Transcribed from the 1920 Macmillan and Co. A Changed Manand Other Tales edition , email
THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF A MILKMAID.
CHAPTER I.
It was half-past four o’clock(by the testimony of the land-surveyor, my authority for theparticulars of this story, a gentleman with the faintest curve ofhumour on his lips); it was half-past four o’clock on a Maymorning in the eighteen forties. A dense white fog hungover the Valley of the Exe, ending against the hills on eitherside.
But though nothing in the vale could be seen from higherground, notes of differing kinds gave pretty clear indicationsthat bustling life was going on there. This audiblepresence and visual absence of an active scene had a peculiareffect above the fog level. Nature had laid a white handover the creatures ensconced within the vale, as a hand might belaid over a nest of chirping birds.
The noises that ascended through the pallid coverlid wereperturbed lowings, mingled with human voices in sharps and flats,and the bark of a dog. These, followed by the slamming of agate, explained as well as eyesight could have done, to anyinhabitant of the district, that Dairyman Tucker’sunder-milker was driving the cows from the meads into thestalls. When a rougher accent joined in the vociferationsof man and beast, it would have been realized that thedairy-farmer himself had come out to meet the cows, pail in hand,and white pinafore on; and when, moreover, some women’svoices joined in the chorus, that the cows were stalled andproceedings about to commence.
A hush followed, the atmosphere being so stagnant that themilk could be heard buzzing into the pails, together withoccasional words of the milkmaids and men.
‘Don’t ye bide about long upon the road,Margery. You can be back again by skimming-time.’
The rough voice of Dairyman Tucker was the vehicle of thisremark. The barton-gate slammed again, and in two or threeminutes a something became visible, rising out of the fog in thatquarter.
The shape revealed itself as that of a woman having a youngand agile gait. The colours and other details of her dresswere then disclosed—a bright pink cotton frock (becausewinter was over); a small woollen shawl of shepherd’s plaid(because summer was not come); a white handkerchief tied over herhead-gear, because it was so foggy, so damp, and so early; and astraw bonnet and ribbons peeping from under the handkerchief,because it was likely to be a sunny May day.
Her face was of the hereditary type among families down inthese parts: sweet in expression, perfect in hue, and somewhatirregular in feature. Her eyes were of a liquidbrown. On her arm she carried a withy basket, in which layseveral butter-rolls in a nest of wet cabbage-leaves. Shewas the ‘Margery’ who had been told not to‘bide about long upon the road.’
She went on her way across the fields, sometimes above thefog, sometimes below it, not much perplexed by its presenceexcept when the track was so indefinite that it ceased to be aguide to the next stile. The dampness was such thatinnumerable earthworms lay in couples across the path till,startled even by her light tread, they withdrew suddenly intotheir holes. She kept clear of all trees. Why wasthat? There was no danger of lightning on such a morning asthis. But though the roads were dry the fog had gathered inthe boughs, causing them to set up such a dripping as would goclean through the protecting handkerchief like bullets, and spoilthe ribbons beneath. The beech and ash were particularlyshunned, for they dripped more maliciously than any. It wasan instance of woman’s keen appreciativeness ofnature’s moods and peculiarities: a man crossing thosefields might hardly have perceived that the trees dripped atall.