At the Gate of the Fold. A country tale

Front matter

AT THE GATE OF THE FOLD a BY THE SAME AUTHOR Mr 5pivey's Clerk: A Novel. Crown Svo, Cloth, 6s. ' It has the merit, rare in English novels, of being in thoroughly good proportion, with no superfluous characters and no redundant scenes. The hero is a delightful person. The villain of the story is well done also, and his introduction upon the scene is extremely clever and original.' — Guardian. The Quarry Farm : A Country Tale. Crown Svo, Cloth. A new Edition. Price 2s. 6d. 'It is a charming tale of love . . . told in pleasant and idyllic fashion.' — Daily Chronicle. 'A pretty, wholesome, country story, fragrant, as it were, of "bonnie Yorkshire " in one of her bonniest nooks. ' — Pall Mall Gazette. 1 A reader who likes country stories ought to read this.' — Scotsman. 'The original figure of the "Wise Man" introduces a novel element into a picturesque and pleasing story.' — Morning Post. ' It is a country tale of English country life, and it has the charm, to be found in many an out-of-the-way rural spot in our beautiful land — simplicity subtly blended with romance, and solitude redeemed by human interest from loneliness.' — Saturday Review. ' It is fresh, graceful, artistic, and well arranged, and has the restful charm of an agreeable, easily -sol lowed melody.' — Spectator. 'A charming picture of old-fashioned farm life.' — Guardian.

WARD & DOWNEY, LTD., 12 York Buildings, Adelphi, W.C. AT THE GATE OF THE FOLD a Countrie Sale BY X J. S. FLETCHER AUTHOR OF 'THE QUARRY FARM,' 'WHEN CHARLES THE FIRST WAS KING,' ' MR SITVEY'S CLERK,' ETC. LONDON WARD & DOWNEY LI MITE. 12 YORK BUILDINGS ADELPHI, W.C. PACE I 28 40 CONTENTS

Chapter I An Autumn Afternoon

— THE VILLAGE FEAST — A STRANGER ARRIVES Outside the village the land lay calmly sleeping in the quiet sunlight. The fields which but a month before had rejoiced in their wealth of rippling corn were now cropped and bare of all but the stubble and the clover that grew between its long ridges. The woods were already turning from green to gold, and here and there a shower of yellow leaves fell gently from the boughs as the soft September wind sent a shivering breath across the land. Everything seemed to lie at peace. The cattle browsing in the A meadows by the river side chewed their cuds with lazy and meditative air ; the sheep in the pastures cropped the grass with careless appetite. Now and then a bird sang quietly on the topmost spray of some hawthorn bush, and at irregular intervals two or three crows flapped slowly across the open fields, utter ing an occasional croak ere they disappeared behind the belt of wood.

Between the river and the hill there was no sign of human life. A plough stood in the centre of a bare wheat field, its share driven into the brown earth, and its stilts inclined at a haphazard angle towards the ground. Beyond the hedge two horses lingered, gazing at the plough, as if in wonder that they were not yoked to its swingletrees. In the next field stood a wheat stack, with four yards of thatching left undone. The ladder reared against it, and the bundles of thatch and spelks piled up at its foot, showed that the thatcher had lately been busy there. Now, however, he and the ploughman, and who ever should have been at work in the land, had gone home, and the fields and closes were left to the sun, the sky, and the things of Nature. Across the highway flew a thrush, its brown wings flashing in the soft September sunlight.

Up to the highest spray of the hawthorn hedge it soared, and there suddenly poured forth a flood of melody. The black birds hopping about in the holly bushes heard it, and answered the song in equally joyous notes ; the hedge sparrows chirped cheerfully in accompaniment. A solitary hare, stealing across the yellow stubble, sat up and listened to the unwonted melody. Certain rabbits tumbling about the mouths of their warrens on the edge of a sandhill pricked their ears at the sound of the birds' chorus, and began to wonder if spring had come again. A linnet, perched high in a tall elm, made up its mind that April had arrived, and began to pipe lustily in honour of the new season. Couched in a dusky recess of the woods, the fox laughed at the glee of these simple things, and then felt sad, knowing that autumn and cub-hunting were close at hand.

