This erection was the wagon-house of the chief man of business

hereabout, Mr. George Melbury, the timber, bark, and copse-ware

merchant for whom Marty's father did work of this sort by the piece.

It formed one of the many rambling out-houses which surrounded his

dwelling, an equally irregular block of building, whose immense

chimneys could just be discerned even now. The four huge wagons under

the shed were built on those ancient lines whose proportions have been

ousted by modern patterns, their shapes bulging and curving at the base

and ends like Trafalgar line-of-battle ships, with which venerable

hulks, indeed, these vehicles evidenced a constructed spirit curiously

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in harmony. One was laden with sheep-cribs, another with hurdles,

another with ash poles, and the fourth, at the foot of which she had

placed her thatching-spars was half full of similar bundles.

She was pausing a moment with that easeful sense of accomplishment

which follows work done that has been a hard struggle in the doing,

when she heard a woman's voice on the other side of the hedge say,

anxiously, "George!" In a moment the name was repeated, with "Do come

indoors! What are you doing there?"

The cart-house adjoined the garden, and before Marty had moved she saw

enter the latter from the timber-merchant's back door an elderly woman

sheltering a candle with her hand, the light from which cast a moving

thorn-pattern of shade on Marty's face. Its rays soon fell upon a man

whose clothes were roughly thrown on, standing in advance of the

speaker. He was a thin, slightly stooping figure, with a small nervous

mouth and a face cleanly shaven; and he walked along the path with his

eyes bent on the ground. In the pair Marty South recognized her

employer Melbury and his wife. She was the second Mrs. Melbury, the

first having died shortly after the birth of the timber-merchant's only

child.

"'Tis no use to stay in bed," he said, as soon as she came up to where

he was pacing restlessly about. "I can't sleep--I keep thinking of

things, and worrying about the girl, till I'm quite in a fever of

anxiety." He went on to say that he could not think why "she (Marty

knew he was speaking of his daughter) did not answer his letter. She

must be ill--she must, certainly," he said.

"No, no. 'Tis all right, George," said his wife; and she assured him

that such things always did appear so gloomy in the night-time, if

people allowed their minds to run on them; that when morning came it

was seen that such fears were nothing but shadows. "Grace is as well as

you or I," she declared.




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