy with so powerful a hand that 
 the horse stood quiet, and Felise touched his 
 neck once more. 
 
 ' Will you come over and see us ?' said 
 Godwin. ' My sister would be very pleased 
 if you would ; the meadows are dry now, and 
 the path easy.' 
 
 ' I will come,' said Felise, to her uncle's 
 astonishment. 
 
 ' Soon ?' 
 
 ' To-morrow morning.' 
 
 Then she looked up at Godwin's cast- 
 bronze face, and asked in the most matter-of- 
 fact tone she could assume : 
 
 ' Why did Barnard sell — why did he want 
 money ?' 
 
 ' Because he's a fool,' said Godwin rudely. 
 She flushed — he thought it was because of 
 his rudeness. 
 
 ' Beg pardon,' he said. ' You will be sure 
 to come to-morrow morning ?'
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 195 
 
 ' I will.' 
 
 Still Godwin lingered, Ruy fidgeted ; 
 Goring wished to go to his garden-work, 
 but Godwin did not start. A moment 
 passed without a word being spoken, when 
 Felise slightly bowed and went in ; Godwin 
 immediately rode off without a word. 
 
 ' Are you really going to visit them ?' 
 asked Mr. Goring. 
 
 1 Yes, papa ; unless you object.' 
 
 1 No, I don't object — still, you know the 
 man's character.' 
 
 ' That he is a tyrant, yes ; but I am going 
 to see Ruy.' 
 
 ' Ruy ?' 
 
 ' Oh, I mean the horse. I heard his name 
 just now. He is a beautiful horse, isn't 
 he?' 
 
 13"
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 *Sp|pS it best to have a strong imagina- 
 tion, or to be entirely without it ? 
 An imaginative mind creates 
 
 for itself a beautiful world ; but upon entering 
 into practical life, at every step, first one and 
 then another portion of the structure is 
 shattered till the entire fabric falls to pieces. 
 Dust under foot and bitterness to the taste 
 are all that remain ; a void heart, a hopeless 
 future, a weary present. The commonplace 
 crushes the ideal as a cannon-ball might a 
 statue. 
 
 The world, therefore, has long since 
 decided that the imaginative is to be avoided. 
 Have nothing to do with books, pictures,
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 197 
 
 sculpture, with thought or dream. Above 
 all things be practical. 
 
 Those who do not possess an imagination 
 are clearly the gainers in this life ; horses, 
 carriages, money, expensive wines, or, if they 
 prefer it, the solid applause of well-to-do 
 folk, are given to them. The imaginative 
 dream of flowers, but the practical possess a 
 garden. The infinite superiority of the non- 
 imaoq native is established. 
 
 Robert Godwin had never any difficulty 
 in choosing between these two courses — the 
 imaginative and the practical — because he 
 had not even imagination enough to see that 
 there were two courses. By nature he was 
 absolutely devoid of imagination. He took 
 things as he saw them, and the idea of there 
 being anything beyond never occurred to 
 him. 
 
 There were the hills visible from his win- 
 dow ; he knew by experience that hills were 
 steep, and that a horse had to pull against 
 the collar to draw him over them. The
 
 198 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 higher they were the thinner the soil, the 
 smaller the crops, and the less rent to be 
 obtained. Occasionally he glanced at them 
 to see if the descending or ascending mist, 
 the clearness or dimness of outline, promised 
 rain or sunshine — and so much for the hills. 
 This practical knowledge completed his con- 
 cern in these mounds of chalk. 
 
 The depth of the rich blue sky, the sweep 
 of the clouds, the sunrise, the colours of sun- 
 set, the stars so clear seen at an altitude — 
 these mere imaginative things were invisible 
 to him altogether. He simply did not see 
 them, any more than if a thick curtain had 
 been drawn before his eyes. 
 
 The thoughts which flow from the contem- 
 plation of the azure, the noble hope of 
 sunrise, the god-like promise of the stars, 
 were to him non-existent ; as he could not 
 see the things that suggested the thought, so 
 his mind was blind to the thought itself. 
 
 Yet further, that scarce definable culture — 
 that idea which exists in the heart and soul
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 199 
 
 independent of outward appearances — the 
 sense of a beautiful inner life — so delicate a 
 music was soundless to his ears. 
 
 The ground was solid under his feet ; the 
 sky afar off a mere translucent roof ; the 
 sun a round ball of heat, never seen unless 
 he chanced to be driving westwards towards 
 sunset. He measured trees, and put a red 
 mark against those to be felled, so many 
 every year ; they were timber — wood ; they 
 were hard, oak some of them ; he could tell 
 the cubical contents, and how many feet of 
 planking they would saw up into. The shape 
 of the oak, the shadow, the birds who came 
 to it, all its varied associations — its dream — 
 had no meaning to him. Sometimes he saw 
 the sea, its green plain, from the higher 
 ground ; but it did not attract him to the 
 shore. 
 
 Through the woods in spring-time his feet 
 waded among pools, broad lakes of azure- 
 purple, acres upon acres of blue-bells, so 
 crowded they could not swing ; he crushed
 
 200 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 the tender anemone ; he passed the white 
 June rose. 
 
 Robert Godwin never walked by the sea, 
 nor gathered a flower. 
 
 The old books which had accumulated in 
 the house of his forefathers remained upon 
 the shelves untouched. Since his school- 
 days, when it was compulsory, he had never 
 opened any other book than the almanack. 
 
 He handled cattle and sheep, he inspected 
 horses, he visited men at plough, at harrow, 
 at harvest, at building, at sawing, smith's 
 work, every kind of labour. He attended 
 markets and fairs, he drove and rode to and 
 fro ; he kept his accounts ; he looked to 
 every detail of the estate and of his own 
 farm. He was always in action ; when he 
 returned from a long day's round, so soon as 
 he alighted he walked briskly down into the 
 garden to see if the gardener had fulfilled a 
 full day's task. 
 
 Robert Godwin drove men as cattle are 
 never driven. For cattle are let linger by
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 201 
 
 the roadside that they may crop the clover 
 which likes to grow in trodden places ; cattle 
 are permitted to drink at the pond, and to 
 rest in the shade of the elm-trees. The 
 evening comes and they are turned into a 
 field to graze, and chew the cud, and con- 
 sider, as it were, till the morning. 
 
 No man rested that Robert Godwin could 
 get at to drive. His own farm labourers, 
 the men who did the estate work, the wood- 
 cutters, the drain-diggers, the masons and 
 smiths, the very messengers to and fro the 
 Squire's house and his farm — he drove them 
 all. He would waylay the rural postman at 
 six in the morning, and bully him for not 
 coming at half-past five : what business had 
 he to waste time taking a draught of milR at 
 the farmhouse yonder ? He should be re- 
 ported. Robert Godwin stood at the stile 
 and shouted to the children, and threatened 
 them with the stick if they did not hasten on 
 to school. 
 
 Yet when Robert Godwin's back was
 
 202 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 turned and the hedge had hidden him from 
 view, the ploughman relaxed his hold on the 
 stilts of his plough, and the team stayed as 
 he listened to the peaceful caw of the rooks. 
 But Godwin's back was never turned upon 
 himself. He drove himself for ever. He 
 was always up at six, often at five ; from then 
 till dusk he moved to and fro his own farm, 
 and the estate he managed ; after dusk a 
 cheap candle was lit for him, and he worked 
 at his accounts till bedtime. He never 
 listened to the caw, caw of the rooks. 
 
 Reading by the open window of a sunny 
 day, when the mind for a moment pauses 
 from its dwelling on the page, and the glance 
 goes out into the light, it is very pleasant to 
 hear them — these peaceful rooks caw, caw- 
 ing over to their favourite furrows. Doubt- 
 less you have heard them and rested. 
 Robert Godwin never heard them. 
 
 Incessant physical occupation was a neces- 
 sity of his existence. But surely there must 
 have been times when, his hands being still
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 203. 
 
 and his frame reposing in the early evening, 
 'between the lights,' his mind roamed in 
 reverie, when fancy bore sway, when a dream 
 or thought came to him ? 
 
 No. When his hands were still and his 
 frame reposed, his mind was simply vacant, 
 like that of a horse looking from his stable- 
 door, or a dog by his kennel. He saw the 
 wall, or the fireplace, nothing more. His 
 mind was simply quiescent — vacant — like a 
 mirror turned face downwards, as old country- 
 folk place them on the bed in a storm of 
 thunder and lightning. 
 
 In such a position the glass reflects 
 nothing, and so when his hands were still 
 Godwin's mind reflected nothing. It did 
 not work within itself. Thus it was that on 
 lying down at bedtime he fell instantly 
 asleep, sound, undisturbed, complete, like an 
 animal's. No lone train of aerial fancies 
 passed through his mind ; that organ, like a 
 muscle unemployed, fell into perfect repose. 
 
 This incessant work was not persevered in
 
 204 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 as a ' religion,' such as it is the fashion nowa- 
 days to ' dignify ' toil for the benefit of those 
 who own factories. Nor was it the restless 
 energy of a great genius, for Godwin had no 
 ambition, and to drive nails in a carpenter's 
 shop would have contented him as well as to 
 lead the army at Pharsalia. Nor was it 
 nervous restlessness ; he was quite without 
 nerves. It was his nature. 
 
 Just as rooks fly because they are rooks, 
 so Godwin worked because he was Godwin, 
 worked and accumulated money, and drove 
 himself, and every human being with whom 
 he came into the smallest contact, and knew 
 no more rest or fatigue than the old mill-wheel. 
 
 His forefathers had had money ; it was a 
 family, a hereditary trait — this faculty for 
 accumulation. Robert got together more, 
 and it was whispered that he had lent a 
 large sum to the Squire. Certainly his will 
 was law on the Cornleigh estate ; it was no 
 use appealing to the Squire, who merely 
 referred applicants back to his steward.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 205 
 
 There could not have been a more faithful 
 steward. There was not a halfpenny wasted 
 on that property, not the value of a rusty 
 nail. Economy, rigid control, perfect ac- 
 counts ; every shilling brought to the board. 
 Everything organized and in order ; no con- 
 fusion, no uncertainty. Above all, no weak 
 paltering with tenants who had had losses, 
 or suffered from illness or infirmity ; no feeble 
 yielding to the entreaties of the widow, or 
 the fatherless children, or the unfortunate. 
 The same rigid rule was applied unfalteringly 
 to all alike, so that there could be no 
 favouritism : ' Pay or go.' 
 
 The steward allowed no time, consented 
 to no compromise. ' Pay or go.' Three 
 omnipotent words, which brought to the 
 Squire's pockets an unfailing supply of gold 
 twice a year. 
 
 Some did, indeed, say that the reputation 
 thereby acquired prevented tenants with 
 large capital from applying when farms were 
 •vacant ; they would rather go farther and
 
 206 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 have more freedom and kindliness of treat- 
 ment. However that might be, for the 
 present, at all events, the Godwin rule was a 
 success. 
 
 It was thought that the succession of bad 
 seasons must necessitate a relaxation of this 
 iron government, but fortune sometimes 
 favours the hardest natures, and in this case 
 favoured Robert Godwin. By a piece of 
 good luck that neighbourhood did not suffer 
 so severely at first as many districts ; the 
 crops were below the average, but not so 
 seriously ; some little allowance had to be 
 made, but not much ; the tenants certainly 
 lost money, yet they could not make out a 
 sufficiently pressing case to obtain much 
 reduction of rent. Of late there had been 
 more serious complaint. No appreciable 
 difference was caused in the Godwin o-overn- 
 ment. 
 
