III. THE MILL BECOMES AN IMPORTANT CENTRE OF OPERATIONS
The next morning Miss Garland awoke with an impression that somethingmore than usual was going on, and she recognized as soon as she couldclearly reason that the proceedings, whatever they might be, lay not faraway from her bedroom window. The sounds were chiefly those of pickaxesand shovels. Anne got up, and, lifting the corner of the curtain aboutan inch, peeped out.
A number of soldiers were busily engaged in making a zigzag path down theincline from the camp to the river-head at the back of the house, andjudging from the quantity of work already got through they must havebegun very early. Squads of men were working at several equidistantpoints in the proposed pathway, and by the time that Anne had dressedherself each section of the length had been connected with those aboveand below it, so that a continuous and easy track was formed from thecrest of the down to the bottom of the steep.
The down rested on a bed of solid chalk, and the surface exposed by theroadmakers formed a white ribbon, serpenting from top to bottom.
Then the relays of working soldiers all disappeared, and, not long after,a troop of dragoons in watering order rode forward at the top and beganto wind down the new path. They came lower and closer, and at last wereimmediately beneath her window, gathering themselves up on the space bythe mill-pond. A number of the horses entered it at the shallow part,drinking and splashing and tossing about. Perhaps as many as thirty,half of them with riders on their backs, were in the water at one time;the thirsty animals drank, stamped, flounced, and drank again, lettingthe clear, cool water dribble luxuriously from their mouths. MillerLoveday was looking on from over his garden hedge, and many admiringvillagers were gathered around.
Gazing up higher, Anne saw other troops descending by the new road fromthe camp, those which had already been to the pond making room for theseby withdrawing along the village lane and returning to the top by acircuitous route.
Suddenly the miller exclaimed, as in fulfilment of expectation, 'Ah,John, my boy; good morning!' And the reply of 'Morning, father,' camefrom a well-mounted soldier near him, who did not, however, form one ofthe watering party. Anne could not see his face very clearly, but shehad no doubt that this was John Loveday.
There were tones in the voice which reminded her of old times, those ofher very infancy, when Johnny Loveday had been top boy in the villageschool, and had wanted to learn painting of her father. The deeps andshallows of the mill-pond being better known to him than to any other manin the camp, he had apparently come down on that account, and wascautioning some of the horsemen against riding too far in towards themill-head.
Since her childhood and his enlistment Anne had seen him only once, andthen but casually, when he was home on a short furlough. His figure wasnot much changed from what it had been; but the many sunrises and sunsetswhich had passed since that day, developing her from a comparative childto womanhood, had abstracted some of his angularities, reddened his skin,and given him a foreign look. It was interesting to see what years oftraining and service had done for this man. Few would have supposed thatthe white and the blue coats of miller and soldier covered the forms offather and son.
Before the last troop of dragoons rode off they were welcomed in a bodyby Miller Loveday, who still stood in his outer garden, this being a plotlying below the mill-tail, and stretching to the water-side. It was justthe time of year when cherries are ripe, and hang in clusters under theirdark leaves. While the troopers loitered on their horses, and chatted tothe miller across the stream, he gathered bunches of the fruit, and heldthem up over the garden hedge for the acceptance of anybody who wouldhave them; whereupon the soldiers rode into the water to where it hadwashed holes in the garden bank, and, reining their horses there, caughtthe cherries in their forage-caps, or received bunches of them on theends of their switches, with the dignified laugh that became martial menwhen stooping to slightly boyish amusement. It was a cheerful, careless,unpremeditated half-hour, which returned like the scent of a flower tothe memories of some of those who enjoyed it, even at a distance of manyyears after, when they lay wounded and weak in foreign lands.
Then dragoons and horses wheeled off as the others had done; and troopsof the German Legion next came down and entered in panoramic processionthe space below Anne's eyes, as if on purpose to gratify her. These werenotable by their mustachios, and queues wound tightly with brown ribbonto the level of their broad shoulder-blades. They were charmed, as theothers had been, by the head and neck of Miss Garland in the littlesquare window overlooking the scene of operations, and saluted her withdevoted foreign civility, and in such overwhelming numbers that themodest girl suddenly withdrew herself into the room, and had a privateblush between the chest of drawers and the washing-stand.
When she came downstairs her mother said, 'I have been thinking what Iought to wear to Miller Loveday's to-night.'