Nevertheless, not many spring afternoons are half so bright or full of sleepy sunshine as was that September one. About the earth, the trees and the sky hung an indefinable sense of rest and calm. This comes always to the land when the time of harvest is over, and the last load of golden corn has disappeared within the stackyard gate. All things are then at liberty to rest for awhile. The horses, which have got thin and bony during the hard labour of the harvest month, recruit their strength and get themselves a new lustre on their shaggy coats ; the men who have driven them go about the despoiled fields at a slower pace. The cattle, enjoying a brief respite before being removed to the byres and folds, where the fattening process takes place, lounge about the meadows and wonder why the shadows fall ere the noon has well gone by.

The sheep, once more warmly clothed in the fleeces which have grown upon them ever since shearing time, begin to look forward to long winter days and nights in the puddly turnip fields. All the things of Nature know that autumn and winter are coming, and because of the knowledge they make much of the Sept ember sunlight, which is the last taste of summer. When that is gone there is nought left in the land but the bare trees and hedges, the brown ridges and furrows turned up by the plough, and the desolate nests of birds in bough and bush whose owners have fled far off until the promise of spring sends them back to the old familiar haunts in England. The apple orchards which lay on the slopes of the hills that shut in the village from the world outside sucked in the sunlight that afternoon with keen appetite.

Here and there the fruit had gone from its tree, but there was still a great quantity of sun-kissed apples and mellowing pears hang ing amongst the russet leaves until the Sept ember sun had coaxed them into maturity. Hidden away amongst the apple trees stood many a plum tree, whose dark-tinted fruit, already ripe and luscious, hung temptingly from heavily-laden boughs. Here, how ever, was no more sign of life than in the surrounding meadows. A ladder, leaning against the cropped boughs of an apple tree, showed that some hand had lately occupied itself in plucking the ripened fruit, but the hook left hanging from the topmost rung of the ladder had no basket attached to it, and the orchard hedge concealed no human figure. Along the high road running from the south came a young man, who walked easily and leisurely, as if there was no need for him to hurry on whatever errand he was bent.

He was a tall, upright, solidly-fashioned man of twenty-three years of age or thereabouts, and his face was tanned and brown, as if by constant exposure to wind and sun. He was dressed in a brown velveteen coat and waistcoat, and the numerous pockets of these, taken in conjunction with his corduroy breeches and gaiters, seemed to suggest his connection with the bringing up and eventual killing of game. Across his shoulder he carried a gun, and slung round his back was a case containing the disjointed sections of fishing-rods and similar implements for use in outdoor life. A soft, grey cap covering his head, the strong boots protecting his feet, and a stout oaken staff carried in his right hand, completed his equipment. The traveller came along the highway to a point where the road branched abruptly into two forks, one going at right angles to the east, the other in a less acute direction towards the west.

Before him, facing the long, straight road from the south, along which he had walked, stood a tall and spectral sign-post, the three arms of which terminated in certain rude carvings, fashioned in imitation of human fingers. Towards this the traveller stepped, and read the directions aloud, looking down the various roads indi cated as he did so. The arm pointing to the east bore the inscription ' Mondaythorpe, 2 miles ; ' the one to the west, ' Underdale, J mile, and Sicaster, 4 miles ; ' that pointing along the road by which he had come, ' Corn chester, 12 miles, and London 172 miles.' Having read these names and distances, the young man placed his gun carefully against the hedge, and, producing pipe and tobacco, began to smoke. When the pipe was fairly lighted, he leaned against the top rail of the palings let into the hedge, and stood gazing at the scene beneath him.