 He was ever on the alert, just the same, 
 to detect the least infringement of the strict 
 letter of the agreement ; ever ready with
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 207 
 
 objections if any expenditure was applied for ; 
 always watching for an opportunity to assert 
 the authority of his master. 
 
 A labourer began to build a hut on waste 
 ground by the wayside. Godwin had the 
 materials carted away, as he had commenced 
 without permission from the lord of the 
 manor. A cottager had made a garden in a 
 hedge, leaving enough of the fence each side 
 to prevent cattle straying ; he worked on the 
 estate, but Godwin spied out the encroach- 
 ment and had quickset thorns planted among 
 the potatoes. 
 
 The thatched roofs of the cottages in one 
 of the hamlets were rotten, and let the rain 
 through ; the poor inhabitants begged for 
 repairs. Nothing of the sort : they could buy 
 straw and repair the roofs if they wished ; if 
 not, the wet might drip on their beds. 
 
 Enclosure of the common had already 
 begun when Mr. Goring came forward and 
 contested the right of Cornleigh Cornleigh, 
 Esq., to enclose. Godwin blustered and
 
 2o8 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 thundered; letters were written on blue paper; 
 but public opinion had been drawn to the 
 question, emissaries from powerful societies 
 appeared on the scene, and the scheme was 
 let drop. 
 
 Some day, perhaps, Mr. Goring would 
 leave. These objectors have never much 
 status or stability. They are not fixed like 
 great hereditary owners. The Pope is dead — 
 long live the Pope ! The interests of here- 
 ditary estates are handed on generation after 
 generation, much like the will of Peter the 
 Great ; but objectors, such as Mr. Goring, 
 usually disappear in a few years. The hand 
 that repairs the embankment once withdrawn, 
 the sea soon rushes in. 
 
 Godwin was ceaselessly on the alert to 
 extend the authority of his employer. Foot- 
 paths were stopped, and odd corners of waste 
 ground enclosed with stone walls costing 
 thrice the value of the land, in order that no 
 one might 'squat' and presently assert a right 
 to a few square yards of their own country.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 209 
 
 These proceedings were by no means con- 
 fined to the outlying agricultural places, 
 where the well-to-do people were almost 
 all tenants, and the remainder poor and 
 without organization. Robert Godwin 
 attacked the town with equal zest and equal 
 success. The Cornleigh Cornleigh property 
 included a considerable part of the town, and 
 his ' rights ' extended more or less over the 
 rest. 
 
 Except by long and costly legal process it 
 was impossible to tell where those • rights ' 
 really began or ended. The steward made 
 the fullest use of this uncertainty. Old by- 
 ways and paths were blocked, corners en- 
 closed, possession asserted and taken, and 
 not a voice was raised. The whole town was 
 straitened, and a band as it were drawn tight 
 about it so that it could scarce breathe. 
 
 The park was closed, though the inhabitants 
 had used it for a hundred years as a recrea- 
 tion ground, and had undoubted claims to 
 roads across it. Not a voice was raised. 
 
 vol. 1. 14
 
 210 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 Old inhabitants retained a respect for ' the 
 family,' and would not oppose its will. 
 Tradespeople wished to enjoy its custom 
 and patronage, though, as a matter of fact, 
 they got neither, as 'the family' bought all 
 they required in London ; still they did not 
 like to shut the door in their own faces. 
 There were not enough shoemakers in Maas- 
 bury. 
 
 Long since there had been a glove in- 
 dustry in the surrounding villages — an in- 
 dustry at which the poor folk worked in their 
 own cottages. For the most part it had dis- 
 appeared, yet to this day the magistrates 
 could distinguish the hamlets where it had 
 once flourished by the records in their books. 
 To this day half the cases brought before 
 them came from these hamlets. 
 
 Your artisan who works at home — your 
 cottage glovemaker, or shoemaker — is a 
 terrible radical, a fearful character, a fre- 
 quenter of taverns, a fisticuff fellow, and 
 above all things a contemner of authority.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 211 
 
 He will get into trouble for no other purpose 
 than to show his despite of authority. His 
 descendants had it in their blood, and still 
 continued to exhibit the same disposition. 
 But the industry had died out, and there 
 were no shoemakers to speak of in Maasbury 
 town. Consequently Mr. Godwin ruled as 
 he chose. 
 
 The result was that the property was 
 trimmed, walled, enclosed, and improved in 
 every possible manner. Had it been set out 
 to sale, the auctioneer could have honestly 
 laid stress on the singular completeness of 
 the estate. It was in perfect order. The 
 • family ' reaped that advantage. 
 
 A breathless hatred of Robert Godwin 
 prevailed from north to south, east to west, 
 of that broad stretch of land. From the 
 tenant of a thousand acres, and the wealthy 
 tradesman (like Rosa's father) down to the 
 miserable old woman in her shanty, living on 
 tea and soaked bread, the hatred of Robert 
 Godwin was universal. 
 
 14 — 2
 
 212 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 The well-to-do exhibited this feeling by 
 asking him to every entertainment they gave 
 — invitations seldom accepted, for Godwin 
 was a solitary man — by publicly praising him 
 at every meeting, by treating him with the 
 greatest respect, and by holding their tongues 
 in private. No one ever abused Robert 
 Godwin. 
 
 Even the old women did not curse him, as 
 they do in story-books, for they have come 
 to learn — these old women — in the nine- 
 teenth century that curses are as harmless as 
 thistledown. They looked after him as he 
 passed — simply folded their arms and looked 
 after him. 
 
 His mind, hard set upon the subject in 
 hand, was clear and practical, consequently 
 upon agricultural topics, and such as came 
 within his reach, Godwin could make a 
 good speech. He frequently spoke, express- 
 ing himself in plain and forcible language ; 
 his speeches appeared in full in the local
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 213 
 
 prints, and were even transferred to the 
 London agricultural papers. He possessed 
 a considerable reputation of this kind, and 
 justly so, for he spoke out of the fulness of 
 practical knowledge.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 XCEPT I describe Robert God- 
 win's works and that which he 
 did, it is impossible to describe 
 him. For he was not a thinker, a dreamer, 
 a man of feeling ; there was no light and 
 shade in his character. To understand him 
 you must know not what he felt, but what he 
 did. Now these were the works of Robert 
 Godwin. 
 
 I do not think that he intended to be 
 harsh in his dealings with his fellows. It 
 was simply an absolute want of imagination. 
 He was no set villain of a piece, no un- 
 scrupulous tyrant for the sake of evil. There 
 was no cruelty in his nature. No one ever
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 215 
 
 saw him thrash his horse mercilessly, or kick 
 his dog. 
 
 Of the suffering to human beings caused 
 by his conduct, he was entirely oblivious, nor 
 could you by any possible method have ex- 
 plained it to him. He lacked the imagina- 
 tion to put himself in the place of the 
 wretched. 
 
 It was this faculty which enabled the tor- 
 turers in the Middle Ages to tear human 
 creatures limb from limb, to thrust red-hot 
 iron into the victim, to smash every bone on 
 the wheel, to carry out orders of so ghastly a 
 character that not even the sober historian 
 in our time dares to record them on his page. 
 They remain in Latin — as it were whispered 
 in ancient books. 
 
 In our day this faculty is by no means 
 extinct : twelve hundred men announced 
 themselves possessed of it when they applied 
 for the hangman's office. 
 
 I call it a faculty, for really it seems so, 
 instead of the lack of a faculty ; just as cold
 
 216 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 — frost — seems to one's feelings a real thing, 
 and not merely the absence of heat. 
 
 Robert Godwin had not the least idea of 
 the misery he often caused, simply because 
 he possessed the faculty of not seeing — the 
 faculty of no imagination. That he seemed 
 in most cases devoid of rancour was often 
 remarked ; after quarrelling most furiously, 
 he would shake hands next day as if nothing 
 had happened. But then there was nothing 
 in his goodwill — he had no goodwill. 
 
 He was absolutely honest, except in a 
 horse-deal, in which it is mutually understood 
 that every man shall cheat his neighbour. 
 His mere nod was his bond. The word of 
 Robert Godwin was like the signed and 
 sealed bond of a great railway company — 
 negotiable ; his word was negotiable. That 
 is, if a man said Godwin had promised, you 
 dealt on the faith of that bare word. 
 
 This much said, last of all, Robert Godwin 
 was no hypocrite. He made no profession of 
 Christian charity ; he never entered a church.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 217 
 
 Not that he was an opponent of the Church ; 
 he was simply indifferent. 
 
 No one ever got touch of Robert Godwin. 
 The man was always alone. While he 
 measured a tree with the woodman standing 
 by ; while he rated the ploughman ; while he 
 bargained in the market, hustled and shoved 
 by the crowd ; while he spoke in public ; if 
 you sat with him in his house, still Robert 
 Godwin was apart, separate, a distinct per- 
 sonality. His spirit never blended with the 
 society about him. 
 
 His sister had lived with him as house- 
 keeper year after year, and she knew no 
 more of him than a stranger. He made no 
 mystery of anything, yet he was impenetrable. 
 She had inherited the Godwin faculty of no 
 imagination ; her mind, once the household 
 duties over, fell at once into vacancy. She 
 sat still and grew immensely fat. 
 
 The reason of Godwin's intense personality 
 was his concentration. He was fixed, absorbed 
 in himself; he neither saw nor heard any-
 
 2i8 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 thing. He was conscious of himself only. 
 The curving outline of the hills, the white 
 clouds, the sunset, were invisible to him. 
 
 Riding away on his new horse Ruy from 
 Mr. Goring's porch that lovely summer day, 
 Robert Godwin went straight into the town, 
 executed some business there, returned home, 
 put up his horse, and at once walked out into 
 the fields to his men. He never stayed his 
 hand till night ; when the last labourers had 
 gone slowly homewards, he was still doing 
 something. 
 
 But even the long, long summer evening 
 — Felise passed it sitting by the sundial 
 dreaming — the long summer evening went 
 away at last. Dusky shadows crept out and 
 filled the corners of the fields ; the orchards 
 became gloomy ; the large bats flew to and 
 fro in the upper air ; the lesser bats fluttered 
 round the eaves. 
 
 Robert Godwin took his candle up into his 
 bedroom, which was at the same time his 
 study or private office. Probably in his grim
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 219 
 
 father's time it was the only room in which 
 he could find any peace, and the habit of 
 working there having once been established 
 could not be set aside. The washstand was 
 placed by a small window — a window deep 
 in the embrasure necessitated by a thick old 
 wall. Upon one end of this washstand 
 Robert wrote ; it was a large stand intended 
 for two ewers, but only one stood on it, 
 cobwebbed, for it was never used. 
 
 At the end of the washstand next the 
 window Robert had his ink, his pens, and 
 blotting-paper ; his letters, documents, and 
 papers were on the window-ledge, piles of 
 them which could be seen from the garden 
 beneath. Here he worked every evening, in 
 solitude, by the light of one cheap candle. 
 
 This evening Robert worked later than 
 usual, till his sister, weary of waiting, had her 
 supper, and presently retired. By-and-by 
 the last letter was finished, the last account 
 added up, the last note jotted down ; there 
 was no more writing to be done. He took
 
 220 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 his letters out to the gate by the road, where 
 he had a private box cleared by the mail-cart 
 driver who passed about midnight. 
 
