CHAPTER II.

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      The parlour at the Seven Thorns was, in the evening, turned into a sort of village club, where a select number of the fathers of the hamlet assembled night after night to consume a certain amount of beer, to smoke a certain number of pipes, and then to retire at a not very late hour, not much the worse, perhaps, for their potations. It was not a vicious place, nor was it one of revelry. The talk was slow, like the minds of the talkers, and it was chiefly concerned with local events. If now and then there was a public measure which was wide enough, or descended sufficiently low to reach the level of those rustic folk, there might be occasionally a few heavy words on that subject. But this was of the rarest occurrence, and the humours of the heavy assembly were little perceptible to a superficial observer. What was going on at the Manor was of infinitely less interest to this rustic club than what was going on in the village, and unless Sir Giles had turned out his cottagers, or, what was worse, endeavoured to improve their tumble-down habitations, I cannot see why their minds should have been directed to him or his affairs. It is, perhaps, a delusion of the writer, most interested himself in the Squire’s family, which lends to the rural public the same inclination. It is true that when young Gervase Piercey first began to appear among them, to be placed in the warmest corner, and served first with whatever he called for, the elders of the village took their pipes out of their mouths and stared. “What do he be a-wanting ’ere?” they said to each other with their eyes, and a head or two was shaken, not only over the inappropriateness of his appearance, but because the presence of the young Squire was more or less a check upon their native freedom as well as prolixity of talk. Gervase had been known to interrupt a lingering discussion with a “Speak up, old cock!” or with a silly laugh in the wrong place, which confused the speaker and made him forget whereabouts in his subject he was. It was some time, however, before it occurred to them what the young man’s motive was, which was made plain by several signs: in the first place by the fact that Patty ceased to serve the customers in the parlour, old Hewitt getting up with many grumbles from the settle to supply their wants himself; then by the impatience of the young man, who had at first smoked his pipe contentedly in his corner, interrupting the conversation only by those silly laughs of his, or by an equally foolish question, which, though idiotic in itself, was the cause of discomfiture to a village orator accustomed to have everything his own way; and then it was observed that Gervase let his pipe go out and kept his eyes upon the door, and then that he became very uneasy when the brisk voice of Patty was heard outside, presumably talking with the younger frequenters of the place, who hung about the precincts of the Seven Thorns, or occupied the bench under the window of the parlour. When the young squire at last got up and went out, the sages said little, but they looked at each other or nudged each other, those who were close enough pointing with their long pipes over their shoulders, and finally burst forth into a slow roar, shaking their sides. “Softy if ’e be, ’e knows wat’s wat as well as ere another,” said the “Maestro de chi sanno,” the sage of sages, the Aristotle of the village. This revelation slowly communicated itself over the parish, “The young squire, he be after Patty Hewitt o’ the Seven Thorns; but Patty is one as will keep him in his place, and no mistake,” was the popular verdict. The parish knew, even better than the gentry did, that Gervase—Sir Giles’ only child—was a softy; it knew his habits, and that he was good for nothing, not even to take a hand at cards or field a ball at cricket, so that his dangling after Patty Hewitt caused nobody any anxiety. She knew how to keep him in his own place; no village story of lovely woman stooping to folly was likely to arise in her case. The Softy was a good creature enough, and harmed nobody, except by that exasperating laugh of his, which made the persons interrupted by it furious, but broke no bones, everybody allowed. So that it was more on Gervase’s account than Patty’s that the village concerned itself. “She do be making a fool of ’im,” they said with gratification; for was not this a just revenge for other maidens wronged by other young squires of higher qualities than poor Gervase. Generally there was a slow satisfaction in the triumph of the people over the gentry, as thus exemplified; yet a general wish that Patty should not push that triumph too far.

      On the evening of the day on which this story begins, he had kept in the parlour as long as his patience lasted, always looking for the moment when she should appear; for the mind of Gervase worked very slowly, and he had not yet begun to understand as a rule, what all the parish already knew, that Patty now entered the parlour no more in the evening. Gervase knew that he had not seen her for night after night, but he had no faculty for putting this and that together, and he did not draw the natural conclusion that she had so settled it with her father. Nor had he found much advantage in going out to the door, in following the sound of her voice, which seemed to flicker about like a will-o’-the-wisp, now sounding close at hand, now from a distance. When Patty was visible she was generally in close conversation with some one—Roger Pearson as often as not, was an antagonist whom Gervase had sense enough not to encounter. And, accordingly, it was the most rare thing in the world when he had any nearer view of the object of his admiration than the dim outline of her, in the dark, flitting about in front of the house with her tray, and not to be interrupted; or perhaps strolling off beyond the seven thorns which gave their name to the house, with another tall figure beside her. Roger Pearson was the athlete of the village. It was he who commanded the eleven got up between Greyshott and Windyhill, which had beaten almost every eleven that had met them, and certainly every other eleven in the county; and he was a leading volunteer, a great football player, everything that it is most glorious in English country life to be. Gervase did not venture to contest openly the favour of Patty with this stalwart fellow. He stood on the threshold with his mouth open, and his heart rung, and watched them stroll away together in the moonlight, losing sight of them in the shadow of the thorns: waiting till they emerged beyond upon the great flat of the moorland country among the furze bushes. Poor Softy! to see the lady of his love thus taken away from him by a stronger than he, was very hard upon him. Though he was a Softy, there was in Gervase so much of that feeling of the gentleman, which can be transmitted by blood and by the atmosphere of an ancient house—as made him aware that to make his possible wife the object of a brawl was not to be thought of, even had he felt any confidence in his own courage and muscles as against those of Roger. So that both these reasons held him back: the instinct of the weakling, and the instinct of the gentleman too. If he could have fought with and overthrown