The mare paced along with firm and cautious tread through the copse

where Winterborne had worked, and into the heavier soil where the oaks

grew; past Great Willy, the largest oak in the wood, and thence towards

Nellcombe Bottom, intensely dark now with overgrowth, and popularly

supposed to be haunted by the spirits of the fratricides exorcised from

Hintock House.

By this time Fitzpiers was quite recovered as to physical strength.

But he had eaten nothing since making a hasty breakfast in London that

morning, his anxiety about Felice having hurried him away from home

before dining; as a consequence, the old rum administered by his

Advertisement..

father-in-law flew to the young man's head and loosened his tongue,

without his ever having recognized who it was that had lent him a

kindly hand. He began to speak in desultory sentences, Melbury still

supporting him.

"I've come all the way from London to-day," said Fitzpiers. "Ah,

that's the place to meet your equals. I live at Hintock--worse, at

Little Hintock--and I am quite lost there. There's not a man within

ten miles of Hintock who can comprehend me. I tell you, Farmer

What's-your-name, that I'm a man of education. I know several

languages; the poets and I are familiar friends; I used to read more in

metaphysics than anybody within fifty miles; and since I gave that up

there's nobody can match me in the whole county of Wessex as a

scientist. Yet I an doomed to live with tradespeople in a miserable

little hole like Hintock!"

"Indeed!" muttered Melbury.

Fitzpiers, increasingly energized by the alcohol, here reared himself

up suddenly from the bowed posture he had hitherto held, thrusting his

shoulders so violently against Melbury's breast as to make it difficult

for the old man to keep a hold on the reins. "People don't appreciate

me here!" the surgeon exclaimed; lowering his voice, he added, softly

and slowly, "except one--except one!...A passionate soul, as warm as

she is clever, as beautiful as she is warm, and as rich as she is

beautiful. I say, old fellow, those claws of yours clutch me rather

tight--rather like the eagle's, you know, that ate out the liver of

Pro--Pre--the man on Mount Caucasus. People don't appreciate me, I

say, except HER. Ah, gods, I am an unlucky man! She would have been

mine, she would have taken my name; but unfortunately it cannot be so.

I stooped to mate beneath me, and now I rue it."

The position was becoming a very trying one for Melbury, corporeally

and mentally. He was obliged to steady Fitzpiers with his left arm,

and he began to hate the contact. He hardly knew what to do. It was

useless to remonstrate with Fitzpiers, in his intellectual confusion

from the rum and from the fall. He remained silent, his hold upon his

companion, however, being stern rather than compassionate.




Most Popular