 Next he went round to the other gate in 
 the garden to see if it was locked. From 
 thence he visited the stables, and heard Ruy 
 move in his stall ; and then round the rick- 
 yard to see if any wandering vagabond dared 
 to creep under a rick to sleep. As he passed 
 the pump in the yard he tried it, to see if it 
 acted properly ; his hands could let nothing 
 alone. Finally, he crossed his arms on the 
 top bar of the gate leading into the meadows, 
 and looked straight out across the fields. 
 
 Something, perhaps a hare, rushed away ; 
 he did not regard it in the least. The dog 
 in the kennel yawned, shook himself, and 
 looked out at his master, who never stroked 
 him. 
 
 Dew was falling thickly, and in the distance 
 a thin white vapour marked the course of the 
 stream. The still trees, heavily laden with 
 their foliage, were silent ; there was not the
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 221 
 
 faintest rustle, and nothing appeared to move 
 in their shadows. Once a bird, perhaps a 
 whitethroat, chattered a little in the hedge ; 
 but his voice sank quickly. In the warm 
 stillness of the summer night there came 
 a far-off rushing sound, very faint ; it was 
 the cascade at the trout-pool where Felise 
 bathed. 
 
 Above, the clear sky was full of stars, and 
 among them the beautiful planet Jupiter 
 shone serene. The sky was of a lovely 
 night-blue ; it was an hour to think, to 
 dream, to revere, to love — a time when, if 
 ever it will, the soul reigns, and the coarse 
 rude acts of day are forgotten in the aspira- 
 tions of the inmost mind. 
 
 The Night was calm — still ; it was in no 
 haste to do anything — it had nothing it 
 needed to do. To be is enough for the 
 stars. 
 
 Robert did not notice any difference in the 
 night ; he had seen hundreds of nights. He 
 was listening for the roll of the mail-cart
 
 !22 
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 wheels. After a time they came ; the cart 
 stopped ; the driver collected the letters, and 
 went on. There was no delivery by this 
 mail, only a collection. 
 
 Robert returned to his bedroom, took off 
 his coat, looked at his bed, and put on his 
 coat again. He did not care to lie down. 
 He lighted a great stable-lantern, and went 
 out of doors again. 
 
 The hasp of the gate against which he 
 had leaned was a little shaky and loose ; 
 he found the tools, went to work, and put it 
 to rights. Then he went into the orchard 
 to the garden-house, and examined the 
 gardener's tools, one by one, to see if they 
 had been roughly used, or injured ; if so, the 
 man must pay. The man had been digging ; 
 with the lantern in his hand Robert paced 
 the distance dug to see how many yards he 
 had completed. 
 
 Robert went to the stable, looked in at 
 Ruy, climbed up into the tallet, and spied 
 about to see if any forage had been stolen.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 223 
 
 He examined the carter's collection of horse- 
 hair — his perquisite — to see if it was accu- 
 mulating too fast. 
 
 He brought out a stool and saw, and 
 sawed up firewood till he had made a goodly 
 heap. He would have done more, but that 
 would encourage waste. If only a little was 
 cut up, only a little would be used. 
 
 He planed a piece of timber intended for 
 the head of a gate. He counted the poles 
 aslant against the wood-pile. Nothing else 
 remaining that he could do, he returned to 
 the garden, took off his coat, set the lantern 
 on the grass, and dug where the gardener 
 had left off. While he dug the night went 
 on — the night that was in no haste to do 
 anything ; and by degrees a pale light grew 
 up above the eastern horizon. The dawn 
 comes early in summer. 
 
 Still Robert dug steadily on till the other 
 mail-cart — the down mail — approached. He 
 stopped and listened ; the driver did not pull 
 up, so there were no letters. Robert scraped
 
 224 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 his boots, put away the spade, blew out the 
 lantern, and went indoors. 
 
 By the pale white light he looked again at 
 his bed ; but he could not lie down. There was 
 no rest in him that night. He lit his cheap 
 candle and went up into the attic overhead, 
 where he had not been for years. The shutters 
 were perpetually closed up there, so that the 
 place was partly dark, although streaks of 
 dawn came through the chinks. The great 
 bare room was full of ancient lumber. 
 
 He set the candle on an oak press and fell 
 to work, sorting the confused mass which 
 strewed the floor. Old chairs — some broken, 
 some perfect — a picture or two, hair-trunks, 
 books, bundles of newspapers, pieces of chain 
 — odd lengths thrown aside — nameless odds 
 and ends, such as candlesticks, parts of im- 
 plements, the waste of a century, all covered 
 with dust, and dead black cobwebs. Dead 
 cobwebs thick with dust, not the fine clean 
 threads the spider has in use ; webs which 
 had been abandoned fifty years ago.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 225 
 
 The skeleton of a bird lay at the bottom 
 of a hollow in the pile, perhaps an injured 
 swallow that had crept in there to die. A 
 pair of flintlock pistols, the flints still in the 
 hammers, were in very good condition, 
 scarcely rusted ; Robert snicked the locks 
 and examined them carefully. He was black 
 with dust and cobwebs. 
 
 Chairs and furniture he threw on one side, 
 boxes on another, papers and books in a 
 corner, and soon began to make order of 
 confusion. 
 
 The light of morning came stronger through 
 the chinks ; the flame of the candle appeared 
 yellow. The alchemy of light was changing 
 the sky without. 
 
 He worked on till footsteps sounded on 
 the paths outside, the carters had come to 
 see to the horses. There was some one at 
 last to drive. 
 
 Robert went downstairs, and out to the 
 pump ; there he washed himself in the open 
 air, as he had been made to do years and 
 
 vol. 1. 15
 
 226 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 years ago in his stern old father's time. The 
 habit adhered still ; the man was indeed all 
 habit. Then he visited the stables, and 
 began to drive the carters ; the night was 
 over, the day had begun. 
 
 Overhead and eastwards there shone a 
 glory of blue heaven, illuminated from within 
 with golden light. The deep rich azure was 
 lit up with an inner gold ; it was a time to 
 worship, to lift up the heart. Is there any- 
 thing so wondrously beautiful as the sky just 
 before the sun rises in summer ? 
 
 There was a sound of cart-horses stamping 
 heavily, the rattle and creak of harness, the 
 shuffle of feet ; a man came out with a set 
 forehead, grumbling and muttering ; the 
 driver was at work. 
 
 No one heeded the alchemy proceeding in 
 the east, which drew forth gold and made it 
 shine in the purple.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 flNCE Robert Godwin could not by 
 the effort of a lifetime have sum- 
 moned up sufficient imagination to 
 tell his own story, I must do the romance for 
 him, and explain why he could not sleep that 
 nieht. You now know the man, who could 
 rout about dusty lumber that his hands might 
 be employed, who could not see the sky 
 Here is his romance. 
 
 Nine years ago, that very time of the year, 
 Robert Godwin, starting forth into the fields 
 one day, saw a trespasser in a meadow of 
 mowing-grass. A trespasser rolling about in 
 the sacred mowing-grass, wilfully damaging 
 it — with the aid of a dog, too. 
 
 15—2
 
 228 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 To walk among mowing-grass is a guilty- 
 thing, you must understand, in country 
 places. This meadow in particular did not 
 concern Godwin, but the fact of trespassing 
 did ; he could not have passed a trespasser 
 without ordering the criminal off any more 
 than a dog could pass a bone. He walked 
 rapidly towards the place, full of hard lan- 
 guage, bitter words and threats, swelling with 
 eagerness to drive this daring human being. 
 As he came near he was astounded at the 
 absolute abandon of the youthful sinner ; she 
 not only trespassed, she revelled in her 
 wickedness. 
 
 It was a girl about ten or eleven, tall for 
 her age, and with her a great spaniel ; to- 
 gether they were making themselves joyful 
 in the flower-strewn grass. 
 
 Sometimes she ran, and leaped, and danced 
 in the beautiful sweet grass which rose 
 above her knees. Sometimes she threw her- 
 self at full length in it, lying down on the 
 breast of the earth, as a swimmer lies on
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 229 
 
 the breast of the sea. As children dance and 
 play without much covering on the sands in 
 their innocence, so in her wild gambols her 
 short frock permitted the shape of her limbs 
 to be occasionally seen. 
 
 Her hands were full of clover-blossoms ; 
 she threw them away and gathered the large 
 daisies ; she scattered the daisies and took 
 buttercups and blue veronica ; she laughed 
 and whistled — quite a real whistle — she 
 caught her foot and tumbled, and shouted. 
 The spaniel charged her as she lay extended, 
 charged over her and rolled her down again. 
 Together they romped, utterly unaware of the 
 Terror that was approaching them with swift 
 strides. 
 
 Her long golden hair, one mass of ringlets, 
 was spread about upon the grass, as she lay 
 on her back — the spaniel had his heavy paws 
 on her chest — one knee was raised among 
 the golden buttercups, and the sun shone on 
 its exquisite whiteness. She was panting 
 and laughing, almost unable to move from
 
 z 3 o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 the weight of the soaniel and her own ex- 
 haustion. 
 
 The Terror was very near — the Terror 
 could easily have captured her ; but now a 
 singular incident occurred. 
 
 At a distance of ten short paces Robert 
 Godwin stopped, looked fixedly, suddenly 
 turned on his heel, and returned the way he 
 had come without a word. 
 
 Almost directly his back was turned the 
 spaniel saw him, and began to bark ; and the 
 girl sat up and began instinctively to arrange 
 her frock, and get her hair in order. But 
 Robert Godwin did not look back. 
 
 The child was Felise Goring, then but 
 recently arrived at her uncle's upon the loss 
 of her father, whom she could not regret 
 because she had never known him — he had 
 been in India so long. She remembered the 
 grass — just remembered it — about the house 
 she had lived in when she first began to 
 walk. She came to it again from the streets 
 and confinement of a London suburb.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 231 
 
 Imagine the child's delight — the fields to 
 roam in — liberty — the great dog ; all the 
 happy sunny freedom children enjoy in the 
 country. No matter how kind their parents 
 may be, no matter how fortunate their cir- 
 cumstances, the children in cities never know 
 the joyousness of the country. 
 
 The grass to walk on ; the flowers to 
 gather ; the horses to watch ; the new milk ; 
 the delicious butter ; the brook to ramble 
 by ; the pond to fish in ; the hay to throw 
 about ; the very ladders to climb ; and the 
 thick hedges to get in as if they were woods. 
 No gold can purchase these things in cities. 
 They are to be pitied whose youth has been 
 spent in streets, though they may succeed 
 to the counting-house where millions are 
 made. 
 
 All of you with little children, and who have 
 no need to count expense, or even if you 
 have such need, take them somehow into the 
 country among green grass and yellow wheat 
 — among trees — by hills and streams, if you
 
 23 2 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 wish their highest education, that of the 
 heart and the soul, to be completed. 
 
 Therein shall they find a Secret — a know- 
 ledge not to be written, not to be found in 
 books. They shall know the sun and the 
 wind, the running water, and the breast of 
 the broad earth. Under the green spray, 
 among the hazel boughs where the nightingale 
 sings, they shall find a Secret, a feeling, a 
 sense that fills the heart with an emotion 
 never to be forgotten. They will forget 
 their books — they will never forget the 
 grassy fields. 
 
 If you wish your children to think deep 
 things — to know the holiest emotions, take 
 them to the woods and hills, and give them 
 the freedom of the meadows. 
 
 It is of no use to palter with your conscience 
 and say, ' They have everything ; they have 
 expensive toys, story-books without end ; we 
 never go anywhere without bringing them 
 home something to amuse them ; they have 
 been to the seaside, and actually to Paris ;
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 233 
 
 it is absurd, they cannot want anything 
 more.' 
 
