第67章 ALICIA'S DIARY(42)

'Shame upon 'ee,if true!If not true,worse.Master Stocker was an honest man,and ye should have respected his memory longer.Where is thy husband?''He comes often.I thought it was he now.Our marriage has to be kept secret for a while--it was done privily for certain reasons;but we was married at church like honest folk--afore God we were,Roger,six months after poor Stocker's death.'

''Twas too soon,'said Roger.

'I was living in a house alone;I had nowhere to go to.You were far over sea in the New Found Land,and John took me and brought me here.''How often doth he come?'says Roger again.

'Once or twice weekly,'says she.

'I wish th''dst waited till I returned,dear Edy,'he said.'It mid be you are a wife--I hope so.But,if so,why this mystery?Why this mean and cramped lodging in this lonely copse-circled town?Of what standing is your husband,and of where?''He is of gentle breeding--his name is John.I am not free to tell his family-name.He is said to be of London,for safety'sake;but he really lives in the county next adjoining this.'

'Where in the next county?'

'I do not know.He has preferred not to tell me,that I may not have the secret forced from me,to his and my hurt,by bringing the marriage to the ears of his kinsfolk and friends.'

Her brother's face flushed.'Our people have been honest townsmen,well-reputed for long;why should you readily take such humbling from a sojourner of whom th''st know nothing?'They remained in constrained converse till her quick ear caught a sound,for which she might have been waiting--a horse's footfall.

'It is John!'said she.'This is his night--Saturday.'

'Don't be frightened lest he should find me here!'said Roger.'I am on the point of leaving.I wish not to be a third party.Say nothing at all about my visit,if it will incommode you so to do.Iwill see thee before I go afloat again.'Speaking thus he left the room,and descending the staircase let himself out by the front door,thinking he might obtain a glimpse of the approaching horseman.But that traveller had in the meantime gone stealthily round to the back of the homestead,and peering along the pinion-end of the house Roger discerned him unbridling and haltering his horse with his own hands in the shed there.

Roger retired to the neighbouring inn called the Black Lamb,and meditated.This mysterious method of approach determined him,after all,not to leave the place till he had ascertained more definite facts of his sister's position--whether she were the deluded victim of the stranger or the wife she obviously believed herself to be.

Having eaten some supper,he left the inn,it being now about eleven o'clock.He first looked into the shed,and,finding the horse still standing there,waited irresolutely near the door of his sister's lodging.Half an hour elapsed,and,while thinking he would climb into a loft hard by for a night's rest,there seemed to be a movement within the shutters of the sitting-room that his sister occupied.

Roger hid himself behind a faggot-stack near the back door,rightly divining that his sister's visitor would emerge by the way he had entered.The door opened,and the candle she held in her hand lighted for a moment the stranger's form,showing it to be that of a tall and handsome personage,about forty years of age,and apparently of a superior position in life.Edith was assisting him to cloak himself,which being done he took leave of her with a kiss and left the house.From the door she watched him bridle and saddle his horse,and having mounted and waved an adieu to her as she stood candle in hand,he turned out of the yard and rode away.

The horse which bore him was,or seemed to be,a little lame,and Roger fancied from this that the rider's journey was not likely to be a long one.Being light of foot he followed apace,having no great difficulty on such a still night in keeping within earshot some few miles,the horseman pausing more than once.In this pursuit Roger discovered the rider to choose bridle-tracks and open commons in preference to any high road.The distance soon began to prove a more trying one than he had bargained for;and when out of breath and in some despair of being able to ascertain the man's identity,he perceived an ass standing in the starlight under a hayrick,from which the animal was helping itself to periodic mouthfuls.

The story goes that Roger caught the ass,mounted,and again resumed the trail of the unconscious horseman,which feat may have been possible to a nautical young fellow,though one can hardly understand how a sailor would ride such an animal without bridle or saddle,and strange to his hands,unless the creature were extraordinarily docile.This question,however,is immaterial.Suffice it to say that at dawn the following morning Roger beheld his sister's lover or husband entering the gates of a large and well-timbered park on the south-western verge of the White Hart Forest (as it was then called),now known to everybody as the Vale of Blackmoor.Thereupon the sailor discarded his steed,and finding for himself an obscurer entrance to the same park a little further on,he crossed the grass to reconnoitre.

He presently perceived amid the trees before him a mansion which,new to himself,was one of the best known in the county at that time.Of this fine manorial residence hardly a trace now remains;but a manu dated some years later than the events we are regarding describes it in terms from which the imagination may construct a singularly clear and vivid picture.This record presents it as consisting of 'a faire yellow freestone building,partly two and partly three storeys;a faire halle and parlour,both waynscotted;a faire dyning roome and withdrawing roome,and many good lodgings;a kitchen adjoyninge backwarde to one end of the dwelling-house,with a faire passage from it into the halle,parlour,and dyninge roome,and sellars adjoyninge.