I started off: “When I was a boy, and for long after, except for a piece about Queen Elizabeth’s Lodge, and for the part about High Beech, the Forest was almost wholly made up of pollard hornbeams mixed with holly thickets. But when the Corporation of London took it over about twenty-five years ago, the topping and lopping, which was a part of the old commoners’ rights, came to an end, and the trees were let to grow. But I have not seen the place now for many years, except once, when we Leaguers went a pleasuring to High Beech. I was very much shocked then to see how it was built-over and altered; and the other day we heard that the philistines were going to landscape-garden it. But what you were saying about the building being stopped and the trees growing is only too good news;—only you know—”
At that point I suddenly remembered Dick’s date, and stopped short rather confused. The eager weaver didn’t notice my confusion, but said hastily, as if he were almost aware of his breach of good manners, “But, I say, how old are you?”
Dick and the pretty girl both burst out laughing, as if Robert’s conduct were excusable on the grounds of eccentricity; and Dick said amidst his laughter:
“Hold hard, Bob; this questioning of guests won’t do. Why, much learning is spoiling you. You remind me of the radical cobblers in the silly old novels, who, according to the authors, were prepared to trample down all good manners in the pursuit of utilitarian knowledge. The fact is, I begin to think that you have so muddled your head with mathematics, and with grubbing into those idiotic old books about political economy (he he!), that you scarcely know how to behave. Really, it is about time for you to take to some open-air work, so that you may clear away the cobwebs from your brain.”
The weaver only laughed good-humouredly; and the girl went up to him and patted his cheek and said laughingly, “Poor fellow! he was born so.”
As for me, I was a little puzzled, but I laughed also, partly for company’s sake, and partly with pleasure at their unanxious happiness and good temper; and before Robert could make the excuse to me which he was getting ready, I said:
“But neighbours” (I had caught up that word), “I don’t in the least mind answering questions, when I can do so: ask me as many as you please; it’s fun for me. I will tell you all about Epping Forest when I was a boy, if you please; and as to my age, I’m not a fine lady, you know, so why shouldn’t I tell you? I’m hard on fifty-six.”
In spite of the recent lecture on good manners, the weaver could not help giving a long “whew” of astonishment, and the others were so amused by his naïveté that the merriment flitted all over their faces, though for courtesy’s sake they forbore actual laughter; while I looked from one to the other in a puzzled manner, and at last said:
“Tell me, please, what is amiss: you know I want to learn from you. And please laugh; only tell me.”
Well, they did laugh, and I joined them again, for the above-stated reasons. But at last the pretty woman said coaxingly—
“Well, well, he is rude, poor fellow! but you see I may as well tell you what he is thinking about: he means that you look rather old for your age. But surely there need be no wonder in that, since you have been travelling; and clearly from all you have been saying, in unsocial countries. It has often been said, and no doubt truly, that one ages very quickly if one lives amongst unhappy people. Also they say that southern England is a good place for keeping good looks.” She blushed and said: “How old am I, do you think?”
“Well,” quoth I, “I have always been told that a woman is as old as she looks, so without offence or flattery, I should say that you were twenty.”
She laughed merrily, and said, “I am well served out for fishing for compliments, since I have to tell you the truth, to wit, that I am forty-two.”
I stared at her, and drew musical laughter from her again; but I might well stare, for there was not a careful line on her face; her skin was as smooth as ivory, her cheeks full and round, her lips as red as the roses she had brought in; her beautiful arms, which she had bared for her work, firm and well-knit from shoulder to wrist. She blushed a little under my gaze, though it was clear that she had taken me for a man of eighty; so to pass it off I said—
“Well, you see, the old saw is proved right again, and I ought not to have let you tempt me into asking you a rude question.”
She laughed again, and said: “Well, lads, old and young, I must get to my work now. We shall be rather busy here presently; and I want to clear it off soon, for I began to read a pretty old book yesterday, and I want to get on with it this morning: so good-bye for the present.”
She waved a hand to us, and stepped lightly down the hall, taking (as Scott says) at least part of the sun from our table as she went.
When she was gone, Dick said “Now guest, won’t you ask a question or two of our friend here? It is only fair that you should have your turn.”
“I shall be very glad to answer them,” said the weaver.
“If I ask you any questions, sir,” said I, “they will not be very severe; but since I hear that you are a weaver, I should like to ask you something about that craft, as I am—or was—interested in it.”
“Oh,” said he, “I shall not be of much use to you there, I’m afraid. I only do the most mechanical kind of weaving, and am in fact but a poor craftsman, unlike Dick here. Then besides the weaving, I do a little with machine printing and composing, though I am little use at the finer kinds of printing; and moreover machine printing is beginning to die out, along with the waning of the plague of book-making, so I have had to turn to other things that I have a taste for, and have taken to mathematics; and also I am writing a sort of antiquarian book about the peaceable and private history, so to say, of the end of the nineteenth century—more for the sake of giving a picture of the country before the fighting began than for anything else. That was why I asked you those questions about Epping Forest. You have rather puzzled me, I confess, though your information was so interesting. But later on, I hope, we may have some more talk together, when our friend Dick isn’t here. I know he thinks me rather a grinder, and despises me for not being very deft with my hands: that’s the way nowadays. From what I have read of the nineteenth century literature (and I have read a good deal), it is clear to me that this is a kind of revenge for the stupidity of that day, which despised everybody who could use his hands. But Dick, old fellow, Ne quid nimis! Don’t overdo it!”
“Come now,” said Dick, “am I likely to? Am I not the most tolerant man in the world? Am I not quite contented so long as you don’t make me learn mathematics, or go into your new science of æsthetics, and let me do a little practical æsthetics with my gold and steel, and the blowpipe and the nice little hammer? But, hillo! here comes another questioner for you, my poor guest. I say, Bob, you must help me to defend him now.”
“Here, Boffin,” he cried out, after a pause; “here we are, if you must have it!”
I looked over my shoulder, and saw something flash and gleam in the sunlight that lay across the hall; so I turned round, and at my ease saw a splendid figure slowly sauntering over the pavement; a man whose surcoat was embroidered most copiously as well as elegantly, so that the sun flashed back from him as if he had been clad in golden armour. The man himself was tall, dark-haired, and exceedingly handsome, and though his face was no less kindly in expression than that of the others, he moved with that somewhat haughty mien which great beauty is apt to give to both men and women. He came and sat down at our table with a smiling face, stretching out his long legs and hanging his arm over the chair in the slowly graceful way which tall and well-built people may use without affectation. He was a man in the prime of life, but looked as happy as a child who has just got a new toy. He bowed gracefully to me and said—
“I see clearly that you are the guest, of whom Annie has just told me, who have come from some distant country that does not know of us, or our ways of life. So I daresay you would not mind answering me a few questions; for you see—”
Here