 But they do want something more, with- 
 out which all this expensive spoiling is quite 
 thrown away. They want the unconscious 
 teaching of the country, and without that 
 they will never know the truths of this life. 
 They need to feel — unconsciously — the in- 
 fluence of the air that blows, sun-sweetened, 
 over fragrant hay ; to feel the influence of 
 deep shady woods, mile- deep in boughs — 
 the stream — the high hills; they need to 
 revel in long grass. Put away their books, 
 and give them the freedom of the meadows. 
 Do it at any cost or trouble to yourselves, if 
 you wish them to become great men and 
 noble women. 
 
 Indulgent to all, Mr. Goring was neces- 
 sarily yet more indulgent to this great 
 beautiful girl suddenly thrown on his hands. 
 For she was beautiful already, although with 
 that unshapen, uncertain irregularity which 
 promises better in childhood than regularity.
 
 234 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 If a girl's features are regular as a child, if 
 already lovely, it is rare for her to be a beau- 
 tiful woman. Neither the face nor the form 
 must be finished too soon. 
 
 Felise's face suggested, her form already 
 hinted at, loveliness to come when the bold 
 first strokes of Nature were filled in. 
 
 To recognise such strokes of Nature in 
 their inception, and to observe their relation 
 to each other and to the general shape, is a 
 pleasure of the most exquisite kind. If the 
 growth and unfolding of a flower be beau- 
 tiful, how much more so the growth of a 
 woman ! 
 
 Robert Godwin's thought from that hour 
 never varied from the child whom he had 
 intended to have driven with harsh reviling 
 from the meadow. I do not say that he 
 loved her from the moment he saw her ; he 
 had no imagination. His heart was not pre- 
 pared with fancy and ready to love ; but his 
 thought dwelt upon her, and love steadily 
 grew within him.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 235 
 
 So intensely concentrated a nature could 
 not love by halves — could not admire, or 
 sigh, and pass on and amuse itself elsewhere. 
 Once set, the plant grew and filled his whole 
 life. It came about in time that Robert 
 Godwin never thought of anything else but 
 Felise Goring. 
 
 While his hands worked, as you have seen 
 them ; while his lips uttered hard words, or 
 while his mind added figure to figure at his 
 washstand-desk, Felise filled his entire inner 
 existence. He lived in a dream, this dream- 
 less man ; he was absorbed in one idea — an 
 idea so fixed that his mind was vacant. His 
 hands moved with no consciousness behind 
 them, as the wdieels of a machine go round. 
 
 Work over, he slept at once without any 
 interval of love-like reverie ; for he carried 
 Felise instantly with him into his slumber, so 
 fixed was her image in his mind. His ab- 
 straction was complete. The form of Robert 
 Godwin walked among the fields, and rode 
 along the roads ; the lips of Robert Godwin
 
 2 36 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 gave forth articulate sound ; the signature of 
 Robert Godwin was traced upon the cheque — 
 but Robert Godwin, the personality, was not 
 there. His mind was with Felise. 
 
 It is said that women above all things like 
 to be loved. Very rarely is a woman loved 
 as Godwin loved, such utter abstraction, such 
 loss of self-existence, such death of self-exist- 
 ence. The woman that he loved should 
 have been happy. But in Paris they say, 
 that woman is indeed happy to be loved, but 
 only when the lover can minister to her 
 vanity. 
 
 Robert Godwin had no knowledge what- 
 ever of such studies of woman's heart, some 
 base and worthless, some true ; yet his clear- 
 ness of intellect (consequent upon the short- 
 ness of his view, not its breadth ; he held 
 everything, as it were, close to his mind, as 
 people with dim sight hold all things close 
 to their eyes) — his clearness of intellect in- 
 stinctively told him that Felise was not for 
 him ; he could never be anything to her.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 237 
 
 The Parisian would put it in this way : 
 He comprehended that there was nothing 
 about him that could flatter or excite her 
 vanity. 
 
 He loved her and gave her up at the same 
 time. He loved her more and more as the 
 years drew on, and year by year he acknow- 
 ledged to himself that the gulf between them 
 grew more and more impassable. 
 
 At that moment in the meadow he was 
 already forty ; she was ten or eleven. Yet 
 it was not the difference of age ; it was the 
 total, world-wide difference of personality. 
 
 Now he was forty-nine, Felise nineteen — 
 nearly twenty. Nine great wedges had been 
 driven in by Time to split their lives 
 asunder. 
 
 Upright, strong, without one grey fleck in 
 his dark hair, Godwin had not altered an 
 atom in those nine years. He was as 
 vigorous, as full of manhood as at twenty- 
 one. But still he was forty-nine ; he was on 
 the verge of fifty.
 
 238 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 Can you imagine a woman in solitude 
 weighing these words on her lips, ' He is on 
 the verge of fifty ' ? 
 
 Yet it was not the years ; it was the total, 
 the world-wide difference of personality. 
 Godwin, all these nine years, had held the 
 matter up close to his mind, and every day 
 the certainty grew more certain, the fact more 
 palpable, that she was not for him. By no 
 possible manner of means could Felise ever 
 come to care for Robert Godwin. 
 
 In all that time scarcely a day went by 
 that he did not see her. The two houses 
 were hardly half a mile apart ; the girl was in 
 the fields constantly, and he was always 
 riding or walking across them. He never 
 purposely approached her, but his path fre- 
 quently brought him near ; sometimes they 
 met. Her existence was always before his 
 eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HE thought of nothing but the sun 
 and wind, the flowers and the run- 
 nine stream. She listened to the 
 wind in the trees and began herself to sing. 
 The child was led along by unknown im- 
 pulses, as if voices issued from the woods 
 calling her to enter. It would have been im- 
 possible for her to tell why she was so happy 
 in the freedom of the fields. 
 
 Not once now and then, or one day only, 
 when the smiling hours of early June lit the 
 meadows, but every day, the year round, 
 Felise went forth with the same joy. 
 
 She trod the paths to their utmost ending, 
 through meads and wheatfields, round the
 
 2 4 o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 skirt of copses where pheasants feeding 
 hurried in at her coming, or wood-pigeons 
 rose with a clatter from the firs. Climbing 
 the rugged stiles, treading the bending plank 
 stretched across the streamlet, stepping from 
 stone to stone in the watery ways where 
 woods and marshes met, up the steep hill 
 where the shepherds had cut steps in the 
 turf, she traced the path to its ending. 
 Through the long lanes, hazel-boughs on one 
 side, hawthorn on the other ; along the rude 
 waecon-tracks winding: in and out the corn ; 
 by shadowy green arcades of the covers ; by 
 deep valleys, sunless because of the massy 
 beeches high on the slopes. 
 
 There was not a spot made beautiful by 
 trees and hedges, by grass and flowers, and 
 sun and shade, that she had not visited and 
 lingered in. She knew when each would 
 look at its loveliest — the corner of maple- 
 bushes when the first frosts had yellowed the 
 spray and strewn the sward with colour of 
 leaves ; the row of oaks when the acorns
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 241 
 
 were ripe, and the rooks above and the 
 pheasants beneath were feasting ; the meadow 
 where the purple orchis grew in the first days 
 of May ; the osier-beds where the marsh 
 mangolds flowered, and again in the time of 
 the yellow iris. 
 
 She knew where the hill, lifting itself in a 
 bold brow thrown forward from the range, 
 gave a view over the wooded plain almost 
 to the horizon ; where the downs opening in 
 a pass, the broad green sea gleamed out to 
 the clouds. 
 
 The place where the stream ran at the 
 foot of a cliff, overshadowed by the trees on 
 the summit ; where it came again to sweet 
 meads, moving between its banks without a 
 sound except what the birds made for it 
 calling in the sedges. 
 
 The time when the fields were fullest of 
 flowers ; the time when the green wheat 
 began to grow tall, and to contain wheatears 
 like hidden treasures among its innumerable 
 stalks ; the time when it became golden ; the 
 
 vol. 1. 16
 
 242 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 time when the partridges called at even in 
 the short stubble. 
 
 The sound of the wind in the oaks and in 
 the pines ; the rush it came with across the 
 grass ; the rustle of the dry corn swinging. 
 
 The light of the sun shining on the green 
 sward, on the tree-tops, on the clouds at 
 sunset. 
 
 Storms darkening the face of heaven ; 
 strong gales casting fragments of branches 
 afar from the trees ; thunder rolling back in 
 heavier echoes from the hills ; lightning 
 springing athwart the darkness. 
 
 The blackness of frost ; the white of the 
 snow ; the crystal rime in the early morning ; 
 the heavy days of long, long rain ; moaning 
 wind in the elms. 
 
 The first swallow, and the hawthorn leaf 
 green on the dark bough ; the song of the 
 nightingale ; the first call of the cuckoo ; the 
 first apple-bloom ; the first scent of the hay ; 
 the first sheaf of wheat ; the first beech- 
 boughs turning red and gold.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 243 
 
 The coming of the redwings, and the field- 
 fares ; the thrushes singing again in the mild 
 autumn days ; the last harebell from the hill. 
 
 The stars rising, constellation by constella- 
 tion, as the year went on ; those that had 
 fulfilled their time of shining in the evening 
 sky marching to the westwards, while others 
 came up in the east. The visible path of the 
 earth rolling onward in space, made visible 
 by night to those who watch the stars — 
 visible by day in the shortening shadows 
 of summer noon, and the long shadows of 
 winter. 
 
 The glowing planets — calm Jupiter, red 
 Mars, silvery Venus — glowing over the trees 
 in the evening. 
 
 Swallows building under the eaves — 
 swallows- building in the chimneys; thrushes 
 in the hawthorn-bushes; great missel-thrushes 
 in the apple-trees of the orchard ; the blue 
 
 sparrow's egg in the hedge ; the chaffinch's 
 moss and lichen nest against the elm ; the 
 dove's nest up in the copse, fearlessly build- 
 
 16 — 2
 
 244 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 ing because no rude hand disturbed them ; 
 the pheasant's eggs carelessly left on the 
 ground by the bramble-bush, the corncrake's 
 found by the mower ; the moorhen's nest by 
 the trout-pool. 
 
 She knew and loved them all — the colour 
 and sound and light, the changing days, 
 the creatures of the wood and of the field. 
 With these she lived, and they became 
 familiar to her, as the threads of the pattern 
 are known to those who sit the livelong day 
 embroidering — the woven embroidery of the 
 earth ; so beautiful, because without design. 
 
 Not so much the actual realities, the 
 woods and hills, as the mystery that brooded 
 among them. Yet ' mystery' does not convey 
 what she felt, for there was nothing concealed ; 
 rather it was the openness, the pure frank- 
 ness of nature which drew her. Perhaps 
 ' glamour ' would be better — the glamour of 
 the woodland and the grassy solitude. 
 
 It was noticed that she gathered very few 
 flowers, sometimes only bringing home some
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 245 
 
 fragment of spray ; it was what she felt among 
 them that was so dear to her. 
 
 There were no women at Mr. Goring's 
 to show her the delicate lines that divide 
 decorum from impropriety. He dreaded at 
 first lest she should insensibly contract the 
 manners of the village girls, although she did 
 not consort with them ; but he was soon set 
 at rest on that point. Her manners remained 
 as in the beginning ; all the freedom of the 
 fields did not induce the slightest change. 
 Except that she romped with the great 
 spaniel now and then, there was nothing she 
 did the most fastidious could find fault with. 
 Relieved of this fear, he let her wander 
 whither she listed. Once only she over- 
 stepped the unwritten law of the country ; 
 she rode her pony into some young wheat, 
 and galloped him to and fro, 
 
 It was Robert Godwin's wheat, and he 
 watched her do it in the wild delight of her 
 youth. She had no thought of injury ; she 
 had found a broad open space, and she liked
 
 246 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 to spurn the earth and the fresh green blades 
 of wheat beneath the pony's hoofs. 
 