The sign-post stood on the extreme verge of a hill or high bank, and from the hedge behind it the ground fell away sharply until it reached the banks of a tiny river or stream, which ran with many a twist and turn through a village of farmsteads and cottages, and away into the wood-covered recesses of a quiet dale to the westward. On the other side of the river the ground rose again, covered thickly with young wood, pine, larch and fir, the brown and green foliage of which was here and there broken by sharp masses of jutting crag and grey stone. The road which ran to the west from the point where the traveller stood, turned sharply some two hundred yards away from the sign-post, and descending the hillside by various windings and sharp corners, reached the village in the dale beneath. There it passed across an ancient stone bridge of two arches, and immediately began to climb the steep ascent of the opposite hill.

Half-way up the hill side, embowered in groves of chestnut and elm, stood an ancient-looking house, the curiously quaint gables and chimneys of which towered high above the plantations of fir and pine growing between it and the village. Beyond this house the high road disappeared into the woods, and was lost under the trees which crowned the head of the opposite hill. The traveller, having looked for some moments at the great house across the valley, turned his attention to the village beneath it. It was a small village of some six or eight farmsteads, isolated among their own farm buildings, with groups of cottages clustered near them, or placed here and there about the approaches to the bridge. Close upon the river bank stood a tiny church and churchyard, and further away from the village the mill-wheel splashed and warbled against the weather-beaten walls of the old mill-house.

The prevailing tints of the village were cool and pleasant to the eye ; the grey walls, the roofs of red tile, darkened with age, the thatched covers of barn and granary, and the green banks of the brawling river. Here and there stood a whitewashed cottage covered with thick thatch, making a brighter spot in the sub dued picture ; and close upon the bridge, with a large, open space before it, stood the village inn, its sign swinging loosely from the great pole reared against the open door. From the general view of the village the traveller turned to a more particular con templation of what was then going on in its midst. It was evident from what he saw that events of importance were hap pening. The strains of a band came up the slope of the hill to him, and now and then he heard the sounds of shrill laughter and merry voices.

What his ears lacked, however, his eyes made up for. The open space in front of the inn was filled with an assemblage of country folk, who moved in and out amongst certain canvas erections, at which a brisk trade in gingerbread and sweetstuff was being carried on. Near the foot of the bridge stood a shooting gallery, the shots from which echoed against the woods beyond ; and opposite it stood what seemed to the young man under the sign post to be a show or museum of curiosities. Lads and lasses, together with older folk, moved about these evidences of festivity, or danced in the open space before the inn, where the brass band was playing lively music. The traveller, turning from this merry scene, shouldered his gun once more, and prepared to descend to the village by the winding road. For a while his path lay between an avenue of elms, the leaves of which were falling thickly, carpeting the highway with a soft cover of green and yellow.

Through this avenue the road descended, making many turns and twists until it reached the first cottages, perched half-way between the river and the hilltop. At the first of these cottages the traveller stopped and knocked gently at the half open door. A voice bidding him enter, he took off his cap, and introducing head and shoulders into the kitchen, very politely inquired if the village beneath him was Under dale. An ancient woman, whose wrinkled face peeped out at him from amidst the deep recesses of a white-frilled cap, sat in an elbow-chair close to the cheery blaze of a wood fire, towards which she stretched out her withered hands. ' Come thy ways in, joy,' said this old woman. ' Underdale it is, and Underdale Feast too. Come thy ways in, and sit thee down. Open house it is wi' everybody in the dale to-day.' 'Thank you, mistress,' said the young man, ' but I'd best be stepping on my way.' ' Ay, you'll be for joining 'em down below,' said the old woman. ' Ay, ay, 'tis only nature that you should.

There be fine doings down afore the " Fox and Hounds " — shows and stalls, shooting galleries and swing-boats. You'll have an eye to the lasses, I daresay. Ay, to be sure — I was young once.' ' I'm a stranger,' said the traveller. ' I'm coming as gamekeeper to Underdale Hall — is that the place across the valley, that great house in the woods ? ' ' Ay, that's the Hall, sure enough. So you be coming there? Ay, straight down the road and over the brig you go.' ' Thank you, mistress,' said the new game keeper, and shut the door and went slowly down the hill towards the merry-makers.

