Vessons withdrew composedly. Since Hazel had offended him, he had decided that she must take care of herself.
'Couldna he bide in the house?' asked Hazel uneasily.
'No.'
They fetched in bread and beer and cold meat. Her host was jubilant, and during supper, quite deferential. He had been awed by Hazel's request to the night and by her beauty. But when his hunger was satisfied, his voice grew louder and his eyes sultry.
Restraint fell between them. Looking at his face, Hazel again had an impulse for flight. When he said, 'I want to stroke that silk dress,' and came towards her, knocking the candle over as if by accident, she edged away, saying sharply:
'Dunna maul me!'
He paid no attention.
'I'll do right by you,' he said; 'I swear I will. I'll—yes, I'll even marry you to-morrow. But to-night's mine.'
It was not a question of marrying or not marrying in Hazel's eyes. It was a matter of primitive instinct. She would be her own.
He had pulled the low dress off one shoulder. She twitched it out of his hand and slipped from his grasp like a fish from a net. He was too surprised to follow at once.
'Old feller!' she called, running into the yard, 'quick! quick!' A rough grey head appeared.
'What? after the old 'un?'
'I wunna stay along of him!'
Vessons looked at her interestedly. Apparently she also was a devotee of his religion—celibacy; one who dared to go against the explicit decrees of nature.
'I think the better of you,' he said. 'So he's had his trouble for nothing,' he chuckled. 'You can have my room. You shanna say Andrew Vessons inna a man of charitable nature. Never shall you! There's a key to it.'
He led the way to his room through the back door and up the kitchen stairs.
Most people would have suffered anything rather than sleep in the room he revealed when he proudly flung the door open. He had the recluse's love of little possessions and daily comforts.
On an upturned box by the bed were his clay pipe, matches, a treacle-tin containing whisky, and some chicken-bones. He usually kept a few bones to pick at his ease. A goldfinch with a harassed air occupied a wooden cage in the window, and the mantelpiece was fitted up with white mice in home-made cages. It seemed quite a pleasant room to Hazel.
'Mind as you're very careful of all my things,' said Vessons wistfully. 'I hanna slep away from this room for nigh twenty year. That bird's ne'er slep without me. He'll miss me. He unna sing for anybody else.' He always asserted this, and the bird always belied it by singing to Reddin and any chance visitor. But Vessons continued to believe it. There are some things that it is necessary to believe; doubt of them means despair.
Vessons was conscious that he was being generous.
'You can drink a sup of whisky if you like,' he said. 'Now I'm going, afore that bird notices, or I shall never get away.'
The bird sat in preoccupied silence. He was probably thinking of the woods and seeded dandelions. He was of the fellowship to which comfort means little and freedom much. So was Hazel.
'Lock the door!' Vessons said in a sepulchral whisper from the stairs.
Hazel did so, and curled up to sleep in the creaking house, thoughtless as the white mice, defenceless as they, as little grateful to Vessons for his protection, and in as deep an ignorance of what the world could do to her if it chose.
Chapter 6
Early next morning, while the finch still dreamed its heavy dream and the mice were still motionless balls, Hazel was awakened by a knock at the massive oak door. She ran across and opened it a crack, peering out from amid her hair like a squirrel from autumn leaves.
Vessons stood there with a pint mug of beer, which he proffered. But
Hazel had a woman's craving for tea.
'If so be the kettle's boiling,' she said apologetically.
'Tay!' said Vessons. 'Laws! how furiously the women do rage after tay!
I s'pose it's me as is to make it?'
'If kettle's boiling.'
'Kettle! O' course kettle's boiling this hour past. Or how would the ca'ves get their meal?'
'Well, you needna shout. You'll wake 'im.'
Fright was in her eyes, strong and inexplicable to herself.
'I mun go!' she whispered.
'Ah! You go,' said Vessons, glad that for once duty and inclination went hand in hand.
'I'll send you,' he added. 'Where d'yer live?'
She hesitated.
'You needna be frit to tell me,' said Vessons. 'I'm six-and-sixty, and you're no more to me'—he surveyed her flushing face contemplatively—'than the wold useless cat,' he concluded.
Hazel frowned; but she wanted a promise from Vessons, so she made no retort.
'You wunna tell 'im?' she pleaded.
''Im? Never will I! Wild 'orses shanna drag it from me, nor yet blood 'orses, nor 'unters, nor cart-'orses, nor Suffolk punches!' Vessons waxed eloquent, for again righteousness and desire coincided. He did not want a woman at Undern.
'Well,' said Hazel, whispering through the crack, 'I lives at the
Callow.'
'What! that lost and forgotten place t'other side the Mountain?'
'Ah! But it inna lost and forgotten; it's better'n this. We've got bees.'
'So've I got bees.'
'And a music.'
'Music? What's a music? You canna eat it.'
'And my dad makes coffins.'
'Does 'e, now?' said Vessons, interested at last. Then he bethought him of the credit of Undern. 'But you anna got a mulberry-tree,' he said triumphantly. 'Now then! I 'ave!'
He creaked downstairs.
In a few moments Hazel also went down, and drank her tea by the red fire in the kitchen, watching the frost-flowers being softly effaced from the window as if someone rubbed them away with a sponge. Snow like sifted sugar was heaped on the sill, and the yard and outbuildings and fields, the pools and the ricks, all had the dim radiance of antimony.
'Where be the road?' asked Hazel, standing on the door-step and feeling rather lost. 'How'll I find it?'
'You wunna find it.'
'Oh, but I mun!'
'D'you think Andrew Vessons'll let an 'ooman trapse in the snow when he's got good horses in stable?' queried Vessons grandly. 'I'll drive yer.'
'I'm much obleeged, I'm sure,' said Hazel. 'But wunna he know?'
'He'll sleep till noon if I let 'im,' said Andrew.
They drove off in silence, the snow muffling the plunging hoofs. Hazel looked back as the sky crimsoned for dawn. The house fronted her with a look of power and patience. She felt that it had not yet done with her. She wondered how she would feel if Reddin suddenly appeared at his window. And a tiny traitorous wish slipped up from somewhere in her heart. She watched the windows till a turn hid the house, and then she sighed. Almost she wished that Reddin had awakened.
But she soon forgot everything in delight; for the snow shone, the long slots of the rabbits and