Mr. Bellamy’s farm of Westchapel—Chapel Farm it was usually called—lay about half a mile from Lampson’s Ford, and about five miles from Eastthorpe. The road from Eastthorpe running westerly and parallel with the river at a distance of about a mile from it sends out at the fourth milestone a byroad to the south, which crosses the river by a stone bridge, and there is no doubt that before the bridge existed there was a ford, and that there was also a chapel hard by where people probably commended their souls to God before taking the water. In the angle formed by the main road, the lane, and the river, lay Chapel Farm. The house stood on a gentle slope, just enough to lift it above the range of the worst of winter floods, and faced the south. It was not in the lane, but on a kind of private road or cart-track which issued from it; went through a gate and under a hedge; expanded itself in an open space of carefully weeded gravel just opposite the front door, and became a more insignificant and much rougher track on the other side, passing by the stacks into the field, and finally disappearing altogether. From the hand-post on the main road to the gate was half a mile, and from the gate to the farm nearly another half-mile. In driving from Chapel Farm you feel, when you reach the gate, you are in the busy world again, and when you reach the hand-post and turn to Eastthorpe you are in the full tide of life, although not a soul is to be seen. Opposite the house were the farm-buildings and the farmyard. The gate to the right of the farm-buildings led into the meadow, and thus anybody sitting in the front rooms could see the barges slowly and silently towed from the sea to the uplands and back again, the rising ground beyond, and so on to Thingleby, whose little spire just emerged above the horizon. The river, deep and sluggish for the most part, was fringed with willows on the side opposite the towing-path. At the bridge, just where the ford used to be, it was broken into shallows, over which the stream slipped faster, and here and there there were not above two or three feet of water, so that sometimes the barges were almost aground. The farmhouse was not quite ideal. It was plain red brick, now grey and lichen-covered, about a hundred years old; the windows were white-painted, with heavy frames, and the only attempt at ornament was a kind of porch over the front door, supported by brackets, but with no sides to it. Nevertheless, it had its charms. Save on the northern side, where it was backed by the huge elms in the home-field, it lay bare to the winds, breezy, airy, full of light. In summer the front door was always open, and even when it was shut in cold weather no knocker was ever used. If a visitor came by daylight he was always seen, and if after dark he was heard. The garden, which lay on the west side of the house and at the back, was rather warm in hot weather, but was delicious. Under the wall on the north side the apricot and Orleans plum ripened well, and round to the right was the dairy, always cool, sweet, and clean, with the big elder trees before the barred window.

The mistress of the house, Mrs. Bellamy, was not a very robust woman. She was generally ailing, but never very seriously ill. She had had two children, but they had both died. Mrs. Bellamy’s mind, unoccupied with parental cares, with politics, or with literature, let itself loose upon her house, her dairy, and her fowls. She established a series of precautions to prevent dirt, and the precautions themselves became objects to be protected. There was a rough scraper intervening on behalf of the black-leaded scraper; there was a large mat to preserve the mat beyond it: and although a drugget coveted the stair carpet, Mrs. Bellamy would have been sorely vexed if she had found a footmark upon it. If a friend was expected she put some straw outside the garden gate, and she asked him in gentle tones when he dismounted if he would kindly “just take the worst off” there. The kitchen was scoured and scrubbed till it was fleckless. It was theoretically the living-room, and a defence for the parlour, but it also was defended in its turn like the scraper, and the back kitchen, which had a fireplace, was used for cooking, the fire in the state kitchen not being lighted in summer time. Partly Mrs. Bellamy’s excessive neatness was due to the need of an occupation. She brooded much, and the moment she had nothing to do she became low-spirited and unwell. Partly also it was due to a touch of poetry. She polished her verses in beeswax and turpentine, and sought on her floors and tables for that which the poet seeks in Eden or Atlantis. It must not be imagined that because she was so particular she was stingy. She was one of the most open-handed creatures that ever breathed. She loved plenty. The jug was always full to overflowing with beer, and the dishes were always heaped up with good things, so that nobody was ever afraid of robbing his neighbour.

Catharine was never weary of Chapel Farm. She was busy from morning to night, and the living creatures on it were her especial delight. Naturally, as is the case with all country girls, the circumference of her knowledge embraced a region which a town matron would have veiled from her daughters with the heaviest curtains.

“How’s the foal going on?” said Mrs. Bellamy to her husband one evening when he came in to supper.

