Chapter XII The Courage of Mr. Snell
The instinct which drew Simon Snell towards Rhoda Bowden—the instinct which, exemplified in her, suffered the advance without active discomfiture—while slight and subtle, was none the less real. There was that in this simple soul which suited the woman; or if such an expression is too strong, she found him more easily endured than any other man. Most girls fled instinctively from Simon. The dullest found him dull; the least humourous found his beard a jest; the worst educated discovered that they possessed wider knowledge than he. Yet Rhoda, who was not stupid, who was handsome and who enjoyed a measure of sense, could accede something to this egregious man that she denied all others. She did not spurn him and she did not find his companionship a joke or a bore. On the other hand, she did not seek him and made no attempt to better their acquaintance.
Simon, for his part, developed similar and even stronger sentiments; and he had wit sufficient to perceive that any increase of friendship must come from him.
He debated the matter in his mind with oriental deliberation; and he consumed several months on the great problem of whether he should or should not ask Rhoda to take a walk with him during some Sunday afternoon. His inclinations varied, and occasionally he believed that to walk with her was desirable; but more often he feared that such an action would be too definite and must commit him. Moreover, he felt extremely doubtful as to Rhoda’s reply and, thanks to a spark of imagination in his character not to have been suspected, he believed that if she said ‘no,’ he would feel very uncomfortable.
She met him on a day when the first opinion was uppermost, and almost before he knew it, Mr. Snell had succeeded in asking Rhoda if she would take a stroll with him upon the following Sunday afternoon. She replied without emotion that she was engaged to dinner with her parents at Ditsworthy.
“The next then,” faltered Mr. Snell. As he spoke, he determined with himself that in thus pressing himself upon her, he had gone too far, and he prepared to leave her. To his surprise, however, Rhoda agreed.
“If ’tis a fine afternoon Sunday week, I’ll come. But not if ’tis pouring torrents,” she said.
“I’ll be to your house at three of the clock,” he answered.
Then he left her and found himself in great agitation. This was the most audacious thing that he had ever done. He felt proud and alarmed by turns. As the day approached he heartily hoped that it might be wet; but it arrived clear, cold, and fine. Therefore he went forth in his Sunday clothes, reached his destination too soon and waited out of sight behind a stone, until his watch told one minute to the appointed hour.
Rhoda was ready for him and they set off together up the valley. From his cottage door David watched them and smiled grimly. His sister had not mentioned her appointment, and both Margaret and her husband were exceedingly surprised.
“It can’t surely be that poor Mr. Snell—?” said Madge.
“Anything can be,” he answered; “but ’tis hard to believe. On the whole—no. It amounts to nought. Look at the way Simon carries his legs—that loose from the thigh—that loose and wandering, as though they belonged to a Guy Fawkes!”
“’Tis a most amazing thing, David, what different sort of people sometimes have something in ’em that draws them together willy-nilly. But Hartley!”
“’Tis no good looking that way,” he answered with decision. “I sounded her as to the man a bit ago, as I promised. She’s got no fancy that way, Madge, and the sooner he knows it the sooner he’ll stop wasting his time.”
Meanwhile Mr. Snell walked beside Rhoda and talked of the amazing number of water rats in the leat. Presently he lifted the theme to poultry, and then, returning to the water, detailed the exact manner of his professional labours. She said little but listened to his statement of facts. His mind was only constituted to assert crude happenings. He had no ideas, no theories, and few opinions.
“You can see the tower of Princetown church very clear from here,” he said; “but if a mist comed over, it would be hidden.”
She admitted that this was so.
“A gentleman stopped in our best bedroom and parlour a year back,” continued Simon; “and his custom was to paint pickshers. And once I comed this way and he was painting pretty near where we be standing now. And I made so bold as to look, and then I made so bold as to talk, because the gentleman axed me what I thought of it. ‘You’ve left out the church tower,’ I says to him. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘’twasn’t like I was going to stick such a beastly, ugly thing as that in the middle of they hills.’ So he left it out, though to my eye ’twas the most interesting sight to be seen.”
“Did he make his pickshers for pleasure, or did he get anything by them?” asked Rhoda.