 He did not interfere ; he let her trample it 
 as much as she pleased. She was the only 
 human being he did not drive. 
 
 Felise was very contrite when it was ex- 
 plained to her at home that she had done 
 wrong ; this happened in early days, not long 
 after her arrival at Beechknoll. 
 
 Always out in the garden, or the field, or 
 the copse with her uncle Goring, whom she 
 called ' papa,' he taught her the names of the 
 trees and plants, the ways of the birds, the 
 signs of spring, the indications of autumn. 
 Sometimes he was trimming the shrubs in 
 the garden, sometimes mending a gate, 
 sometimes chopping poles with an axe in 
 the copse. She brought a book and sat near 
 him, every now and then asking questions — ■ 
 called every now and then to observe some- 
 thing. 
 
 The birds were bolder in this copse than 
 elsewhere, for no gun was ever fired ; even
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 247 
 
 the herons came to the pool and the stream 
 unchecked. Nothing was interfered with ; 
 not even the weasels. Yet every wild 
 creature abounded, despite the absence of 
 trap, gin, and gun. 
 
 To Felise, this man who knew so much 
 was an interpreter — translating for her the 
 language of the trees, the words of the wind, 
 the song of the sun at his rising and his 
 setting, the still calm intent of the stars. 
 His gardening and planting was in reality 
 only a manner of self-employment, so that he 
 might be ever under the sun by day, under 
 the stars in the evening, that he might be 
 out-of-doors face to face with the wonders of 
 the earth and sky. 
 
 So that it was not only the physical joy of 
 her strong limbs that led her to the hill to 
 climb and run with the wind. It was the 
 open secret of the day, the glamour of the 
 light ; it was her heart and soul as much and 
 more than those strong limbs which gloried 
 in the free air.
 
 248 THE2DEWY MORN. 
 
 Felise grew and became beautiful. 
 
 There /were books at Beechknoll such as 
 are seldom read outside the circle of the 
 learned, though they are books far more 
 interesting than those of modern days. The 
 reason the classics are not read is because 
 there still lingers a tradition, handed down 
 from the eighteenth century, that it is useless 
 to read them unless in the original. A tone 
 of sarcastic contempt is maintained towards 
 the person who shall presume to peruse 
 Xenophon not in the original Greek, or 
 Virgil not in the original Latin. 
 
 In the view of these critics it is the Greek, 
 it is the Latin, that is valuable, not the con- 
 tents of the volume. Shakespeare, however, 
 the greatest genius of England, thought 
 otherwise. It is known that his ideas of 
 Grecian and Roman history were derived 
 from somewhat rude translations, yet it is 
 acknowledged that the spirit of the ancient 
 warriors and of the ancient luxury lives 
 in his ' Antony and Cleopatra,' and nowhere
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 249 
 
 in all the ancient writers is there a poem 
 breathing the idea of Aphrodite like his 
 1 Venus and Adonis.' The example of so 
 great a genius may shield us in an effort to 
 free the modern mind from this eighteenth 
 century incubus. 
 
 The truth is, the classics are much better 
 understood in a good translation than in the 
 original. To obtain a sufficient knowledge 
 of Greek, for instance, to accurately translate 
 is almost the work of a lifetime. Concen- 
 tration upon this one pursuit gradually con- 
 tracts the general perceptions, and it has 
 often happened that an excellent scholar has 
 been deficient in common knowledge, as 
 shown by the singular character of his own 
 notes. But his work of translation in itself 
 is another matter. 
 
 It is a treasure ; from it poets derive their 
 illustrations ; dramatists their plots ; painters 
 their pictures. A young mind full of intelli- 
 gence, coming to such a translation, enters at 
 once into the spirit of the ancient writer. A
 
 250 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 good translation is thus better than the 
 original. 
 
 Such books Mr. Goring had accumulated 
 for his own study ; they were now opened to 
 Felise by the same kindly hand and voice 
 that had opened to her the knowledge of the 
 fields and woods. 
 
 She read the beautiful memoirs of Socrates, 
 some parts of Plato, most of the histories, 
 and the higher and purer poets. Therein 
 she found expressed in words and metre the 
 very ideas, the very feelings which had come 
 to her in the flowery meadows and woodland 
 solitudes ; ideas and feelings that floated in 
 her mind, but which she could not utter. 
 Here they were — written down at the lips of 
 the flowers that had faded two thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 The soul of Greece — the pure soul of 
 antique Greece — visited her as she read and 
 dreamed. 
 
 Felise grew and became yet more beauti- 
 ful.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 251 
 
 Her heart, too, had grown within her — the 
 heart of a woman as it is in its purest nature. 
 She was unconvinced. No specious casuistry 
 of the vain world or the false priest, no argu- 
 ments of the tyrannic science of the nine- 
 teenth century, nothing could convince her 
 that the emotion of her heart was wrong. 
 She was unconvinced. All the sophistry 
 and chicanery, all the philosophy and the 
 sociology, all the statutes on the statute book, 
 all the Acts of Parliament, would have utterly 
 failed for one instant to shake that heart, 
 would have failed to convince her that wronsf 
 was right, or that a lie was the truth. 
 
 Felise was unswervingly true to herself.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ND while her physical frame grew, 
 and her moral being was 
 strengthened, all these nine years 
 from girlhood to womanhood, a colourless eye 
 watched her — the eye of Robert Godwin. 
 There is something grim — weird — almost 
 terrible in the thought that even this pure 
 and beautiful creature could not exist without 
 so opposite a nature stealthily regarding it. 
 
 Not the faintest suspicion that Robert 
 Godwin cared for Felise, or indeed for any 
 woman, ever occurred to anyone. The man 
 was so absolutely concentrated, it precluded 
 the very idea of his thinking of a second 
 person.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 253 
 
 Had Godwin's concentration upon one 
 fixed idea any influence in producing the 
 hardness of his conduct towards those who 
 happened to come under his sway ? Render- 
 ing him more abstracted than he would 
 otherwise have been, it closed his eyes to 
 everything but his own will. Robert God- 
 win was hard enough ; Robert Godwin riding 
 and walking, and acting in bodily form while 
 his mind was absent, became a mere figure of 
 stone. 
 
 Imaginative persons are commonly re- 
 proached with gazing at the stars and over- 
 looking the road at their feet. Here, by a 
 singular reversal, was a man incapable of 
 imagination, whose life was in the work of 
 his hands, who saw nothing but mounds of 
 chalk and pieces of timber where there were 
 woods and hills, and yet he was more under 
 the influence of a distant and unattainable 
 object than the most veritable dreamer. 
 
 Each year as Felise grew, so grew his con- 
 viction that she was not for him. He held
 
 12 54 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 this question up close to his mind (closer and 
 closer as he became mentally shorter of sight) 
 and observed with more vivid perception her 
 perfection and beauty. 
 
 This concentration in time produced a 
 reflex action. He could not have her — he 
 ■was ready, like a tiger, to tear to pieces any- 
 thing or anyone she preferred, to oppose 
 her, to cross her, and almost injure her. 
 
 As a lover he should, in accordance with 
 all precedent, have sought to gratify her and 
 render himself pleasant. By simple courtesy 
 towards Mr. Goring he could have seen her 
 continually, and had every opportunity of 
 influencing her mind in his favour. On the 
 contrary, he never omitted an opportunity of 
 annoying Mr. Goring; he quarrelled with 
 him about fences, attempted to cut off the 
 supply of water to the trout-pond, and made 
 himself disagreeable in every petty way pos- 
 sible. 
 
 His notice to Abner's parents was intended 
 as a sidelong thrust at Mr. Goring, who em-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 255 
 
 ployed the young man as his assistant. He 
 saw Felise fishing (or rather making a pre- 
 tence of fishing) down the stream, and seized 
 the opportunity of raking up an old dispute 
 as to the right of taking trout, with the more 
 eagerness because it afforded him a chance 
 of personally abusing her uncle face to 
 face. 
 
 There could scarcely have been a more 
 remarkable instance of the reversal of the 
 normal condition of the mind caused by 
 suppressed passion. A lover would at least 
 have said nothing ; if possible he would 
 have contrived means to enable her to enjoy 
 fishing in the best reaches of the stream. 
 Robert Godwin, whose mind was wholly 
 occupied by Felise, fell into a fury, and 
 denounced and threatened Mr. Goring in 
 unmeasured terms. 
 
 The latter regarded him with something 
 like curiosity instead of turning him out of 
 doors. Another reason Mr. Goring did not 
 wish to break off amenities with the steward
 
 256 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 was because he was the steward whom he 
 had fought so often on public grounds. 
 Now, if you personally quarrel with your 
 enemy and order him off your premises, you 
 lose half the value of your victory over him. 
 He becomes distant — no longer a man, but a 
 mere figure. Mr. Goring opposed Robert 
 Godwin, yet his house was at any time open 
 to him as a neighbour. Nor, indeed, did 
 Mr. Goring feel any vindictiveness against 
 him ; he looked upon him as a study. 
 
 While Robert Godwin was storming about 
 Felise, in his heart he was abstracted from 
 himself with hopeless love. 
 
 This reflex action of the mind led him to 
 oppose the very creature who could have 
 commanded his life. Such cases occasionally 
 occur where parents who have doted upon 
 their children destroy them in an hour of 
 temporary distress lest those they loved so 
 much should suffer. Something of this 
 reflex action may be found in the suicide 
 who sets a value upon the good things of the
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 2 si 
 
 world — upon money, power, place, credit — a 
 value so high, as they are at the moment 
 beyond his reach, that he determines to 
 extinguish himself in order that he may 
 never possess them. A backward, reflex 
 action of the mind is often dangerous to 
 mental equilibrium. 
 
 Never before had Robert Godwin stood 
 so near the woman who had his whole 
 existence in her hands as at the moment 
 when she was stroking Ruy and inquiring 
 how he became possessed of the horse. Her 
 presence, the touch of her dress, the faint 
 warmth of her breath — he felt her ; it was 
 almost an embrace. He had kept himself 
 so much at a distance that the accidental 
 touch of her dress was a caress. Having no 
 imagination his love was not a sentiment ; it 
 was a reality of life, like the blood in his 
 veins. 
 
 Ancient philosophers had a theory that 
 the vital spirits were dispersed about the 
 body, and flowed through it as the blood 
 
 vol. 1. 17
 
 258 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 flowed. Perhaps there really is a germ of 
 truth in this old idea ; possibly there is a 
 circulation — a current of the electricity of life 
 throughout the nerves. At that moment this 
 current stopped in Robert Godwin — his life 
 stood still ; his concentration, his abstraction 
 was so intense that he was in a manner dead. 
 His nervous force was withdrawn from his 
 limbs and frame, and concentrated upon 
 her. 
 
 He was not conscious of hearing what she 
 asked him, although he answered correctly. 
 He had no idea how he left, or how he came 
 to be riding alono - the road. His duties for 
 the rest of the day were performed in a 
 faultless manner — nothing omitted, nothing 
 slurred ; down to the last item everything 
 was entered by the light of the candle on the 
 cobwebbed washstand. But the dial of time 
 had stood still for Robert Godwin. He did 
 not know if it were day or night. 
 