“Oh, the foal’s all right; he’ll be just like his father—just the same broad hind-quarters. Lord! we shall hardly get him into the shafts. You remember, Miss Catharine, as I showed you what extrornary quarters King Tom had when he came here? It is a curious thing, there ain’t one of his foals that hasn’t got that mark of him. I allus likes a horse, I do, that leaves his mark strong. If you pay pretty heavy you ought to have something for your money. The mother, though, is in a bad way: my belief is she’ll have milk-fever.”

“That mare never seemed healthy to me,” said Catharine.

“No; she was brought up anyhow. When she was about a fortnight old her mother died. They didn’t know how to manage her, and half starved her.”

“I don’t believe in starvin’ creatures when they are young,” said Mrs. Bellamy, who was herself a very small eater.

“Nor I, either, and yet that mare, although, as you say, Miss Catharine, she was never healthy, has the most wonderful pluck, as you know. I remember once I had two ton o’ muck in the waggon, and we were stuck. Jack and Blossom couldn’t stir it, and, after a bit, chucked up. I put in Maggie—you should have seen her! She moved it, a’most all herself, aye, as far as from here to the gate, and then of course the others took it up. That’s blood! What a thing blood is!—you may load it, but you can’t break it. Never a touch of the whip would she stand, and yet it’s quite true she isn’t right, and never was. Maybe the foal will be like her; the shape goes after the father mostly, but the sperrit and temper after the mother.”

The next morning Maggie was worse. Catharine was in the stable as soon as anybody was stirring, and the poor creature was trembling violently. She was watched with the most tender care, and when she became too weak to stand to eat or drink she was slung with soft bands and pads. Her groans were dreadful. After about a week of cruel misery she died. It was evening, and Catharine sat down and looked at what was left of her friend. She had never before even partly realised what death meant. She was too young to feel its full force. The time was yet to come when death would mean despair—when the insolubility of the problem would induce carelessness to all other problems and their solution. Furthermore, this was only a horse. Still, the contrast struck her between the corpse before her and Maggie with her bright eyes and vivid force. What had become of all that strength; what had become of her?—and the girl mused, as countless generations had mused before her. Then there was the pathos of it. She thought of the brave animal which she had so often seen, apparently for the mere love of difficulty, struggling as if its sinews would crack. She thought of its glad recognition when she came into the stable, and of its evident affection, half human, or perhaps wholly human, and imprisoned in a form which did not permit full expression. She looked at its body as it lay there extended, quiet, pleading as it were against the doom of man and of beast, and tears came to her eyes as she noted the appeal—tears not altogether of sorrow, but partly of revolt.

Mr. Bellamy came in.

“Ah, Miss Catharine, I don’t wonder at it. There’s many a human as I should less have missed than Maggie. I can’t make out at times why we should love the beasts so as perish.”

“Perhaps they don’t.”

“Really, Miss, of course they do. What’s the Lord to do with all the dead horses and cows?”

Catharine thought, “Or with the dead men and women,” but she said nothing. The subject was new to her. She took her scissors and cut off a wisp of Maggie’s beautiful mane, twisted it up, put it carefully in a piece of paper, and placed it in a little pocket-book which she always carried. The next morning as soon as it was daylight a man came over from Eastthorpe; Maggie was hoisted into a cart, her legs dangling down outside, and was driven away to be converted into food for dogs.

One of Catharine’s favourite haunts was a meadow by the bridge. She was not given to reading, but she liked a stroll and, as there were plenty of rats, the dog enjoyed the stroll too. Not a week after Maggie’s death she had wandered to this point without her usual companion. A barge had gone down just before she arrived, and for some reason or other had made fast to the bank about a quarter of a mile below her on the side opposite to the towing-path. She sat down under a willow with her face to the water and back to the sun, for it was very hot, and in a few minutes she was half dozing. Suddenly she started, and one of the bargemen stood close by her.

“Hullo, my beauty! Why, you was asleep! Wot’s the time?”

“I haven’t a watch.”

“Haven’t a watch! Now that’s a shame; if you was mine, my love, you should ’ave one o’ gold.”

“It is time I was at home,” said Catharine, rising with as much presence of mind as she could muster; “and I should think it must be your dinner-hour.”

“Damn my dinner-hour, when I’ve got the chance of sittin’ alongside a gal with sich eyes as yourn, my beauty. Why, you make me all of a tremble. Sit down for a bit.”

Catharine moved away, but the bargee caught her round the waist.

“Sit down, I tell yer, jist for a minute. Who’s a-goin’ to hurt yer?”

