Jim thoughtfully retraced his steps.He was a village character, and he had a villager's simplicity: that is, the simplicity which comes from the lack of a complicated experience.But simple by nature he certainly was not.Among the rank and file of rustics he was quite a Talleyrand, or rather had been one, till he lost a good deal of his self-command by falling in love.
Now, however, that the charming object of his distraction was out of sight he could deliberate, and measure, and weigh things with some approach to keenness.The substance of his queries was, What change had come over Margery--whence these new notions?
Ponder as he would he could evolve no answer save one, which, eminently unsatisfactory as it was, he felt it would be unreasonable not to accept: that she was simply skittish and ambitious by nature, and would not be hunted into matrimony till he had provided a well-adorned home.
Jim retrod the miles to the kiln, and looked to the fires.The kiln stood in a peculiar, interesting, even impressive spot.It was at the end of a short ravine in a limestone formation, and all around was an open hilly down.The nearest house was that of Jim's cousin and partner, which stood on the outskirts of the down beside the turnpike-road.From this house a little lane wound between the steep escarpments of the ravine till it reached the kiln, which faced down the miniature valley, commanding it as a fort might command a defile.
The idea of a fort in this association owed little to imagination.
For on the nibbled green steep above the kiln stood a bye-gone, worn-out specimen of such an erection, huge, impressive, and difficult to scale even now in its decay.It was a British castle or entrenchment, with triple rings of defence, rising roll behind roll, their outlines cutting sharply against the sky, and Jim's kiln nearly undermining their base.When the lime-kiln flared up in the night, which it often did, its fires lit up the front of these ramparts to a great majesty.They were old friends of his, and while keeping up the heat through the long darkness, as it was sometimes his duty to do, he would imagine the dancing lights and shades about the stupendous earthwork to be the forms of those giants who (he supposed) had heaped it up.Often he clambered upon it, and walked about the summit, thinking out the problems connected with his business, his partner, his future, his Margery.
It was what he did this evening, continuing the meditation on the young girl's manner that he had begun upon the road, and still, as then, finding no clue to the change.
While thus engaged he observed a man coming up the ravine to the kiln.Business messages were almost invariably left at the house below, and Jim watched the man with the interest excited by a belief that he had come on a personal matter.On nearer approach Jim recognized him as the gardener at Mount Lodge some miles away.If this meant business, the Baron (of whose arrival Jim had vaguely heard) was a new and unexpected customer.
It meant nothing else, apparently.The man's errand was simply to inform Jim that the Baron required a load of lime for the garden.
'You might have saved yourself trouble by leaving word at Mr.
Vine's,' said Jim.
'I was to see you personally,' said the gardener, 'and to say that the Baron would like to inquire of you about the different qualities of lime proper for such purposes.'
'Couldn't you tell him yourself?' said Jim.
'He said I was to tell you that,' replied the gardener; 'and it wasn't for me to interfere.'
No motive other than the ostensible one could possibly be conjectured by Jim Hayward at this time; and the next morning he started with great pleasure, in his best business suit of clothes.By eleven o'clock he and his horse and cart had arrived on the Baron's premises, and the lime was deposited where directed; an exceptional spot, just within view of the windows of the south front.
Baron von Xanten, pale and melancholy, was sauntering in the sun on the slope between the house and the all-the-year-round.He looked across to where Jim and the gardener were standing, and the identity of Hayward being established by what he brought, the Baron came down, and the gardener withdrew.
The Baron's first inquiries were, as Jim had been led to suppose they would be, on the exterminating effects of lime upon slugs and snails in its different conditions of slaked and unslaked, ground and in the lump.He appeared to be much interested by Jim's explanations, and eyed the young man closely whenever he had an opportunity.
'And I hope trade is prosperous with you this year,' said the Baron.
'Very, my noble lord,' replied Jim, who, in his uncertainty on the proper method of address, wisely concluded that it was better to err by giving too much honour than by giving too little.'In short, trade is looking so well that I've become a partner in the firm.'
'Indeed; I am glad to hear it.So now you are settled in life.'
'Well, my lord; I am hardly settled, even now.For I've got to finish it--I mean, to get married.'
'That's an easy matter, compared with the partnership.'
'Now a man might think so, my baron,' said Jim, getting more confidential.'But the real truth is, 'tis the hardest part of all for me.'
'Your suit prospers, I hope?'
'It don't,' said Jim.'It don't at all just at present.In short, Ican't for the life o' me think what's come over the young woman lately.' And he fell into deep reflection.
Though Jim did not observe it, the Baron's brow became shadowed with self-reproach as he heard those simple words, and his eyes had a look of pity.'Indeed--since when?' he asked.