“He lived by ’em. He said to me once that there were one or two sane men in the world who bought everything he liked to paint. ’Twas a very curious speech to my ear. And to be honest with you, I didn’t like his pickshers—messy and half done to my eye—very different to the pickshers you see on grocers’ almanacs, where everything, to the hairs on a horse’s tail, be worked out to a miracle.”
“Have ’e seen they pickshers that David got to Tavistock?” she asked.
Mr. Snell had seen them; but with a great and sudden access of cunning he replied in the negative. He expected her to invite him home to do so; but she did not.
A silence fell until they came to a clapper bridge of rather narrow dimensions.
“Shall I hand you over, miss, or would you rather go alone?” he inquired.
But Rhoda had crossed before he finished the question.
The church-tower seemed to draw his eyes like a magnet, and after further silence Mr. Snell began to talk about it again.
“’Tis a very wonderful and curious thing that the old prisoners made thicky pile,” he said. “You might not know it, but so it was in ancient days.”
“Very sad for them, because they was foreigners,” ventured Rhoda.
“Exactly so. ’Twould be a very sad thing to have a wife and family and be shut away from them.”
“Yes.”
“Very sad without a doubt.”
“Yes.”
Mr. Snell next ventured on a great generality.
“I don’t think ’tis a very good plan for fighting men to marry,” he said.
“Perhaps not.”
“Because, if they get the worst of it, and get shot dead or taken prisoners, or any such like misfortune, their children and females have to suffer.”
Rhoda did not answer.
“’Tis a deep question, if you come to think of it, miss, who ought to be married and who ought not to be married.”
“There’s a lot married as had better not be,” she declared.
“I quite agree, I quite agree,” answered Simon; “and you might even go so far as to say there’s a lot might be married who ain’t.”
“There’s a lot don’t want to be, I believe.”
“Women, I grant you. I do think here and there you’ll find a woman who won’t change the single state, along of experience with married sisters, or babies, or cross-grained men, or what not; but us was telling to ‘The Corner House’ a bit back along, and it seemed the general idea that there comes a time in every manly mind when the chap cries out for a wife. Should you think that might be so?”
“How should I know?”
“Beg pardon, I’m sure. Perhaps ’twas a silly question to put to a young woman. No offence, I hope?”
“Yes, it was a silly question.”
“Sorry, I’m sure, and I hope you’ll overlook it. But, when I ax myself if ever it was so with me—but perhaps it don’t interest you?”
She considered before answering, then replied:
“I don’t much care what men think, but if you want to tell me, tell me.”
“Not at all—far from it, I’m sure. For that matter I couldn’t tell you very easy. I haven’t been throwed much with the female kind.”
“So much the better for you very like.”
“I quite agree—as a general thing; but, however—” he broke off and looked at his watch.
“My word, only four o’clock! Who’d have thought it?” he exclaimed.
“In my case I’ve been throwed a lot with men,” said Rhoda.
“So you have, and no doubt you’ll understand ’em pretty well. In fact, you’re as brave as most men. I’m sure now you are braver than me.”
“Ban’t you brave then?”
“I’m brave by fits and starts,” said Mr. Snell. “With cattle, yes; with horses, no. When I was a little nipper, not above twelve or thirteen year old, a wicked horse got me down and bit my shoulder to the bone. He’d have killed me in another moment, but the Lord sent a man with a pitchfork and I was saved. But I feared a horse from that day, and if I could show you my shoulder, which, of course, I wouldn’t offer for to do, you’d see how I was mangled by the teeth of him.”
“Some horses be as uncertain as dogs, and they’ve got terrible long memories—better than ours sometimes.”
“No doubt you know, so full of learning about four-footed things as you be.”
“We’ll turn now, please.”
“Certainly. Us have come a longer way than I thought to. But you step out something wonderful.”
“I like walking.”
“So do I—nothing better. I go along ten miles of the leat six days a week, winter and summer. You might be surprised to know that I go more than three thousand miles in the year. ’Twas done out in figures by Mr. Mattacott all quite correct.”
They had turned, and now walked a considerable way in absolute silence. Then a neighbour came in sight, and Mr. Snell grew nervous.