CHAPTER I

I NEW FRIENDS AND FACES— THE DANCING- ROOM — THE VILLAGE BEAUTY In those days the village feast was a much more important event than it is now. The younger portion of the village community spent one-half the year in looking forward to it, and the other half in remembering its glories and gaieties. For weeks before it came the children were saving their half pence, and the maidens wondering if any likely young men would come to the dance. When the auspicious day finally arrived, the whole village was en fete, and every house holder threw wide his doors, and bade friend and stranger welcome. The men did not go out into the land that day, and the children had a whole holiday from school. Friends u came from far and wide, and neighbouring villages sent their quota of merry-makers. All the afternoon and evening the fun waxed fast and furious, culminating at night in a grand dance in some convenient barn or granary, at which the band played its most enlivening strains, and the lads and lasses pounded the floor until they could dance no longer.

The business of the feast was at its height when the gamekeeper reached the little square in front of the ' Fox and Hounds.' At half-a-dozen stalls old women were selling nuts, brandy-snap, and sweet stuff; the young woman in charge of the shooting-gallery was offering three shots for a penny, and the money back if a successful shot were made ; the man who owned the travelling museum was inviting everybody to enter and inspect his marvellous collection of curiosities ; and a hoarse young man on the river bank was equally press ing in his attempts to lure the bystanders into throwing sticks at his image of Aunt Sally. Over all the shouting and bawling of these people rose the strains of the brass band playing in the garden at the rear of the inn ; and in and around these diverse sounds ran a ripple of human conversation and laughter ; light-hearted, gay, and good humoured.

The lads and lasses, staring at the show or trafficking at the sweetstuff stalls, were evidently bent on extracting as much pleasure as possible from their day's holiday ; and the older folk, who looked on from convenient points of vantage, were not behind them in eagerness to im prove the occasion. Underneath the windows of the inn sat four or five men, all comfortably settled on a long, oaken bench, before which stood an ancient oak table, laden at that moment with pewter measures, long churchwarden pipes, and screws of tobacco done up in bits of newspaper. The men were either ancient or middle-aged, and each seemed bent on proving his good-will and amity towards the others and the world in general. ' Come,' said the eldest, who was attired in rusty black, and had a semi-clerical air, ' come, neighbours, let's fill our glasses — pewters, I should say — and drink to our own good healths. 'Tis a poor heart that never rejoices.' ' Well said, sexton ! ' cried a burly man, whose sinewy arms bore testimony to his powers at the forge and anvil. ' Well said.' ' Call the girl and bid her fill our measures again,' piped an old, wizen faced man at the sexton's elbow, 'and I'll pay.

Ah, a good many feasts we've seen, sexton, eh ? ' ' A matter of nigh on to seventy,' an swered the sexton. ' Somehow, there doesn't seem to be quite so much life as there was in our young days, eh, Timothy ? ' ' No, no,' said the other old man. ' Eh, I mind a deal o' things that happened in them times. Deal more fiddling and danc ing there was.' ' Ah, and eating and drinking, too,' said the blacksmith. ' I've heard tell of old B Farmer Sykes killing a bullock for the feast, and having it all eaten in two days in his own house.' ' Dear-a-me, yes,' said Timothy. ' Ah, and such brewings of ale as there was then. But who's the young man yonder ? His face seems strange.' ' Bid him sit down and sup, and ask him his business,' said the blacksmith. ' I'll lay anything it's our new gamekeeper,' said a short, stout man at the end of the table. ' The Squire's hired one out o' the south, and he was expected to day or to-morrow.' The traveller was by this time approach ing the door of the inn, where he intended refreshing himself after his long walk.