 She had promised to come over to his 
 house on the morrow.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 259 
 
 Her dress had touched him ; her breath 
 had reached his cheek. 
 
 She was coming to-morrow — after nine 
 years she was coming to-morrow ! Only to 
 see a horse ; but she was coming — she would 
 stand by him again. 
 
 There was no sentiment in this feeling ; it 
 was a matter of reality. 
 
 He might again feel her breath ; he might 
 hear her dress rustle beside him. He would 
 again meet the gaze of the deep, dreamy, 
 grey eyes. 
 
 Yet it was not Felise ; it was Robert 
 Godwin all the time. His feelings were of 
 himself; concentration became ten times 
 more concentrated. 
 
 Robert Godwin did not inquire into the 
 possibilities of the incident ; but, despite his 
 self-depreciation and conviction that he could 
 never be anything to her, hope sprang in his 
 secret heart. 
 
 Great indeed is the commotion hope arouses 
 when it has been absent many years. Nine 
 
 17 — 2
 
 2 6o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 years had passed without hope — now hope 
 returned. 
 
 The man could not rest. He worked with 
 his hands the night through. He mended 
 the gate ; he arranged the ancient lumber in 
 the attic; he was out to the carters at sunrise, 
 relieved to have some one to drive. 
 
 Hope ! This was why he could not rest — 
 why he dug by the light of the lantern in the 
 o-arden, as if searching for hidden treasure at 
 midnight. 
 
 Felise, uneasy about Martial, had not 
 ceased to think of Ruy ; Martial must really 
 be in difficulties to part with him. Her 
 passion was completed by this thought. In 
 real affection, if the loved one is in trouble, 
 oil is poured upon the flame. 
 
 Mr. Goring could not tell her anything 
 about Bernard's difficulties. He knew in a 
 general way that he was not wealthy, and 
 that was all. Abner, the gardener, brought 
 in all the gossip of the village, but had 
 not mentioned this.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 261 
 
 Felise questioned Mary Shaw — these 
 village girls are such terrible gossips ; but 
 Shaw knew nothing, except that Mr. Bar- 
 nard was very good-looking. The hussy 
 did not add that once or twice lately she 
 had had some conversation with that young 
 gentleman. She omitted, too, to say that 
 he had crossed her plump hand with a piece 
 of silver, in gipsy style, for telling him 
 secrets ; also that she had received a kiss 
 with equanimity in the dusk of a summer 
 evening. 
 
 Felise was still dwelling upon Martial's 
 trouble, when in the morning she took half a 
 dozen apples from the storeroom, and started 
 over to see Ruy. Mr. Goring was choice in 
 apples. His trees were famous ; he had all 
 kinds, some that would keep till the autumn 
 came twice. 
 
 As she went out Felise noticed several 
 women of the hamlet standing in a group in 
 the private roadway, each carrying a bucket. 
 They were talking and gesticulating ; they
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 curtsied, but Felise did not stay to talk with 
 them. 
 
 Farther along the path she met four or 
 five more, also carrying buckets ; one of 
 these being Shaw's mother, presumed upon 
 that connection to stand in front of Felise, 
 and begin abusing Mr. Robert Godwin. 
 
 What was the matter now ? asked Felise, 
 full of her own thoughts and not in the mood 
 to listen to grievances. 
 
 Matter enough — Godwin had railed in and 
 padlocked the hamlet spring, and they could 
 not get at it. True, the stream ran past the 
 hamlet, but it was very shallow ; and, till a 
 dipping-place was constructed, it was not 
 easy to get water from it unless they went 
 half a mile to the first pool. Half a mile is 
 a long way to stagger under a yoke in hot 
 summer weather. 
 
 The railings round the spring had been 
 in process of erection for a fortnight ; they 
 were high, and not to be climbed. But the 
 carpenters were either in ignorance them-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 263 
 
 selves, or had been bribed to conceal the 
 truth, for it had been given out that these 
 railings were only erected to prevent cattle 
 from soiling the pure water. There would 
 be a wicket-gate for the folk. 
 
 At the last moment, instead of a gate the 
 opening was nailed up, and the spring 
 completely enclosed. A placard was posted 
 announcing that the spring was private, and 
 warning all whom it might concern that 
 damage to the fencing would be visited with 
 the utmost rigour of the law — Mr. Robert 
 Godwin's latest movement in the interest of 
 his employer. If usage was established, the 
 property might suffer at some future time. 
 
 Like a flock of sheep who cannot get 
 through a gateway, the village women 
 crowded round outside the high railings 
 through which they could see the spring, set 
 down their buckets, and fell to abuse. 
 
 By-and-by a man came along ; and, after 
 deliberately inspecting the railings, shaking 
 them to see if they were sound, and spelling
 
 264 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 through the placard, he advised them to go 
 to Mr. Goring — the general refuge in diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 Away they all went accordingly to Mr. 
 Goring, who at once threw open his gates, 
 and told all to help themselves from the 
 pump, which was supplied with good water 
 from the same source as the spring. 
 
 He then put on his coat, being usually in 
 his snowy shirt-sleeves in summer, had the 
 pony harnessed, and drove away into the 
 town to consult with his lawyer as to the 
 legality of this encroachment. 
 
 Robert Godwin's real object in enclosing 
 the spring was known only to himself — it 
 was to spite and annoy Felise's nearest 
 friend. The path to the spring was so short 
 it could scarcely be said to trespass on the 
 Squire's property — that was only the pre- 
 tence. Well he knew that nothing would so 
 excite Mr. Goring's indignation as so wanton 
 a piece of tyranny. That Goring would at 
 once take an axe and proceed to hew down
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 265 
 
 the railings was what he fully hoped and ex- 
 pected. Such an act would involve Felise's 
 friend in endless litigation — such was the trap 
 he had set. 
 
 But Mr. Goring did not fall into it. A 
 man of a reflective mind, he had heard of 
 these posts and railings, and soon began to 
 question the motive alleged for their erection. 
 Measures for the convenience and good of 
 others, like protecting water from contamina- 
 tion, were not in accordance with the recent 
 history of the Cornleigh estate. He suspected 
 what afterwards happened. His indignation 
 was none the less ; but he was cool, and he 
 did not seize his axe and rush to destroy the 
 obstruction. It was best to go about the 
 work calmly and legally ; even with a good 
 cause, and right on our side, violence often 
 recoils upon the striker. 
 
 Martial — Martial — the thought of Martial 
 compelled Felise to shut her eyes to these 
 things. If Robert Godwin had been the 
 cruellest tyrant since the world began, she
 
 266 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 must have gone that morning to see Martial's 
 horse, and if possible to learn more about his 
 former owner. 
 
 1 1 want to see your horse again,' said 
 Felise, almost immediately she arrived. 
 
 Robert led Ruy out for her inspection down 
 to the garden, where his hoofs trampled the 
 sward of the path.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ELISE gave Ruy an apple, and 
 then another till the six were 
 gone. He thrust his nostrils into 
 her hand, and pushed her with his face for 
 more. As he moved it brought Robert, who 
 held him, close to Felise. Once again he 
 felt the caress of her dress, even the touch of 
 her arm. 
 
 The contrast between them was very 
 marked. ■ Her clear complexion, her golden 
 hair ; her form so beautifully shaped that 
 even the loveliness of her face was over- 
 looked. You must forget her form before 
 you could see her features. 
 
 His black countenance — black like a piece
 
 268 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 of wood that has lain for years in the rain ; 
 his colourless eye ; his round stout frame ex- 
 pressive of ungraceful strength. 
 
 But Ruy, greedy for more apples, would 
 not stand still. Robert lost the touch of her 
 arm, and the caress of her dress. 
 
 ' He is a fine horse,' said Felise ; ' I can- 
 not understand why his owner sold him. 
 Did you not say he wanted money ?' 
 
 ' His rent was overdue,' said Robert. At 
 ordinary times he would not have let this 
 out ; at the moment he was abstracted from 
 himself to such a degree that his lips an- 
 swered without the consent of his mind. 
 ' His Lady Day rent was overdue — and- — 
 and I bought the horse.' 
 
 1 That he might have the money to pay.' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' And the price was ?' 
 
 ' Sixty pounds.' 
 
 ' I thought you said seventy yesterday.' 
 
 ' No— did I ?' 
 
 The horse-dealer's instinct had for the
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 269 
 
 time deserted him. He forgot to add ten 
 pounds to the sum he had really given. 
 
 ' Is he very much in difficulty ?' asked 
 Felise, growing bolder. 
 
 • I am not sure ' (this was the truth) ; ' I 
 should like to know.' 
 
 Felise was obliged to move, as Ruy worked 
 his face too forcibly against her. She walked 
 with Robert towards the stables, thinking if 
 there was any other leading question she 
 could put. She could not think of another. 
 
 1 Now may I ask you a favour ?' said 
 Felise, as Robert, having handed Ruy over 
 to the charge of a carter, was returning with 
 her towards the house. 
 
 ' Certainly.' 
 
 ' Will you not let old Abner Brown stay in 
 his cottage ? He cannot live very much 
 longer.' 
 
 Robert's mental condition stiffened in- 
 stantly. The request brought him back 
 from the glamour into which he had been 
 thrown.
 
 270 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 ' He has already been there much longer 
 than he ought,' he said. ' I believe it is a 
 year since he ceased to work.' 
 
 ' Yes — think ; he worked up to within one 
 year of eighty-four — surely that should plead 
 for him.' 
 
 ' I have to consider the estate,' said 
 Robert. ' You know the circumstances — he 
 cannot do any work, nor can his wife ; we 
 want the cottage for those who can.' 
 
 ' But has he not earned a little repose, Mr. 
 Godwin ?' 
 
 ' He can have it in the workhouse.' 
 
 ' Do not say so — do not mention that 
 dreadful place. It would kill the old man to 
 leave his garden.' 
 
 ' They will let him sweep up the leaves 
 and weed the paths at the workhouse.' 
 
 ' He is very, very old, Mr. Godwin ; he 
 has lived in that cottage more than forty 
 years, and all the trees in the garden are 
 his own planting — there are apples, and a 
 cherry '
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 271 
 
 ' We want the cottage — we must have it ; 
 I know several who will be glad of it.' 
 
 ' They are no expense,' continued Felise, 
 1 because their son keeps them ; let them 
 stay.' 
 
 ' It is impossible ! as for young Abner, he 
 ought not to live in our cottage and work off 
 the estate.' 
 
 1 He works for Mr. Goring,' said Felise, 
 beginning to grow angry ; but she checked it 
 for the sake of the aged couple. ' Mr. God- 
 win, I will pay you — what is the rent of the 
 cottage ?' 
 
 ' Two shillings a week.' 
 
 ' I will pay it, then you will lose nothing.' 
 
 ' The rent is paid now,' said Godwin. 
 ' You misunderstand ; we lose the man's 
 work who should live there.' 
 
 ' Oh, but they are so old !' 
 
 ' There is the workhouse.' 
 
 ' They will never go there.' 
 
 ' They must ; the parish will not allow out- 
 door relief.'
 
 272 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 1 Mr. Godwin, do let them stay ; I have 
 set my heart upon it.' 
 
 Who else could have resisted her ? The 
 argument and the trace of anger which had 
 begun to rise had brightened her colour and 
 warmed her whole appearance. Robert re- 
 fused her point-blank. The stored-up passion 
 of so many years, causing an irresistible re- 
 flex action, forced him to oppose her. After 
 this appeal from her, now he knew she 
 wished it, had a sign shone in the heavens 
 still he would not have yielded. 
 