“There’s that clacking creature, Mary Main. She haven’t seed us yet. If you’d rather for me to go away afore she does—?”
“Yes, if you like.”
“It might be better—unless— Well, here’s good-bye then for the present, and I’m very thankful to you for walking—very thankful and no less.”
“Us have had a nice walk.”
“I quite agree, I’m sure; and thank you kindly; if I get over this here wall I can pick up the leat yonder; and to see me by the leat will be an everyday sight for anybody.”
“Yes, it will.”
He hurried off, and Mary Main, when she met Rhoda alone as usual, had no idea of her recent great adventure.
What impression the walk with Simon left in the girl’s mind none ever knew; but Mr. Snell felt mildly elated by the achievement, though he told nobody about it. He was secretive, and his own mother knew nothing of his thoughts. Indeed, she was scarcely aware that he did think. Rhoda, too, confided in none but her brother. She said nothing about her amusement, and when Margaret openly asked her if she had enjoyed it, she did not answer the question, but replied with some other matter. It happened thus.
“Did you like Mr. Snell’s opinions?” asked her sister-in-law, as Rhoda took off her hat and came to the tea-table.
“They horned sheep have all gone down in a crowd from the high ground, and they want to be driven back, which I’ll do after I’ve had a cup of tea and changed my clothes,” said the other.
Six weeks later there fell out an unfortunate incident which went far to extinguish the slightly closer understanding that had obtained between these women since Bartley Crocker met David. By ill-fortune Madge annoyed Rhoda exceedingly, and her brother was also implicated. Mr. Snell, however, suffered most in the sequel. With great circumspection he had avoided Rhoda for a month after their walk, then he met her and proposed another.
“’Twill have to be short, for the evenings close in so,” she said.
“I like the dark so well as you, however,” he assured her.
“I only like the dark alone,” she answered.
“How coorious! I only like it in company,” he declared. “But, if you’m willing, I’ll be so bold as to call at the cot half after two come Sunday week.”
“I shall be home that day. I dare say my sister-in-law will come too.”
“As to her—” began Mr. Snell, then he checked himself. “She’s a very nice woman; in fact, you’d have to look a long way further than Sheepstor parish to find her equal,” he declared. And then he went his way, dimly conscious that he had chosen his words awkwardly.
When he arrived Rhoda was ready, but Margaret had a cold in her face, and the other had not asked her to join the party. Mr. Snell’s appearance came as a surprise, and David spoke.
“Why, here’s Simon again! So ’tis him you be prinked up in that new hat for, Rhoda!”
Margaret laughed despite herself, and the virgin flushed; but with anger.
“Look at her roses!” said David, whose Sunday dinner had left him in an easy mood. Then his sister instantly restored him to seriousness.
“How dare you!” she cried. “How dare you laugh, Margaret, or you say such things, David? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I won’t see the man! Never again will I see him! ’Tis you coarse creatures ought to blush—not me!”
She left them, went to her room, and refused to descend though Margaret came up and pleaded with her.
“Tell him to go,” was all that Rhoda said.
Mr. Snell was placidly regretful to hear that Rhoda had a headache.
“The headache is a very painful thing; but she’ll soon be rids of it,” he said. “Us was going for a walk, but ’tis not of any consequence. I can go just as easy alone. Or I needn’t go at all, come to think of it.”
He went to the gate, hesitated, and returned.
“When she comes down house again, you might give her my respects,” he said; “and if ’tis her stomach that is out of order, there’s nothing better than a little cold onion broth without salt, taken when the organs all be empty.”
“I’ll tell her,” promised Margaret, and Mr. Snell shuffled off.
He walked over the exact ground of the former peregrination and recalled the former topics very accurately.
“I shall leave it now till well on into the new year,” he told himself; “then, if my feelings be so fierce and fiery as they seem to be at present, I might offer for to go walking again. There’s nought like a walk for helping a male to see into the female mind. ’Twas Crocker, I remember, who said in the bar that if you could get a girl to laugh at your jokes, ’twas a great thing done. But ’twill have to be something out of the common funny to make that woman laugh. And as to making a joke—I don’t know I’m sure.”