As he passed the long, oaken bench, however, the blacksmith hailed him. ' Hallo, friend, sit down here and drink with us. You're a stranger in these parts, I think.' ' I've just been saying that I'll lay ought you're our new gamekeeper,' said the short, stout man. ' I'm the coachman up yonder,' indicating the Hall with a nod of his head, ' and I knew they were expecting you.' t 4 You're right, friend,' said the new game keeper, glad to meet a fellow-servant, and stretching out his hand to the coachman. ' That's just what I am, if this village be Underdale.' ' Oh, 'tis Underdale, sure enough,' said the blacksmith. ' Sit you down, man, and rest yourself.' ' Why, it is rather a longish walk from Cornchester,' said the gamekeeper, wip ing his forehead, ' and the sun's warm to-day.' ' Should ha' come to Sicaster, man,' said the blacksmith ; ' that would ha' saved you eight miles o' road.' The gamekeeper explained that he had a friend of his own calling engaged on an estate half-way between Cornchester and Underdale, and he had chosen that route in order that he might pay him a visit.

He further volunteered the information that his name was Edward Verney, and that he came from a village in Wilt shire. ' I knew you were not a native o' these parts,' said the blacksmith, 'as soon as you opened your mouth.' ' I was never in these parts before,' said Verney, glancing round at the village and its people. ' But come, now I am here, let's have a drink together, friends. Call for what you will, and I'll pay the damage.' The blacksmith thereat swore roundly that the new gamekeeper was a good sort, and promised eternal friendship to him, a sentiment in which all his cronies joined, so that the stranger received a warm welcome, and speedily felt himself at home. He remained talking and drink ing with his new acquaintances for a while, and then, under the guidance of the coach man, went forward to the Hall to report himself to his master.

On the way thither the two men exchanged confid ences, the coachman giving the new em ploye certain warnings and admonitions, and concluding by observing that he him self had served the Squire, boy and man, for nearly thirty years. Going up the hillside to the Hall, he pointed out two comfortable cottages embowered in the woods, one of which he said was his own, while the other was for the gamekeeper. ' I expect you're not married,' said the coachman. ' Look rather young for that.' ' No ; I'm a single man, and no prospects of being aught else at present,' answered Verney. ' You'll soon mend o' that,' laughed the coachman. ' There's a lot o' likely lasses hereabouts. But as long as you're single, and living next door to me, my missus'll see to your bit o' cooking and mending and such. You'll be getting a wife o' your own, no doubt, before long.' The gamekeeper, however, repudiated any notion of matrimony, and said that he should be thankful to the coachman's good lady for whatever she could do for him.

The coachman, in earnest of his good intentions, waited in the stable-yard for his new friend while the latter was closeted with the Squire, and when he emerged led him away to the twin cottages, and introduced him into the bosom of his family. It being feast-time, the coachman's wife had made great preparations in the way of brewing and cooking, and she pressed the new-comer to eat, with true hospitality, telling him that, whatever might be the custom down his way, it was Underdale fashion to rejoice mightily whenever the feast came round. Later in the evening the coachman and the new gamekeeper, having inspected the latter's cottage, which was ready-furnished for his use, went down to the village again, the coachman being anxious to introduce the new-comer to such society as the place afforded.

The gamekeeper was nothing loth to fall in with this proposal ; only he wished that his chest of clothes had arrived from Sicaster, so that he might have put on his new check suit, which seemed more suitable for the occasion than his velveteen coat. This, however, being impossible, he smartened himself up with soap, water and brush, and followed the coachman down the hill. ' If you're anything in the dancing line,' said the coachman, as they came to the bridge, ' we'll go into the dancing-room. I'm getting a bit too stout for that sort of thing myself, but I like to watch the youngsters having a fling.' Verney replying that he had no objection to a dance, they passed across the little square in front of the inn, where the stall and show-keepers were now lighting their naphtha lamps, and entered a narrow stair case, up which young men and women were hurrying to the dance.