 Felise, recognising his stubborn mood, 
 forbore to press further ; she spoke for 
 a few minutes with Miss Godwin, and 
 left. 
 
 In the afternoon Mr. Goring came home, 
 having consulted his solicitor, who thought 
 that probably there was a right to enclose the 
 spring, as it was on private property, though 
 within a few yards of the highway. The 
 question would be an awkward one ; it might 
 cost hundreds of pounds to decide it ; he
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 273 
 
 advised his client to have nothing to do 
 with it. 
 
 4 This is indeed a right!' said Mr. Goring 
 'Time it is that such "rights" should be 
 abolished — the word itself is reversed in 
 alluding to them. Has any man a " right," 
 then, to enclose the air, the light ? Doubt- 
 less, if it could be done, there are those who 
 would enclose the ocean and claim it as 
 private property.' 
 
 He set out that very evening with Abner 
 to construct a dipping-place in a part of the 
 stream that passed through his little property, 
 intending also to open a footpath to it for the 
 use of the inhabitants. 
 
 Felise inquired if he had heard anything 
 in Maasbury about Mr. Barnard's alleged 
 pecuniary difficulties. 
 
 ' No,' said Goring. ' Why do you wish to 
 know ?' 
 
 ' There seems so much trouble about us,' 
 replied Felise discreetly. ' So many farmers 
 failing — that is all.' 
 
 vol. 1. 18
 
 274 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 Nor had Mary Shaw discovered anything. 
 
 Felise turned over Miss Barnard's Dante 
 scrap-book, wishing the owner would come 
 for it. 
 
 Next morning she went over again to God- 
 win's, fed Ruy with apples, petted him and 
 praised him, talked a little while with Robert, 
 and begged for old Abner's cottage. In 
 vain. 
 
 Four times in succession she visited Ruy, 
 fed him, petted him, stroked him, and seemed 
 more and more loth to leave him. 
 
 The fifth morning she did not come ; 
 Robert waited and worked with his hands, 
 but she did not come. This was the Satur- 
 day ; Sunday he did not think it at all likely 
 she would come. He never slept, nor even 
 attempted to do so on the Saturday or Sun- 
 day night. How he passed them it is diffi- 
 cult to tell, but he constantly moved some- 
 thin? or other about with his hands. Two 
 nights without sleep did not leave much trace 
 on his bronze face ; but his heart's bitterness
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 275 
 
 was worn deeper within him, as a storm 
 wears gullies in the rock. 
 
 Already, so swift is gossip, the hamlet had 
 begun to talk of Miss Goring and Mr. God- 
 win. Though Felise had helped them in so 
 many ways, though her uncle was actually at 
 that moment working for them, they could 
 not say a good word, they could not credit 
 her with any motive but greed of money. 
 
 ' She be a-looking after old Godwin's 
 gold.' ' Selling herself to the old miser.' 
 ' Hope his money will choke her.' ' Never 
 thought there was much in her, did you ?' 
 
 Such was the tone of their comments. 
 
 Felise was disappointed ; Miss Barnard 
 had not called for the Dante scrap-book ; 
 after her bold effort she seemed no nearer 
 her object. But an idea had been gradually 
 forming itself in her mind, and on Monday 
 she started, always impetuous, to put it into 
 practice. 
 
 She went over and fed Ruy once more 
 with apples, Ruy was as greedy of them as 
 
 18—2
 
 276 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 a miser of coin ; she talked with Robert, and 
 presently asked him for how much he would 
 sell the horse ? 
 
 • Seventy pounds,' said Robert. 
 
 ' But you only gave sixty for him.' 
 ' I have to make my turn — my profit.' said 
 Robert. 
 
 4 Will you sell him to me ?' 
 
 ' Of course.' 
 
 ' I will buy him,' said Felise. 
 
 ' You shall have him — seventy pounds.' 
 
 ' Sixty.' 
 
 1 No— no.' 
 
 1 Sixty-five.' 
 
 ' Impossible.' 
 
 * Sixty-seven.' 
 ' I couldn't.' 
 
 ' Sixty-seven — that is seven pounds profit, 
 and all in a few days,' said Felise. 
 
 1 Seventy pounds,' said Robert decidedly, 
 and Felise saw that it was no use to bar- 
 
 gain. 
 
 1 Very well, seventy — I will bring you the
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 277 
 
 money this evening ; you will not part with 
 him to anyone else in the meantime ?' 
 ' Why, no — certainly not.' 
 ' I will come then, this evening.' 
 She returned home, and asked Mr. Goring 
 for the pony-carriage to drive into the town ; 
 it was prepared, and she started alone. 
 
 So soon as she had left, Robert Godwin 
 said to himself that he had been foolish to 
 part with the horse so easily. She had so 
 set her mind on the horse, he might have 
 asked ninety safely. If he had kept him till 
 the hunting-season some gentleman might 
 have taken a fancy for him and gone still 
 higher, perhaps a hundred and twenty. For 
 the price of a horse is the price of a fancy, 
 and goes up like stocks and shares when 
 buyers are in the vein. Why, very likely 
 she knew of some one who would give her 
 ninety or a hundred for such a horse ; very 
 likely that was the secret of her eager- 
 ness to secure him. Robert felt that he had 
 been ' had ;' it hurt his semi-professional
 
 278 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 pride as a horse-dealer now and then, 
 generally heavily to his gain. 
 
 The miser and the lover — despair, hope, 
 and anger — were they not strangely mingled 
 in this man ? 
 
 A passionate lover would have given his 
 lady the horse in a moment, especially if as 
 rich as Robert Godwin. With all his riches, 
 and his secret passion, he had but once 
 given her a present. One fair-day — eight 
 years since — for a marvel he spent fourpence 
 (the groat is still a unit in country places) at 
 a stall on ' fairings,' a sort of sweet biscuit, 
 thinking he might see her as he came home. 
 He did see her, and gave her the groat's 
 worth of ■ fairings ;' the child took them 
 silently, not without some awe of his black 
 face. 
 
 He had cleared ten pounds profit, and he 
 was torturing himself because he feared he 
 had missed an opportunity to make twenty. 
 
 Yet his hands were never still because 
 of his unmanageable passion — he must work
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 279 
 
 with them constantly ; his heart's bitterness 
 was full to overflowing because he could not 
 have her ; the hope her presence gave was 
 like a sword splitting his very heart in two. 
 She stood by him and his lips were dumb — ■ 
 commonplaces are dumbness — his lips were 
 closed with iron-bolts ; he could not say one 
 word to indicate his meaning, to seek her 
 favour. 
 
 Are we cynical moderns right, after all, in 
 our discredit of Fate ? Could there possibly 
 be some fate here, some of that irresistible 
 destiny which in Sophocles carries its tyrant 
 will through generation after generation ? 
 Petty circumstances unregarded lead men on, 
 from step to step, from thought to thought, 
 action to action ; is this Fate ? 
 
 The greed of the miser ; the agony of the 
 lover who knows that he cannot be loved ; 
 the pitiless animosity of the tyrant turning by 
 reflex action against the creature of his love ; 
 the sharp sword of a hope that only shows 
 what might be if — these are terrible goads.
 
 
 'fit/ " 
 
 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 URRYING Into the town as fast 
 as her pony could take her, Felise 
 was in deep anxiety, for she had 
 bought the horse without the money to pay 
 for him. She was so fearful lest Godwin 
 should sell to some one else, lest Ruy should 
 be sent away to some market at a distance 
 and disappear, that she bid for him before 
 she had made arrangements to obtain the 
 money. 
 
 When she was brought a child to Mr. 
 Goring, her fortune consisted of some fifty 
 pounds and a set of pearls. Of the fifty 
 pounds Goring had been obliged to spend
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 281 
 
 four from time to time on necessities for his 
 charge. At sixteen, he placed the remainder 
 in a private savings-bank for her, and gave 
 her the pass-book. Since then she had 
 drawn four more ; there were consequently 
 forty-two pounds remaining. The value of 
 the pearls was one hundred and fifty, so 
 they had been estimated ; in fact, they had 
 originally cost more. If only she could find 
 some one to advance her twenty-eight 
 pounds on these pearls, she could complete 
 her purchase. She feared the difficulty 
 arising from her sex, and from the fact that 
 she was not yet of age. 
 
 She had no choice of persons, for there 
 was but one to whom she could apply — a 
 silversmith who was known to be wealthy. 
 He hopped a little, or halted in some way in 
 his gait ; after advancing a step he paused, 
 and drew his other foot up level in a sort of 
 plaintive style, as much as to say, ' I should 
 indeed be a man if it were not for this in- 
 firmity.' This deliberative motion, extending
 
 282 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 into his ideas, had enabled him to accumulate 
 a considerable fortune. 
 
 Now the silversmith had always shown a 
 kind of friendship for Mr. Goring, inviting 
 him into his private room if the latter brought 
 his watch to be repaired, and now and then 
 calling at Beechknoll as he drove past to 
 regulate some one's clock. Secretly he gave 
 Mr. Goring to understand that, although his 
 business position forbade him to openly take 
 any part, their views really coincided. He 
 looked on the Cornleigh family as an incubus, 
 and their ways as despotic. 
 
 At heart he owned he was a radical, though 
 Mrs. Cornleigh herself sometimes called at 
 the shop if she wanted a pin put in a brooch, 
 or some similar trifle ; for all their silver and 
 electro ' the family ' went to London, and 
 never spent a pound in the town. 
 
 The fact was the silversmith, halting at 
 every step and considering, had noticed that 
 Mr. Goring's little property lay like a wedge 
 between two sections of the Cornleigh estate.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 283 
 
 The little property was so small he thought 
 Goring could never live on it long without 
 borrowing money, and who should he go to 
 for a loan but his friend the silversmith ? 
 
 Loans mount up ; in time, Goring would 
 have to part with the place at a low price— 
 the silversmith's price ; then, once in posses- 
 sion, the silversmith could re-sell to the 
 Cornleighs at a great advance — perhaps 
 double, for it was well known to him that 
 the Squire, or the Squire's agent, Robert 
 Godwin, had fixed his heart on this fragment 
 of land to round off the estate. 
 
 The silversmith dwelt much in secret upon 
 this idea, for it promised in one coup to give 
 him more than he could make in ten years' 
 sale of the goods in his shop-window. More 
 than once he had hinted at an advance ; but 
 Goring either had not understood him, or 
 purposely turned the subject. The years 
 were rolling on ; the silversmith's hair was as 
 white now as the frosted silver in his cases, 
 and his ingenious scheme had not visibly
 
 284 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 progressed a jot. With increasing age he 
 drew his lame foot forward with a slower and 
 more pathetic limp, and waited. By-and-by 
 it would happen. To this man Felise was 
 hastening with her pearls. 
 
 As she drove into the precincts of the 
 town, she glanced at a fine display of flowers 
 in the bow-window of a private residence. 
 The flowers suggested unusual skill in selec- 
 tion, and unlimited care. Felise saw the 
 blue, and yellow, and scarlet of the flowers, 
 but did not observe the face behind them. 
 
 It was the face of Rosa Wood. The 
 merchant's daughter, in her unhappiness, had 
 taken to passing much of her time at this 
 window, which commanded a view of the 
 street, to enjoy the poor pleasure — if pleasure 
 it was — of seeing Martial pass at rare in- 
 tervals. Unless upon some necessary busi- 
 ness he never entered the town, the very 
 name of which was now distasteful to him. 
 
