Wood Magic: A Fable
was also very young in those days, had built his nest. At this arbour
they met every day, and often twice a day, and even once again in the
evening, and could there chat and make love as sweetly as they pleased,
because the orchard was enclosed by a high wall which quite shut out all
spying eyes, and had a gate with lock and key. The young lady had a
duplicate key, and came straight to the orchard from the cottage where
she lived by a footpath which crossed the lane along which Bevis had
been driven.
It happened that the footpath just by the lane, on coming near the
orchard, passed a moist place, which in rainy weather was liable to be
flooded, and as this was inconvenient for her, her lover had a
waggon-load of flints brought down from the hills where the hares held
their revels, and placed in the hollow so as to fill it up, and over
these he placed faggots of nut-tree wood, so that she could step across
perfectly clean and dry. In this orchard, then, they had their constant
rendezvous; they were there every day when the nightingale first began
to sing in the spring, and when the apple-trees were hidden with their
pink blossom, when the haymakers were at work in the meadow, when the
reapers cut the corn, and when the call of the first fieldfare sounded
overhead. The golden and rosy apples dropped at their feet, they laughed
and ate them, and taking out the brown pips she pressed them between
her thumb and finger to see how far they would shoot.
Though they had begun to talk about their affairs in the spring, and had
kept on all the summer and autumn, and though they kept on as often as
the weather was dry (when they walked up and down the long orchard for
warmth, sheltered by the wall), yet when the spring came again they had
not half finished. Thus they were very happy, and the lady used
particularly to laugh at the antics of the magpie, who became so
accustomed to their presence as to go on with the repairs to his nest
without the least shyness. Kapchack, being then very young and full of
spirits, and only just married, and in the honeymoon of prosperity,
played such freaks and behaved in so amusing a manner that the lady
became quite attached to him, and in order to protect her favourite, her
lover drove away all the other large birds that came near the orchard,
and would not permit any one whatever to get up into Kapchack's
apple-tree, nor even to gather the fruit, which hung on the boughs till
the wind pushed it off.
Thus, having a fortress to retreat to, and being so highly honoured of
men, Kapchack gave the reins to his natural audacity, and succeeded in
obtaining the sovereignty. When the spring came again they had still a
great deal of talking to do; but whether the young lady was weary of
waiting for the marriage-ring, or whether she was jealous of the
farmer's mother, or whether she thought they might continue like this
for the next ten years if she did not make some effort, or whether it
was the worldly counsels of her aunt, or what it was--perhaps her own
capricious nature, it is certain that they now began to quarrel a little
about another gentleman.
This gentleman was very rich, and the owner of a large estate in the
neighbourhood; he did not often reside there, for he did not care for
sport or country life, but once when he came down he happened to see the
young lady, and was much attracted towards her. Doubtless she did not
mean any harm, but she could not help liking people to admire her, and,
not to go into every little particular, in the course of time (and not
very long either) she and the gentleman became acquainted. Now, when her
own true lover was aware of this, he was so jealous that he swore if
ever he saw them together he would shoot his rival with his
long-barrelled gun, though he were hung for it the next day.
The lady was not a little pleased at this frantic passion, and secretly
liked him ten times better for it, though she immediately resorted to
every artifice to calm his anger, for she knew his violent nature, and
that he was quite capable of doing as he had said. But the delight of
two strings to her bow was not easily to be foregone, and thus, though
she really loved the farmer, she did not discourage the gentleman. He,
on his part, finding after a while that although she allowed him to talk
to her, and even to visit her at the cottage, and sometimes (when she
knew the young farmer was at market) go for a walk with him, and once
even came and went over his grand mansion, still finding that it was
all talk, and that his suit got no further, he presently bethought him
of diamonds.
He gave her a most beautiful diamond locket, which he had had down all
fresh and brilliant from London. Now this was the beginning of the
mischief. She accepted it in a moment of folly, and wished afterwards
ten times that she had refused, but having once put it on, it looked so
lovely she could not send it back. She could not openly wear it, lest
her lover should see it, but every morning she put it on indoors, and
frequently glanced in the glass.
Nor is it any use to find fault with her; for in the first place she has
been dead many years, and in the second she was then very young, very
beautiful, and living quite alone in the world with an old woman. Now
her lover, notwithstanding the sweet assurances she gave him of her
faithfulness, and despite the soft kisses he had in abundance every day
in the orchard, soft as the bloom of the apple-trees, could not quite
recover his peace of mind. He did not laugh as he used to do. He was
restless, and the oneness of his mind was gone. Oneness of mind does not
often last long into life, but while it lasts everything is bright. He
had now always a second thought, a doubt behind, which clouded his face
and brought a line into his forehead.
