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 Roger on any other argument, how he would have rejoiced! He planned in his dreams a hundred ways of doing so, but never in his waking moments ventured to cross that hero’s path: and he would not make a row over Patty. No! no! even if he could have seized Roger by the collar and pitched him to the other side of the moor, as Roger, he was convinced, would do to him if the opportunity ever arose, he would not have done it to bring in Patty’s name and make her talked about. No! no! He said this to himself as he stood at the door and watched them with his mouth open and watering, and his heart sore. Poor Gervase; there was something in it, even if not so much as he thought.

But this evening, by a happy chance, Roger was not there. Gervase found Patty standing alone, wholly indifferent to the two or three vague figures which were dimly visible on the bench beneath the lighted window of the parlour. It was such a chance for Gervase as had never happened before. He whistled softly, but Patty took no notice; he called her by her name in a whisper, but she never turned her head. Was she regretting the other man, the fellow who had nothing to offer her but a cottage, and who was far too busy with his cricket matches and things ever to earn much money, or even to stay at home with his wife? Gervase ventured upon a great step. He came up behind her and seized Patty’s hand, which was akimbo, firmly placed upon her side.

“Who’s that?” she cried, throwing off the touch; “and what are you wanting here?”

“You know well enough who it is—it’s Gervase come to have a word——”

“Oh!” said Patty, disdainfully, “it’s the young gentleman from the Manor as has no right to be here.”

“Yes, it is me,” said Gervase, not quick enough to take up the scorn in her speech. “Come, Patty, let’s take a little turn round the Thorns: do, now!—there’s nobody else coming to-night.”

“Much I care for any one coming! I can take my walk alone, thank you, Mr. Gervase, and you had better go home. I can’t abide to see you spending your time here morning and night.”

“Why shouldn’t I come here, Patty? It is the nicest place in all the world to me.”

“But it oughtn’t to be,” cried Patty; “your place is in Greyshott Manor, and this is only a little inn upon the edge of the downs. What pleasure can you find in this parlour, with all their pipes going, and the smoke curling about your head, and the silly talk about Blacksmith John at the smithy, and how he shod Farmer George’s mare?”

“Well, if I don’t object to the talk; and what reason have you against it? It’s always good for trade.”

“It’s not even good for trade,” said the girl. “Do you think they like you to be here, these men? No; not even father don’t, though it’s to his profit, as you say. It stops the talk: for there’s things they wouldn’t say before you: and it makes them think and ask questions. It ain’t pleasant for me when they takes to ask each other, ‘What’s the young squire after for ever down here?’”

“Well, you can tell them,” said Gervase, with his foolish laugh; “I make no secret of it. Patty’s what I’m after, and she knows——”

They had gone down upon the open ground where the seven thorns, which gave the house it’s name, stood in a cluster, ghostly in the white moonlight, some of them so old that they were propped up by staves and heavy pieces of wood. Patty had moved on in the fervour of her speech, notwithstanding that she angrily rejected his request to take a turn. With the blackness of that shade between them and the house, they might have been miles, though they were but a few yards, from the house, with its murmuring sound of voices and its lights.

“Look here!” said Patty, quickly. “No man shall ever come after me that goes boozing like you do at beer from morning to night.”

Patty, though she generally spoke very nicely, thanks to the Catechism and the rector’s favour, was after all not an educated person, and if she said “like you do,” it was no more than might be expected from her ignorance. She flung away the arm which he had stolen round her, and withdrew to a distance, facing him with her head erect. “You’re a dreadful one for beer, Mr. Gervase,” she said; “it’s that you come to our house for, it isn’t for me. If there was no Patty, you’d want a place to sit and soak in all the same.”

“That’s a lie!” said the young man; “and I don’t take more than I want when I’m thirsty. It’s only you that are contrary. There’s that Roger; you let him have as much as you like——”

“What Roger?” cried Patty, with a flash of her eyes, which was visible even in the moonlight. “If it’s Mr. Pearson you mean, he never looks at beer except just to stand pots round for the good of the house——”

“If that’s what pleases you, Patty, I’ll—I’ll stand anything—to anybody—as long as—as long as——” Poor Gervase thrust the hand which she would not permit to hold hers, into his pocket, searching for the coin that he had not. At which his tormentor laughed.

“As long as you’ve anything to pay it with,” she said. “And you have not—and that makes all the difference. Roger Pearson—since you’ve made so bold as to put a name to him—has his pockets full. And you’re running up a pretty high score, Mr. Gervase, I can tell you, for nobody but yourself.”