 But, as she had no other means of seeing 
 him, Rosa kept a constant watch at the
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 285 
 
 window, or in the garden in front of it ; and, 
 lest people should notice her being there so 
 much, and to while away the time, she oc- 
 cupied herself with flowers. It was not so 
 sad as the story of the pot of basil, and yet 
 there was a dead hope concealed under the 
 coloured petals so sedulously tended. Flowers 
 so often screen unhappiness. 
 
 For many days Rosa had endeavoured to 
 discover for whom Martial had deserted 
 her ; a woman herself, she never doubted 
 but that his conduct was due to some 
 other woman. A woman always blames a 
 woman. 
 
 Some one obtained a reputation for astute- 
 ness by remarking when he heard of mischief, 
 ' Who is the woman ?' Instead of which he 
 thereby proved the inferiority of the masculine 
 intellect, since it required great talent to point 
 out a clue which has always been obvious to 
 the feminine mind. Let a man be, in fact, 
 never so innocent — let him be really at his 
 club, or in Paris on business, or gone to see
 
 286 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 a fellow about a dog — his wife, or his jiancie, 
 is sure to suspect a woman. 
 
 Rosa could not find the woman. Though 
 she no longer visited at the Manor House, 
 the Misses Barnard called upon her just the 
 same as during their brother's engagement ; 
 but these ladies, too. were at fault. Three 
 of them together could not find out the other 
 woman. 
 
 That afternoon however, at the sound of 
 wheels, Rosa looked up, saw Felise, and said 
 to herself instantly, ' There she is.' 
 
 It is impossible for me to explain how she 
 arrived at this conclusion, for no one but a 
 woman could experience such intuition. 
 
 Rosa turned pale, then she started up ; her 
 knees failed her, and she sat down again. 
 But the next moment she recovered herself, 
 and hastened, still trembling, into the garden ; 
 whence, behind the shrubs, she could see 
 where the pony-carriage stopped. It stopped 
 about midway up the street ; she could not 
 distinguish the shop. She called a man who
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 287 
 
 worked in the garden, and despatched him to 
 find out to whom the pony-carriage belonged. 
 He returned in a few minutes, having recog- 
 nised it as Mr. Goring's. 
 
 Miss Goring, then, was the other woman. 
 
 Felise never attended the concerts, balls, 
 or amusements which were given in Maas- 
 bury, nor did Mr. Goring ever enter the 
 place except on business. Consequently 
 Rosa had not remembered this family when 
 she ran over, time after time, all the families 
 of the neighbourhood, and checked them on 
 her fingers. 
 
 Although the Manor House was no great 
 distance from Maasbury, there was a range 
 of downs between, and the people of the two 
 places seemed to belong to different provinces, 
 having so little intercourse. Everything is 
 very local in the country. The Misses 
 Barnard had scarcely heard of Felise, even 
 by name, till that day when, overcome by 
 fatigue, she walked up to the front-door. 
 But without doubt this was the woman.
 
 2 8S THE DEWY MORX. 
 
 Her face burning, her hands cold, her 
 heart throbbing, Rosa returned to the window 
 and waited to catch another view of her rival 
 as she left the town. 
 
 Felise drove straight to the silversmith's 
 door, and was received with beaming polite- 
 ness. The old gentleman really possessed a 
 certain air of fashion, an impressive, magni- 
 ficent kind of courtesy — there was a style in 
 the very way he placed a chair for his visitor. 
 His frosted hair, his faultless dress, his ex- 
 quisite limp and plaintive expression were far 
 above the stage on which he played his part. 
 Felise was shown into the private room 
 behind the counter — a room elegantly fur- 
 nished — before she could utter a word on 
 business. 
 
 The silversmith's expectations were high. 
 
 1 At last,' he thought, ' she has come to 
 open negotiations — to prepare the way ; just 
 as I expected. Now for the loan !' 
 
 At this moment Felise produced a casket 
 from her bag, and placed it on the table.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 289 
 
 The silversmith's heart fell ; it was not the 
 loan then, only some trifling repairs. 
 
 But at the sight of the pearls which she 
 drew forth and placed upon the table, the eye 
 of the old usurer (for such, in fact, he was) 
 glistened again. Felise went to the point at 
 once, and asked him to advance upon them 
 as much money as he could. Here by her 
 inexperience she committed a mistake by 
 leaving him to fix the amount ; she should 
 have fixed it herself, and as high as possible. 
 Felise was happily ignorant of the craft and 
 subtility of the world. 
 
 Humming and hawing as he handled the 
 pearls, the silversmith raised his eyebrows in 
 his most plaintive and deprecatory manner, 
 and regretted that it would not be possible 
 to advance much upon them. Pearls had 
 dropped, pearls were not nearly so valuable ; 
 another pearl-fishery had just been dis- 
 covered ; there were large stocks now that 
 could not be sold, and so forth. 
 
 ' But they are worth a hundred and fifty 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 ?9o THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 pounds,' said Felise, beginning to feel very 
 miserable. ' Tell me now how much you 
 can lend me.' 
 
 ' Well,' said the silversmith, very, very 
 deliberately, ' it is unpleasant — it is hard to 
 refuse; but really, Miss Goring, as a matter of 
 business I don't think I could advance any- 
 thing.' 
 
 ; Nothing!' said Felise, in blank despair. 
 
 ' Not in the way of business,' said the 
 silversmith, in the most caressing tones of a 
 naturally low voice. ' But still with a friend 
 it is different.' 
 
 Felise began to sit very upright in her 
 chair ; she had a sense of insult, as if she was 
 being put under an obligation. 
 
 ' And for you or Mr. Goring's convenience,' 
 he continued, ' of course I shall be most happy 
 if you will permit me, as a favour to me, to 
 advance a small sum upon them.' 
 
 Felise sank back again in her chair ; he 
 had put it the other way, as if he should be 
 under an obligation to her.
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 291 
 
 ' I should be very glad,' she said. ' And 
 how much ?' 
 
 ' Would now, let me see — ten pounds ' 
 
 ' Oh dear no !' cried Felise. ' Not nearly 
 enough.' 
 
 ' Fifteen pounds ' 
 
 1 1 want twice as much,' said Felise hastily, 
 'I want thirty pounds — I mean I want 
 twenty-eight pounds, if you please.' 
 
 This was another mistake ; twenty-eight 
 pounds, he saw at once, was the sum she 
 would be satisfied with. 
 
 He paused and seemed to weigh the 
 matter in his mind. 
 
 4 Does Mr. Goring — excuse me — does Mr. 
 Goring know you are bringing me these 
 pearls ?' he asked. 
 
 ' No — no — that is— but they are mine, 
 quite mine. They were my mother's ; I can 
 do as I like with them.' 
 
 ' And, pardon me again, are you of age ?' 
 
 Felise's heart fell as she faltered a negative. 
 
 1 1 am obliged to make these inquiries,' 
 
 19 — 2
 
 292 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 said the silversmith ; ' you must really pardon 
 me. Under the circumstances, I think we 
 had better let this be a purely friendly trans- 
 action, without any formal record. If I am 
 willing to trust you with my money on your 
 word that these are your pearls, will you trust 
 them to me ?' 
 
 ' Of course I will — of course I will trust 
 them to you.' 
 
 ' Then there need be no writing at all ; I 
 will give you the twenty-eight pounds ; you 
 shall yourself put the pearls in my safe, and 
 there they will remain. In six months' time 
 you will repay me the twenty-eight pounds 
 with five per cent, interest, and I will restore 
 you the pearls. Will that do ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Felise, though at the same time 
 it occurred to her that there was no prospect 
 whatever of her possessing the money at that 
 date. 
 
 The silversmith had considered within 
 himself that this transaction was one of those 
 which could not be made valid by any in-
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 293 
 
 genuity of terms. He looked for his profit 
 in the influence he should possess with Miss 
 Goring, who would forward his views if the 
 little scheme alluded to came to be realised ; 
 he protected himself and would escape ob- 
 loquy, if the transaction became known, by 
 charging a merely nominal interest (for 
 usurers) ; he further protected himself be- 
 cause there was not a scrap of writing to 
 show that he had ever had the pearls. He 
 felt certain they were worth fully two 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 With her own hands Felise placed the 
 casket in the safe, as if permission to 
 personally deposit them was a guarantee of 
 good faith on behalf of the receiver, and 
 twenty-eight sovereigns were counted down 
 on the table. The usurer in his most 
 courtier-like manner took her to her pony- 
 carriage, gave her the reins, and bowed in 
 good style as she drove off. 
 
 Round the corner of the street Felise 
 stopped at the private savings bank ; she
 
 294 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 was barely in time ; in fact, the hour for 
 closing had struck, and to an ordinary cus- 
 tomer it would have been too late. Felise's 
 presence seemed to fill the dingy room with 
 so unusual a light that the cashier, dumb 
 and nervous, hurried to carry out her wishes. 
 Forty pounds were paid to her in notes, two 
 pounds in gold ; this made up the seventy 
 pounds for Ruy. The pony-carriage went 
 rattling down the street ; Felise was happy, 
 she had succeeded. Had the pearls been 
 worth a thousand pounds, she would have 
 left them for the twenty-eight. 
 
 For the craft and subtilitv of this world 
 are too deep for most of us. For instance, 
 who would suspect an oyster of deceit ? Yet 
 the other afternoon, while looking at some 
 red mullet in a fishmonger's shop — red mullet 
 are very nice, if you can persuade the cook 
 to split them and remove the bitter substance 
 which generally spoils them ; you must have 
 this done most carefully — while I was look- 
 ing at the red mullet and feeling the
 
 THE DEWY MORN. 295 
 
 slenderness of my purse, and thinking of 
 Lucullus and Trimalchio's banquet, and how 
 red mullet really are very good — in short, 
 while temptation trod on the heels of pru- 
 dence, in steps an important old gentleman. 
 
 He had an air of wrath and ire ; a rich, 
 nervous, irritable, insist-upon-my-rights sort 
 of personage ; a gold-mounted eye-glass 
 swung on his chest one moment, and was up 
 at his eye the next ; his Java cane came 
 down thump on the sanded floor ; a man no 
 fishmonger dared baulk of his whim. 
 
 ' Oysters,' he said. 
 
 The fishmonger bowed, rubbed his hands, 
 quite shone with obsequiousness. 
 
 ' Natives,' continued the old gentleman. 
 1 Two dozen, and mind, they are to be opened 
 at my door' 
 
 ' Certainly, sir ; with pleasure, sir. Any- 
 thing else, sir ; fine turbot, sir — ah -hum !' 
 
 The old gentleman had gone down the street. 
 
 ' Don't see how it's to be done,' said a 
 shop-assistant.
 
 296 THE DEWY MORN. 
 
 * Take a knife with you and open them on 
 the area window-sill.' 
 
 But why should the old gentleman wish 
 the oysters opened at his door ? Could they 
 possess the power of transforming" themselves 
 on the way from natives into blue-points ? 
 Or could it be possible that mistakes occa- 
 sionally occur when quantities are opened at 
 shops, and ' natives ' and other varieties get 
 mixed ? The old ofentleman wanted them to 
 arrive at his house in the shell they had been 
 dredged up in ; he feared the craft and sub- 
 tility of the wicked oyster. 
 
 The lame silversmith was a sort of person 
 with whom, if you had dealings, it was as well 
 to have the oysters opened at your door. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 r t» rrt -__. BILLING AND SONS,' PRINTERS, Cl'ILDFOKU. 
 
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