'To Miller Loveday's?' said Anne.
'Yes. The party is to-night. He has been in here this morning to tellme that he has seen his son, and they have fixed this evening.'
'Do you think we ought to go, mother?' said Anne slowly, and looking atthe smaller features of the window-flowers.
'Why not?' said Mrs. Garland.
'He will only have men there except ourselves, will he? And shall we beright to go alone among 'em?'
Anne had not recovered from the ardent gaze of the gallant York Hussars,whose voices reached her even now in converse with Loveday.
'La, Anne, how proud you are!' said Widow Garland. 'Why, isn't he ournearest neighbour and our landlord? and don't he always fetch our faggotsfrom the wood, and keep us in vegetables for next to nothing?'
'That's true,' said Anne.
'Well, we can't be distant with the man. And if the enemy land nextautumn, as everybody says they will, we shall have quite to depend uponthe miller's waggon and horses. He's our only friend.'
'Yes, so he is,' said Anne. 'And you had better go, mother; and I'llstay at home. They will be all men; and I don't like going.'
Mrs. Garland reflected. 'Well, if you don't want to go, I don't,' shesaid. 'Perhaps, as you are growing up, it would be better to stay athome this time. Your father was a professional man, certainly.' Havingspoken as a mother, she sighed as a woman.
'Why do you sigh, mother?'
'You are so prim and stiff about everything.'
'Very well--we'll go.'
'O no--I am not sure that we ought. I did not promise, and there will beno trouble in keeping away.'
Anne apparently did not feel certain of her own opinion, and, instead ofsupporting or contradicting, looked thoughtfully down, and abstractedlybrought her hands together on her bosom, till her fingers met tip to tip.
As the day advanced the young woman and her mother became aware thatgreat preparations were in progress in the miller's wing of the house.The partitioning between the Lovedays and the Garlands was not verythorough, consisting in many cases of a simple screwing up of the doorsin the dividing walls; and thus when the mill began any new performancesthey proclaimed themselves at once in the more private dwelling. Thesmell of Miller Loveday's pipe came down Mrs. Garland's chimney of anevening with the greatest regularity. Every time that he poked his firethey knew from the vehemence or deliberateness of the blows the precisestate of his mind; and when he wound his clock on Sunday nights the whirrof that monitor reminded the widow to wind hers. This transit of noiseswas most perfect where Loveday's lobby adjoined Mrs. Garland's pantry;and Anne, who was occupied for some time in the latter apartment, enjoyedthe privilege of hearing the visitors arrive and of catching stray soundsand words without the connecting phrases that made them entertaining, tojudge from the laughter they evoked. The arrivals passed through thehouse and went into the garden, where they had tea in a largesummer-house, an occasional blink of bright colour, through the foliage,being all that was visible of the assembly from Mrs. Garland's windows.When it grew dusk they all could be heard coming indoors to finish th
eevening in the parlour.
Then there was an intensified continuation of the above-mentioned signsof enjoyment, talkings and haw-haws, runnings upstairs and runnings down,a slamming of doors and a clinking of cups and glasses; till the proudestadjoining tenant without friends on his own side of the partition mighthave been tempted to wish for entrance to that merry dwelling, if only toknow the cause of these fluctuations of hilarity, and to see if theguests were really so numerous, and the observations so very amusing asthey seemed.
The stagnation of life on the Garland side of the party-wall began tohave a very gloomy effect by the contrast. When, about half-past nineo'clock, one of these tantalizing bursts of gaiety had resounded for alonger time than usual, Anne said, 'I believe, mother, that you arewishing you had gone.'
'I own to feeling that it would have been very cheerful if we had joinedin,' said Mrs. Garland, in a hankering tone. 'I was rather too nice inlistening to you and not going. The parson never calls upon us except inhis spiritual capacity. Old Derriman is hardly genteel; and there'snobody left to speak to. Lonely people must accept what company they canget.'
'Or do without it altogether.'
'That's not natural, Anne; and I am surprised to hear a young woman likeyou say such a thing. Nature will not be stifled in that way. . . .'(Song and powerful chorus heard through partition.) 'I declare the roomon the other side of the wall seems quite a paradise compared with this.'
'Mother, you are quite a girl,' said Anne in slightly superior accents.'Go in and join them by all means.'