After a time his mother, observing his depression, began to accuse
herself of unkindness, and at last resolved to stand no longer in the
way of the marriage. She determined to quit the house in which she had
lived ever since she came to it a happy bride half-a-century before.
Having made up her mind, that very morning she walked along the footpath
to the young lady's cottage, intending to atone for her former
unkindness, and to bring the girl back to lunch, and thus surprise her
son when he came in from the field.
She had even made up her mind to put up with the cold reception she
would probably meet with, nor to reply if any hard words were used
towards her. Thus thinking, she lifted the latch, as country people do
not use much ceremony, and stepped into the cottage, when what was her
surprise to find the girl she had come to see with a beautiful diamond
locket about her neck, gleaming in the sunshine from the open door! She
instantly understood what it meant, and upbraiding the girl with her
falseness, quitted the place, and lost no time in telling her son, but
first she took the precaution of hiding his gun. As he could not find
that weapon, after the first storm of his jealous anger had gone over he
shut himself up in his room.
The lady came the same evening to the rendezvous in the orchard, but her
lover did not meet her. She came again next day, and in the evening; and
again the third day, and so all through the week, and for nearly a month
doing all she could without actually entering the house to get access to
him. But he sullenly avoided her; once seeing her in the road, he leaped
his horse over the hedge rather than pass her. For the diamond locket
looked so like a price--as if she valued a glittering bauble far above
true love.
At last one day she surprised him at the corner of the village street,
and notwithstanding that the people (who knew all the story) were
looking on, she would speak to him. She walked by his side, and said:
"George, I have put the locket in the arbour, with a letter for you. If
you will not speak to me, read the letter, and throw the locket in the
brook."
More she could not say, for he walked as fast as he could, and soon left
her behind.
He would not go near the orchard all day, but at last in the evening
something prompted him to go. He went and looked, but the locket and the
letter were not there.
Either she had not left them as she had said, or else some one had taken
them. No one could enter the orchard without a key, unless they went to
the trouble of bringing a ladder from the rickyard, and as it was
spring, there were no apples to tempt them to do that. He thought,
perhaps, his mother might have taken his key and gone to the arbour, and
there was a terrible scene and bitter words between them--the first time
he had ever replied to her. The consequence was that she packed a chest
that very day, took a bag of money, which in old-fashioned style she
kept under her bed, and left her home for ever; but not before she had
been to the cottage, and reviled the girl with her duplicity and her
falseness, declaring that if she had not got the locket, she had not put
it in the orchard, but had sold it, like the hussy she was! Fortunately,
however, she added, George could now see through her.
The farmer himself, much agitated at his mother's departure, made
another search for the locket, and mowed the grass in the orchard
himself, thinking that perhaps the lady had dropped it, or that it had
caught in her dress and dragged along, and he also took the rake, and
turned over every heap of dead leaves which the wind had blown into the
corners. But there was no locket and no letter. At last he thought that
perhaps the magpie, Kapchack--as magpies were always famous for their
fondness for glittering things, such as silver spoons--might have picked
up the locket, attracted by the gleaming diamonds. He got a ladder and
searched the nest, even pulling part of it to pieces, despite Kapchack's
angry remonstrances, but the locket was not there.
As he came down the ladder there was the young lady, who had stolen into
the orchard and watched his operations. They stood and faced each other
for a minute: at least, she looked at him, _his_ sullen gaze was bent
upon the ground. As for her, the colour came and went in her cheek, and
her breast heaved so that, for a while, she could not speak. At last she
said very low: "So you do not believe me, but some day you will know
that you have judged me wrongly". Then she turned, and without another
word went swiftly from the orchard.
He did not follow her, and he never saw her again. The same evening she
left the village, she and the old woman, her aunt, quietly and without
any stir, and where they went (beyond the market town) no one knew or
even heard. And the very same evening, too, the rich gentleman who had
given her the locket, and who made an unwonted stay in his country home
because of her, also left the place, and went, as was said, to London.
Of course people easily put two and two together, and said no doubt the
girl had arranged to meet her wealthy admirer, but no one ever saw them
together. Not even the coachman, when the gentleman once more returned
home years afterwards, though the great authority in those days, could
say what had become of her; if she had met his master it was indeed in
some secret and mysterious manner. But the folk, when he had done
speaking, and had denied these things, after he had quaffed his ale and
departed, nudged each other, and said that no doubt his master,
foreseeing the inquiries that would be made, had bribed him with a
pocketful of guineas to hold his tongue.
So the farmer, in one day, found himself alone; his dear lady, his
mother, and his rival were gone. He alone remained, and alone he
remained for the rest of his days. His rival, indeed, came back once now
and then for short periods to his mansion; but his mother never