But on this particular evening Rhoda had an additional reason for going down to the chapel. On one night of the month one of the regular ministers came to preach; the minister for that night was an old man who had a reputation for prudence and sagacity; she wanted to ask his counsel and advice on the difficulty in which Perris by his incompetence had placed his wife and himself. All through the service she was scheming and planning as to what might be done; of the sermon she heard nothing; she sang the hymns mechanically. And when the service was over and the congregation had departed she curtly dismissed the organist, who usually walked with her as far as the Dancing Bear on their homeward way, and following the old minister into the little vestry, she asked for an interview with him. With a plainness and directness which made him regard her as an eminently business-like and practical young woman, she put the situation before him.
"You see, Mr. Marriner," she concluded, "it's this way. Abel, he's not a bad farmer, but he's weak and shiftless, and if things begin going wrong he loses heart and then he goes from bad to worse. I'm sorry to say I've little good opinion of him as a manager for himself. But I know what I can do. If I'd a bit of money I'd manage that place myself, and I'd make him work. I'd manage it, and I'd manage him—I've managed him to-day to some purpose, I'll warrant you, Mr. Marriner! I'm none going to stand by and see everything go to naught but failure if I can help it. But the thing is—where am I to find the money? My poor father's a big family of his own, and it's all he can do to keep it—he can't do aught for me. What would you advise, now, Mr. Marriner?"
The old minister, who had a sufficient knowledge of Abel Perris to make him aware that in this case the grey mare was much the better horse, considered matters for a few minutes.
"Well, Mrs. Perris," he said at last. "I dare say there are plenty of people who would lend you money in preference to lending it to your husband. Now, supposing you could get money and pull things round, do you think you could manage him?"
Rhoda drew her fine eyebrows together, and screwed up her eyes, and Mr. Marriner gained a new impression of her. He laughed softly, nodding his head.
"I see—I see!" he said. "Well, now, aren't there any of your neighbours that would help? I understand that some of the big farmers hereabouts are pretty well to do—some of them very well to do. Can't you think of one of them?"
A sudden hot flush burned into Rhoda's cheeks. She was quick to make excuse for it.
"I don't like the idea of going cap in hand, as they say, to neighbours, Mr. Marriner," she said. "I've never been used to asking favours, though I came of poor folks. And I don't know any of the big farmers hereabouts; they look upon us little farmers as so much dirt beneath their feet! I've never spoken to one of them—except to Mr. Taffendale."
"Why, Mr. Taffendale's the very man!" said the old minister. "I know him to be a wealthy man. He's on a committee of which I'm a member, so I meet him now and then. I'll tell you what I'll do, Mrs. Perris, if you like. I'll write him a note, saying that you've told me your troubles, and that I'm sure he won't be disappointed if he helps you. How would that be?"
"Thanking you kindly, Mr. Marriner, it would be a good help," Rhoda answered. "I should feel less what you might call ashamed and frightened about it if I had some writing of yours to show."
"All right, all right!" said the old man. "I'll write it now. I think you'll find Mr. Taffendale a likely man to apply to. Tell him all you've told me; let him see you mean business. He'll see then, I'm sure, that you know what you're talking about."
"Oh, I know what I'm talking about, Mr. Marriner!" said Rhoda, with quiet confidence. "I don't talk for talking's sake. And I know what I can do if I set out to do it."
Ten minutes later, when the old minister had mounted his horse and ridden away, Rhoda, holding the note which he had given her, stood in the darkness outside the chapel, thinking. Once she turned in the homeward direction, only to pause before she had taken many steps. And after the pause she suddenly turned in the other direction and began to walk rapidly down the village street, already deserted and quiet.
"Since it's got to be done, I'll do it now," she muttered to herself. "I'll do it, and get it over."
Martinsthorpe was a long, straggling village lying in a valley which ran from east to west. It was divided into two halves by a high-road running north and south, and transecting the one street at the point where the Dancing Bear looked down from his swinging sign upon the cross-roads formed by the intersection. In the western half of the village stood the church, the school, the principal farmsteads, and the great house of the place; in the eastern there was nothing more pretentious in the way of human habitation than the smithy, the carpenter's shop, a general store kept by an old woman, various clusters of labourers' cottages, and the little chapel. Beyond lay open and uninhabited country which stretched, wood, meadow and arable land, for many a mile before the next village showed itself through its ring of ash and elm. But just beyond the chapel a footpath ran across the valley and up the hillside in the direction of the Limepits, Taffendale's place on the uplands, and this Rhoda took, and followed with swift steps. Having made up her mind on the question which—in spite of her silence upon it during her conversation with the old minister—had been agitating it all day, she was resolved on a plan of action, and she went with firmness and resolution to its first beginnings.
The great stretch of flat land on which the Lime-pits Farm stood like some giant ship in the midst of an otherwise lonely sea, was silent almost to oppression as Rhoda passed across it in the dusky night. Long before she reached it she saw the gaunt farmstead outlined against the stars. Something in its vast solidity, its bulky mass of house and outhouse, barn and granary gave her a curious sense of power, wealth, security—it seemed to typify Taffendale and his money. And as she drew nearer the sense deepened, for opposite the farm lay the famous limepits, from which the bulk of that money was drawn, and from the burning pits a dull glow of fiery red was rising to the night. She stood for a moment between the two sources of wealth which were in this one man's control, and she felt the glow of the burning pits play over her face, and caught the pungent odour of the lime in her nostrils. Then, with a quick catching of her breath she turned boldly to the farmhouse and knocked firmly at its door.
Chapter IV
Taffendale, always a man of action, and supremely interested in his numerous affairs, had been out and about during the whole of a long day. From an early hour of the morning until close upon noon he had been busied with the demands made upon him by his farm and his lime quarry; after dinner he had galloped into the market-town to attend the weekly auction sale, and had subsequently gone to a special meeting of the Board of Guardians; on his return home he had had his correspondence to deal with; his early supper over, he had given two hours to his account books. And when Rhoda's knock sounded at his door, he had just put on his slippers, lighted his pipe, mixed himself a glass of whisky-and-water, and was about to spend a quiet hour over the newspaper before going to bed. That last hour at night, he was accustomed to say, was the only one he ever really