'O no--not now,' said her mother, resignedly shaking her head. 'It istoo late now. We ought to have taken advantage of the invitation. Theywould look hard at me as a poor mortal who had no real business there,and the miller would say, with his broad smile, "Ah, you be obliged tocome round."'
While the sociable and unaspiring Mrs. Garland continued thus to pass theevening in two places, her body in her own house and her mind in themiller's, somebody knocked at the door, and directly after the elderLoveday himself was admitted to the room. He was dressed in a suitbetween grand and gay, which he used for such occasions as the present,and his blue coat, yellow and red waistcoat with the three lower buttonsunfastened, steel-buckled shoes and speckled stockings, became him verywell in Mrs. Martha Garland's eyes.
'Your servant, ma'am,' said the miller, adopting as a matter of proprietythe raised standard of politeness required by his higher costume. 'Now,begging your pardon, I can't hae this. 'Tis unnatural that you twoladies should be biding here and we under the same roof making merrywithout ye. Your husband, poor man--lovely picters that a' would make tobe sure--would have been in with us long ago if he had been in yourplace. I can take no nay from ye, upon my honour. You and maidy Annemust come in, if it be only for half-an-hour. John and his friends havegot passes till twelve o'clock to-night, and, saving a few of our ownvillage folk, the lowest visitor present is a very genteel Germancorporal. If you should hae any misgivings on the score ofrespectability, ma'am, we'll pack off the underbred ones into the backkitchen.'
Widow Garland and Anne looked yes at each other after this appeal.
'We'll follow you in a few minutes,' said the elder, smiling; and sherose with Anne to go upstairs.
'No, I'll wait for ye,' said the miller doggedly; 'or perhaps you'llalter your mind again.'
While the mother and daughter were upstairs dressing, and sayinglaughingly to each other, 'Well, we must go now,' as if they hadn'twished to go all the evening, other steps were heard in the passage; andthe miller cried from below, 'Your pardon, Mrs. Garland; but my son Johnhas come to help fetch ye. Shall I ask him in till ye be ready?'
'Certainly; I shall be down in a minute,' screamed Anne's mother in aslanting voice towards the staircase.
When she descended, the outline of the trumpet-major appeared half-waydown the passage. 'This is John,' said the miller simply. 'John, youcan mind Mrs. Martha Garland very well?'
'Very well, indeed,' said the dragoon, coming in a little further. 'Ishould have called to see her last time, but I was only home a week. Howis your little girl, ma'am?'
Mrs. Garland said Anne was quite well. 'She is grown-up now. She willbe down in a moment.'
There was a slight noise of military heels without the door, at which thetrumpet-major went and put his head outside, and said, 'All right--comingin a minute,' when voices in the darkness replied, 'No hurry.'
'More friends?' said Mrs. Garland.
'O, it is only Buck and Jones come to fetch me,' said the soldier. 'ShallI ask 'em in a minute, Mrs Garland, ma'am?'
'O yes,' said the lady; and the two interesting forms of Trumpeter Buckand Saddler-sergeant Jones then came forward in the most friendly manner;whereupon other steps were heard without, and it was discovered thatSergeant-master-tailor Brett and Farrier-extraordinary Johnson wereoutside, having come to fetch Messrs. Buck and Jones, as Buck and Joneshad come to fetch the trumpet-major.
As there seemed a possibility of Mrs. Garland's small passage beingchoked up with human figures personally unknown to her, she was relievedto hear Anne coming downstairs.
'Here's my little girl,' said Mrs. Garland, and the trumpet-major lookedwith a sort of awe upon the muslin apparition who came forward, and stoodquite dumb before her. Anne recognized him as the trooper she had seenfrom her window, and welcomed him kindly. There was something in hishonest face which made her feel instantly at home with him.
At this frankness of manner Loveday--who was not a ladies' man--blushed,and made some alteration in his bodily posture, began a sentence whichhad no end, and showed quite a boy's embarrassment. Recovering himself,he politely offered his arm, which Anne took with a very pretty grace. Heconducted her through his comrades, who glued themselves perpendicularlyto the wall to let her pass, and then they went out of the door, hermother following with the miller, and supported by the body of troopers,the latter walking with the usual cavalry gait, as if their thighs wererather too long for them. Thus they crossed the threshold of the mill-house and up the passage, the paving of which was worn into a gutter bythe ebb and flow of feet that had been going on there ever since Tudortimes.