At the head of this they found a long room, the boards of which had been swept very clean, while the walls and ceiling had lately received a coat of whitewash. Round the floor ran a long row of benches, while a sort of dais at the ex treme end had been erected for the benefit of the orchestra, which consisted of two fiddlers and a performer on the bass. These amateur musicians were engaged in tuning their instruments when the coachman and his new friend entered, and sundry couples were already indulging in a preliminary step or two. By the time the lamps which lighted the dancing-room had brightened up, and the musicians had persuaded their instruments to agree as to tune, the place was full of young men and women anxious to dance. Amongst these were two or three servants from the Hall, house and kitchen maids, with a sprinkling of grooms and horsemen from the stables.

The young men were of various grades of society, from farmers down to plough-boys ; and the girls were all village maidens, in or out of service, who had put on their finest feathers and best manners for this great annual event. When they began to dance it was not on any very vigorous or formal method. Here a couple of shock-headed plough-boys seized each other by waist and shoulder and circled round and round ; there a more correct couple endeavoured to accommodate their steps to the measure ; in one corner other couples danced in strict accordance with time and tune ; while the general company, flinging rules and ceremony to the winds, danced hither and thither and enjoyed itself. Now the fiddlers played one tune and now another ; now 'Sir Roger de Coverley,' and now ' Pop goes the Weasel ; ' but whether the tune was fast or slow, the great body of dancers danced on, only conscious that their hearts were light as their feet.

For a time the new gamekeeper did not join in these sports, but stood aside with the coachman watching them. The fact was, his tastes were somewhat nice, and he did not see any young woman with whom he would care to dance. About eight o'clock, however, there came into the dancing-room a little group of persons, amongst whom Verney recognised the jovial blacksmith, Martin Bell. Martin had evidently been entertaining friends at his cottage, and was now conducting them to the delights of the dancing-room. He began to call for partners for the three or four girls who followed behind his ample form, and catching sight of the new gamekeeper, he roared at him to come forward. ' Here, man,' quoth Martin, ' I lay you can dance with the best. You shall have my lass for a partner. Here, Mavis, girl, keeper will dance with thee.

Step it merrily, lasses — I could dance a jig myself once upon a time.' The blacksmith's pretty daughter, glancing shyly at the new gamekeeper, took his hand, and soon they were dancing in excellent time, so that Martin Bell began to call folk to see how dancing should be accomplished. Verney, glancing at his partner, saw that she was an exceedingly pretty girl of nineteen or twenty years, with delicately formed features and rare dark eyes, from beneath the long lashes of which she stole many a shy glance at the stranger. She danced very correctly, and the gamekeeper, who loved music and dancing, began to feel very happy, which feeling increased when the coachman contrived to whisper to him that he had got the village beauty for his partner, and was a lucky man.

Chapter III Dancing

— THE PRETTY DRESSMAKER — THE MILLER The dance being over, and the fiddlers resting a while from their severe labours, the gamekeeper began to talk to his partner, and opened a conversation by inquiring her name. 'My name,' she answered, 'is Mavis Bell. I daresay you never heard such a name before — I never did, at anyrate. It was mother's fancy, and she would have her own way about it.' 'It's a pretty name,' said the gamekeeper, who thought its owner even prettier, ' and it's very uncommon. My name's Verney — Edward Verney. I've come here as gamekeeper.' ' So father told us,' said Mavis. Then, because she could think of nothing more important, she said, ' The last gamekeeper wasn't a nice man at all.' The new gamekeeper heard this naive confession with a smile, and said he hoped Underdale people would like him better.

After that the conversation flagged somewhat, but Verney amused himself by watching his companion. He had not often seen so pretty a girl, and told himself that if he ever felt inclined to marry, Mavis Bell would exactly suit his tastes. She was somewhat above the medium height, well-shaped and lissome, with a ripe figure full of graceful curves, while her face, piquant and bewitching, was of a brunette tint, through which the healthy flush of a good constitution perpetually showed itself. Her eyes, dark and roguish, were in full sympathy with her hair, which seemed to curl of its own accord wherever it could escape from combs or pins. In brief, she was one of those young women who seem to be formed by Nature for the attraction and bewitchment of the opposite sex. Before the next dance began, the game keeper and his companion had so far ex changed confidences as to be in possession of each other's history up to that point.