As he walked he looked at his watch. He could be back in two hours,
easily, and a good long time would still remain to him for reading
after tea.
Passing the few unhealthy fir-trees and cottage where the path
joined the highway he hastened along, and struck away to the left,
descending the steep side of the country to the west of the Brown
House. Here at the base of the chalk formation he neared the brook
that oozed from it, and followed the stream till he reached her
dwelling. A smell of piggeries came from the back, and the grunting
of the originators of that smell. He entered the garden, and knocked
at the door with the knob of his stick.
Somebody had seen him through the window, for a male voice on the
inside said: "Arabella! Here's your young man come coorting! Mizzle, my girl!"
Jude winced at the words. Courting in such a businesslike aspect as
it evidently wore to the speaker was the last thing he was thinking
of. He was going to walk with her, perhaps kiss her; but "courting"
was too coolly purposeful to be anything but repugnant to his ideas.
The door was opened and he entered, just as Arabella came downstairs
in radiant walking attire.
"Take a chair, Mr. What's-your-name?" said her father, an energetic,
black-whiskered man, in the same businesslike tones Jude had heard
from outside.
"I'd rather go out at once, wouldn't you?" she whispered to Jude.
"Yes," said he. "We'll walk up to the Brown House and back, we can
do it in half an hour."
Arabella looked so handsome amid her untidy surroundings that he felt
glad he had come, and all the misgivings vanished that had hitherto
haunted him.
First they clambered to the top of the great down, during which
ascent he had occasionally to take her hand to assist her. Then
they bore off to the left along the crest into the ridgeway, which
they followed till it intersected the high-road at the Brown
House aforesaid, the spot of his former fervid desires to behold
Christminster. But he forgot them now. He talked the commonest
local twaddle to Arabella with greater zest than he would have felt
in discussing all the philosophies with all the Dons in the recently
adored university, and passed the spot where he had knelt to Diana
and Phoebus without remembering that there were any such people in
the mythology, or that the sun was anything else than a useful
lamp for illuminating Arabella's face. An indescribable lightness
of heel served to lift him along; and Jude, the incipient scholar,
prospective D.D., professor, bishop, or what not, felt himself
honoured and glorified by the condescension of this handsome country
wench in agreeing to take a walk with him in her Sunday frock and
ribbons.