It was of no use to resist, and she did not scream. She sat down, and his arm relaxed its hold to pick up his pipe which had fallen on the other side. Instantly, without a second’s hesitation she leaped up, and, before his heavy bulk could lift itself, she had turned and rushed along the bank. Had she made for the bridge, he would have overtaken her in the lane, but she went the other way. About fifty yards down the stream, and in the direction of Chapel Farm, was a deep hole in the river bed, about five feet wide. On the other side of it there were not more than eighteen inches of water at any point. Catharine knew that hole well, as the haunt of the jack and the perch. She reached it, cleared it at a bound, and alighted on the bit of shingle just beyond it. Her pursuer came up and stared at her silently, with his mouth half open. Just at that moment the instant sound of wheels was heard, and he slowly sauntered back to his barge. Catharine boldly waded over the intervening shallows, and was across just as the cart reached the top of the bridge, but her shoes remained behind her in the mud. It proved to be her father’s cart, and to contain Tom, who had been over to Thingleby that morning to see what chance there was of getting any money out of a blacksmith who was largely in Mr. Furze’s debt. He saw there was something wrong, and dismounted.

“Why, Miss Catharine, you are all wet! What is the matter?”

“I slipped down.”

She could not tell the truth, although usually so straightforward. Tom looked at her inquiringly as if he was not quite sure, but there was something in her face which forbade further investigation.

“You’ve lost your shoes; you cannot walk home; will you let me give you a lift to Chapel Farm?”

“They do not matter a straw: it is grass nearly the whole way.”

“I’ll fish them out, if you will show me where they are.”

“Carried down by this time ever so far.”

“But you will hurt your feet; it isn’t all grass; you had better get in.”

She thought suddenly of the bargee again, and reflected that the barge might still be moored where it was an hour ago.

“Very well, then, I will go.”

She essayed to put her foot upon the step, but the mud on her stocking was greasy, and she fell backwards. Tom caught her in his arms, and a strange thrill passed through him when he felt that the whole weight of her body rested on him. Many a man there is who can call to mind, across forty years, a silly passage like this in his life. His hair has whitened; all passion ought long ago to have died out of him; thousands of events of infinitely greater consequence have happened; he has read much in philosophy and religion, and has forgotten it all, and a slip on the ice when skating together, or a stumble on the stair, or the pressure of a hand prolonged just for a second in parting, is felt with its original intensity, and the thought of it drives warm blood once more through the arteries.

“Let me get in first,” said Tom, putting some straw on the step.

He got into the cart, and he gently pulled her up, relinquishing her very carefully, and, in fact, not until after his assistance was no longer needed.

“How did you manage it?”

“You know how these things happen: it was all-over in a minute: how are father and mother?”

“They are very well.”

There was a pause for a minute or two.

“Well, how are things going on at Eastthorpe?”

“Oh, pretty well; the building is three parts done. I don’t think, Miss Catharine, you’ll ever go back to the old spot again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think your father and mother will leave the Terrace.”

“Very likely,” she replied, decisively. “It will be better, perhaps, that they should not. I am sure that whatever they do will be quite right.”

“Of course, Miss Catharine, but I shall be sorry. I wish my bedroom could have been built up again between the old walls. In that bedroom you saved my life.”

“Rubbish! Even suppose I had done it, as you say, I should have done just the same for my silkworms, and then, somehow when I do a thing on a sudden like that, I always feel as if I had not done it. I am sure I didn’t do it.”

The last few words were spoken in a strangely different tone, much softer and sweeter.

“I don’t quite understand.”

“I mean,” said Catharine, speaking slowly, as if half surprised at what had occurred to her, and half lost in looking at it—“I mean that I do not a bit reflect at such times upon what I do. It is as if something or somebody took hold of me, and, before I know where I am, the thing is done, and yet there is no something nor somebody—at least, so far as I can see. It is wonderful, for after all it is I who do it.”

Tom looked intently at her. She seemed to be taking no notice of him and to be talking to herself. He had never seen her in that mood before, although he had often seen her abstracted and heedless of what was passing. In a few moments she recovered herself, and the usual everyday accent returned with an added hardness.

“Here we are at Chapel Farm. Mind you say nothing to father or mother; it will only frighten them.”

Mrs. Bellamy came to the gate.

“Lor’ bless the child! wherever have you been!”

“Slipped into the water and left my shoes behind me, that’s all”; and she ran indoors, jumping from mat to mat, and without even so much as bidding Tom goodbye, who rode home, not thinking much about his business, but lost in a muddle of most contradictory presentations, a constant glimmer of Catharine’s ankles, wonderment at her accident—was it all true?—the strange look when she disclaimed the honour of his rescue and expounded her philosophy, and the fall between his shoulders. When he slept, his sleep was usually dreamless, but that night he dreamed as he hardly ever dreamed before. He perpetually saw the foot on the step, and she was slipping into his arms continually, until he awoke with the sun.