somebody a-horseback riding past the corner!" she said. "Eh, I mun call to him, whoever he is!"
She ran swiftly through the cherry-trees to the low hedge which separated the orchard from the lane, and craned her neck above the green branches. The next instant Rhoda heard her voice, shrill and insistent.
"Hi, mestur! Mestur Taffendale! Mestur Taffendale!"
The man thus hailed, who was slowly riding along the highway at the end of the lane, drew rein, and, turning in the saddle, looked in Tibby Graddige's direction. Seeing that she was frantically waving her bare arm to him, he turned his horse's head, and rode towards her.
"What is it, missis?" he said as he drew near. "Anything wrong?"
Tibby Graddige panted out her reply.
"Oh, Mestur Taffendale, sir, th' owd clover-stack's fallen on Pippany Webster, and he's buried under it, and there's nobody about but me and the missis. Come over and help us wi' it, if you please, sir!"
Taffendale's first thought was that if the clover-stack had buried Pippany Webster once and for all the Martinsthorpe community would have experienced no great loss. But without making audible reply to Tibby Graddige's supplication, he forced his horse through one of the many gaps which abounded in the hedge of Perris's orchard, dismounted, and tied the bridle to the lower branch of a cherry-tree.
"Where is he?" he said, speaking in the tones of a man who is asked to do something in which he has no personal concern and about which he is utterly indifferent.
"This way, sir; the missis and me's pulled some of it offen him already," replied Tibby Graddige. "But there's more on it than you'd think."
When they turned the corner of the hedgerow behind which the fallen clover-stack lay piled in a shapeless mass, Taffendale saw Rhoda Perris for the first time. He himself lived on his farmstead a mile and a half away across the plateau behind the woods; he rarely visited the village or passed Cherry-trees, and though he had heard of Perris's wife as what the country-folk called a bit of a beauty, he had never seen her since she and her husband had come to the place two years before. Now, as she stood up, flushed and panting from her exertions, he gave her one swift glance and as swiftly looked away. He had not been prepared for what he had seen.
By that time Rhoda had torn away a good deal of the fallen clover, and had uncovered the handle of the stable fork. Taffendale threw off his coat and seized the fork, at the same time jerking his head at the two women.
"Stand aside!" he said half-roughly.
He went to work carefully and systematically, but with sureness and swiftness. Tibby Graddige volubly gave forth her fears for Pippany and her admiration for Mr. Taffendale's cleverness and strength; Rhoda, her hands planted on her hips, stood by, watching in silence.
"Here he is!" said Taffendale at last, throwing aside the fork and resorting to his hands. "And, by George, he looks like a goner!"
He turned the crumpled-up Pippany over on his back, swiftly untied his neckcloth, and moved his head. Pippany's throat gurgled, and his lips emitted a long breath.
"He's alive, but he's unconscious," said Taffendale quickly. "We'll carry him into the house. Here, Mrs. Graddige, get hold of his legs and I'll take his shoulders. Have you got any brandy?" he continued, turning and looking squarely at Rhoda.
"No, but there's some whisky," answered Rhoda.
"Whisky will do," said Taffendale. "Now then, Mrs. Graddige, come on. He's no weight."
Rhoda ran on before them to the house, and was ready with the whisky bottle when they arrived and laid Pippany on the settle in the house-place. Taffendale took the bottle from her, poured some of its contents into a saucer which he caught up from the table, and some into a teacup. He handed the saucer to Tibby Graddige.
"Here, rub that on his forehead," said he. "Have you got a spoon handy, Mrs. Perris?"
Rhoda gave him a teaspoon, and he slowly poured small quantities of the raw spirit between Pippany's lips. Pippany began to stir and to moan; in a few minutes and under the influence of the whisky he opened his eyes. He gazed vacantly around him.
"Where—what—?" he began. "Where—?"
"Hold your tongue!" said Taffendale. "You're all right. You've saved your neck this time. Here, drink this, and then let's see if you've broken any bones."
A generous dose of whisky-and-water enabled Pippany to move his four limbs and to convince his interested helpers that he had not broken his back. Taffendale smiled grimly, and turned to Rhoda.
"He's all right, Mrs. Perris," he said. "Let him rest a bit and then send him home."
And again he smiled, looking at her inquisitively behind the smile.
Rhoda, in her turn, looked at Taffendale. She, too, was seeing him for the first time. She had often heard of him as the rich farmer and lime-burner across at the Limepits, but she had never met him. Now she viewed him with curiosity. He was a tall, loosely-built man, evidently about thirty or thirty-two years of age, dark of hair, eye, and complexion; there was a curiously reserved, self-reliant air about him which unconsciously impressed her. Just as unconsciously the sense of his masculinity was forced upon her; she was sensible of it just as she was sensible of his good clothes, his polished boots and fine cloth Newmarket gaiters, his white stock with the gold horseshoe pin carelessly thrust into its folds. And she compared him, scarcely knowing that she did so, with her husband, Abel Perris, and something in the comparison aroused a curious and subtle feeling in her.
"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Taffendale," she said. "And so ought you to be, Pippany. You'd have been dead by now if Mr. Taffendale hadn't chanced to be riding by."
"I'm deeply obligated to Mestur Taffendale," mumbled Pippany, eyeing the whisky bottle. "I'm allus obligated to them as does good to me. But I'm worth a good many dead 'uns yet, and if Mestur Taffendale theer ever wants a friend—"
Taffendale gave Rhoda another grim smile, and moved towards the door. He had bestowed a swift circular glance on his surroundings, and he was marvelling at their poverty. The house-place in which they stood was little superior in its furnishing to any day-labourer's cottage; through an open door he caught a glimpse of a parlour that looked cold and bare. It seemed to him a poor setting for a woman as good-looking as he had found Perris's wife to be.
"Well, good-day," he said. "You go home, Webster, and get to bed."
Rhoda made a motion of her hand towards the whisky bottle.
"Won't—won't you take anything, Mr. Taffendale?" she said diffidently.
"No, no, nothing, thank you," replied Taffendale hurriedly. "I'm pressed for time. Good-day, Mrs. Perris."
He walked quickly through the fold, observing things to right and left of him without turning his eyes in either direction. And he saw the evident poverty of the place, and mentally appraised its value, and when he had got his coat and mounted his horse, and was riding away, he shook his head to the accompaniment of another of his sardonic smiles.
"That looks to be in a poorish state!" he thought. "And it's rent-day next week. I wonder how Perris stands for that? It's a pity for that wife of his—a fine woman!"
Rhoda and Tibby Graddige went back to the orchard to