“I don’t know how he has his pockets full,” Gervase said, with a growl; “it isn’t from the work he does—roaming the country and playing in every match——”

“You see he can play,” said Patty, maliciously; “which some folks couldn’t do, not if they was to try from now to doomsday.”

“But it don’t get him on in his business, or make money to keep a wife,” said the young man with a flash of shrewdness, at which Patty stared with astonishment, but with a touch of additional respect.

“Well, Mr. Gervase,” she said, making a swift diversion; “I shall always say it’s a shame keeping you as short as you are of money; and you the heir of all.”

“Isn’t it?” cried Sir Giles Piercey’s heir. “Not a penny but what’s doled out as if I were fifteen instead of twenty-five—or I’d have brought you diamonds, before now, Patty, to put round your neck.”

“Would you, now, Mr. Gervase? And what good would they have been to me at the Seven Thorns? You can’t wear diamonds when you’re drawing beer,” she added, with a laugh.

“I can’t abide you to be drawing beer,” cried the young man: “unless when it is for me.”

“And that’s the worst I can do,” said Patty, quickly. “Here’s just how it is: till you give up all that beer, Mr. Gervase, you’re not the man for me. It’s what I begun with, and you’ve brought me round to it again. Him as I’ve to do with shall never be like that. Father sells it—more’s the pity; but I don’t hold with it. And, if I had the power, not a woman in the country would look at a man that was fond of it: more than for his meals, and, perhaps, a drop when he’s thirsty,” she added, in a more subdued tone.

“That’s just my case, Patty,” said Gervase; “a drop when I’m thirsty—and most often I am thirsty——”

“That’s not what I mean, neither. If you were up and down from morning to night getting in your hay, or seeing to your turnips, or riding to market—well, then I’d allow you a drink, like as I would to your horse, only the brute has the most sense, and drinks good water; but roaming up and down, doing nothing as you are—taking a walk for the sake of getting a drink, and then another walk to give you the excuse to come back again, and nothing else in your mind but how soon you can get another; and then sitting at it at night for hours together till you’re all full of it—like a wet sponge, and smelling like the parlour does in the morning before the windows are opened—Faugh!” cried Patty, vigorously pushing him away, “it is enough to make a woman sick!”

Personal disgust is the one thing which nobody can bear; even the abject Gervase was moved to resentment. “If I make you sick, I’d better go,” he said sullenly, “and find another place where they ain’t so squeamish.”

“Yes, do; there are plenty of folks that don’t mind: neither for your good nor for their own feelings. You can go, and welcome. And I’m going back to the house.”

“Oh, stop a moment, Patty! Don’t take a fellow up so quick! It isn’t nice to hear a girl say that, when you worship the ground she stands on——”

“The smell of beer,” said Patty, sniffing audibly with her nostrils in the air, “is what I never could abide.”

“You oughtn’t to mind it. If it wasn’t for beer——”

“Oh, taunt me with it, do!” cried Patty. “If it wasn’t for beer, neither Richard Hewitt of the Seven Thorns, nor them that belongs to him, that once had their lands and their farms as good as any one, and more horses in their stables than you have ever had at the Manor, couldn’t get on at all, nor pay their way—Oh, taunt me with it! It’s come to that, and I can’t gainsay it. I draw beer for my living, and I ought to encourage them that come. But I can’t abide it, all the same,” cried Patty, stamping her foot on the dry and sandy turf; “and I won’t look at a man, if he was a prince, that is soaking and drinking night and day!”

She turned and walked off towards the house with her quick, springy step, followed by the unhappy Gervase, who called “Patty! Patty!” by intervals, as he went after humbly. At last, just before they came into sight of the loungers about the door, he ventured to catch at her sleeve.

“Patty! Patty! just for one moment! Listen—do listen to me!”

“What were you pleased to want, sir?” said Patty, turning upon him. “Another tankard of beer?”

“Oh, Patty,” said the young man, “if I was to give it up, and never touch another blessed drop again——”

“It would be real good for you—the very best thing you could do.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that. Would you be a little nice to me, Patty? Would you listen to me when I speak?—would you——?”

“I always listen to them that speaks sense, Mr. Gervase.”

“I know I ain’t clever,” said the poor fellow; “and whether this is sense I don’t know: but you shall be my lady when father dies, if you’ll only listen to me now.”

Patty’s eyes danced, and her pulses beat with a thrill which ran through her from head to foot. But she said:

“I’ll never listen to any man, if he would make me a queen, so long as he went on like that with the beer!”