Still patting the dog's head, his eyes gradually darkened and his brow became clouded.
"Poor Spruce!" he murmured. "'Help him, if so be the lady is a hard one!' Already in fear of her! I expect they have heard something-- some ill-report--probably only too correctly founded. Yet, how it goes against the grain of manhood to realise that any 'lady' may be 'a hard one!' But, alas!--what a multitude of 'hard ones' there are! Harder than men, perhaps, if all the truth were known!"
And there was a certain sternness and rooted aversion in him to that dim approaching presence of the unknown heiress of Abbot's Manor. He experienced an instinctive dislike of her, and was positively certain that the vague repugnance would deepen into actual antipathy.
"One cannot possibly like everybody," he argued within himself, in extenuation of what he felt was an unreasonable mental attitude; "'And modern fashionable women are among the most unlikeable of all human creatures. Any one of them in such a village as this would be absurdly out of place."
Thus self-persuaded, his mood was a singular mixture of pity and resentment when, in fulfilment of his promise, he walked that afternoon up the winding road which led to the Manor, and avoiding the lodge gates, passed through a rustic turnstile he knew well and so along a path across meadows and through shrubberies to the house. The path was guarded by a sentinel board marked 'Private. Trespassers will be prosecuted.' But in all the years he had lived at St. Rest, he cared nothing for that. As rector of the parish he had his little privileges. Nebbie trotted at his heels with the air of a dog accustomed to very familiar surroundings. The grass on either side was springing up long and green,--delicate little field flowers were peeping through it here and there, and every now and then there floated upwards the strong sweet incense of the young wild thyme.
The way he had chosen to walk was known as a 'short cut' to Abbot's Manor, and ten minutes of easy striding brought him into the dewy coolness of a thicket of dark firs, at the end of which, round a sharp turn, the fine old red brick and timbered gables of the house came into full view. He paused a moment, looking somewhat regretfully at the picture, warmly lit up by the glow of the bright sun,--a picture which through long habitude of observation had grown very sweet to him. It was not every day that such a house as Abbot's Manor came within reach of the archaeologist and antiquarian. The beautiful tiled-roof--the picturesque roughness and crookedness of the architectural lines of the whole building, so different to the smooth, hard, angular imitations of half-timbered work common in these degenerate days, were a delight to the eyes to rest upon,--a wealth of ivy clung thickly to the walls and clambered round the quaint old chimneys;--some white doves clustered in a group on the summit of one broad oak gable, were spreading their snowy wings to the warm sun and discussing their domestic concerns in melodious cooings;--the latticed windows, some of which in their unspoilt antiquity of 'horn' panes were a particular feature of the house, were all thrown open,--but to Walden's sensitive observation there seemed a different atmosphere about the place,--a suggestion of change and occupation which was almost startling.