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him in carrying it on; and there he settled down, a kind,

talkative, inscrutable young man, six feet three in his stockings,
with an iron constitution and a friendly voice. He soon began to

take rank in the district as a bit of an oddity: it was not much to
be wondered at from the first, for he was always full of notions,

and kept calling the plainest common-sense in question; but what
most raised the report upon him was the odd circumstance of his

courtship with the parson's Marjory.
The parson's Marjory was a lass about nineteen, when Will would be

about thirty; well enough looking, and much better educated than
any other girl in that part of the country, as became her

parentage. She held her head very high, and had already refused
several offers of marriage with a grand air, which had got her hard

names among the neighbours. For all that she was a good girl, and
one that would have made any man well contented.

Will had never seen much of her; for although the church and
parsonage were only two miles from his own door, he was never known

to go there but on Sundays. It chanced, however, that the
parsonage fell into disrepair, and had to be dismantled; and the

parson and his daughter took lodgings for a month or so, on very
much reduced terms, at Will's inn. Now, what with the inn, and the

mill, and the old miller's savings, our friend was a man of
substance; and besides that, he had a name for good temper and

shrewdness, which make a capital portion in marriage; and so it was
currently gossiped, among their ill-wishers, that the parson and

his daughter had not chosen their temporarylodging with their eyes
shut. Will was about the last man in the world to be cajoled or

frightened into marriage. You had only to look into his eyes,
limpid and still like pools of water, and yet with a sort of clear

light that seemed to come from within, and you would understand at
once that here was one who knew his own mind, and would stand to it

immovably. Marjory herself was no weakling by her looks, with
strong, steady eyes and a resolute and quiet bearing. It might be

a question whether she was not Will's match in stedfastness, after
all, or which of them would rule the roast in marriage. But

Marjory had never given it a thought, and accompanied her father
with the most unshaken innocence and unconcern.

The season was still so early that Will's customers were few and
far between; but the lilacs were already flowering, and the weather

was so mild that the party took dinner under the trellice, with the
noise of the river in their ears and the woods ringing about them

with the songs of birds. Will soon began to take a particular
pleasure in these dinners. The parson was rather a dull companion,

with a habit of dozing at table; but nothing rude or cruel ever
fell from his lips. And as for the parson's daughter, she suited

her surroundings with the best grace imaginable; and whatever she
said seemed so pat and pretty that Will conceived a great idea of

her talents. He could see her face, as she leaned forward, against
a background of rising pinewoods; her eyes shone peaceably; the

light lay around her hair like a kerchief; something that was
hardly a smile rippled her pale cheeks, and Will could not contain

himself from gazing on her in an agreeabledismay. She looked,
even in her quietest moments, so complete in herself, and so quick

with life down to her finger tips and the very skirts of her dress,
that the remainder of created things became no more than a blot by

comparison; and if Will glanced away from her to her surroundings,
the trees looked inanimate and senseless, the clouds hung in heaven

like dead things, and even the mountain tops were disenchanted.
The whole valley could not compare in looks with this one girl.

Will was always observant in the society of his fellow-creatures;
but his observation became almost painfully eager in the case of

Marjory. He listened to all she uttered, and read her eyes, at the
same time, for the unspoken commentary. Many kind, simple, and

sincere speeches found an echo in his heart. He became conscious
of a soul beautifully poised upon itself, nothing doubting, nothing

desiring, clothed in peace. It was not possible to separate her
thoughts from her appearance. The turn of her wrist, the still

sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, the lines of her body,
fell in tune with her grave and gentle words, like the

accompaniment that sustains and harmonises the voice of the singer.
Her influence was one thing, not to be divided or discussed, only

to he felt with gratitude and joy. To Will, her presence recalled
something of his childhood, and the thought of her took its place

in his mind beside that of dawn, of running water, and of the
earliest violets and lilacs. It is the property of things seen for

the first time, or for the first time after long, like the flowers
in spring, to reawaken in us the sharp edge of sense and that

impression of mystic strangeness which otherwise passes out of life
with the coming of years; but the sight of a loved face is what

renews a man's character from the fountain upwards.
One day after dinner Will took a stroll among the firs; a grave

beatitude possessed him from top to toe, and he kept smiling to
himself and the landscape as he went. The river ran between the

stepping-stones with a pretty wimple; a bird sang loudly in the
wood; the hill-tops looked immeasurably high, and as he glanced at

them from time to time seemed to contemplate his movements with a
beneficent but awful curiosity. His way took him to the eminence

which overlooked the plain; and there he sat down upon a stone, and
fell into deep and pleasant thought. The plain lay abroad with its

cities and silver river; everything was asleep, except a great eddy
of birds which kept rising and falling and going round and round in

the blue air. He repeated Marjory's name aloud, and the sound of
it gratified his ear. He shut his eyes, and her image sprang up

before him, quietly luminous and attended with good thoughts. The
river might run for ever; the birds fly higher and higher till they

touched the stars. He saw it was empty bustle after all; for here,
without stirring a feet, waitingpatiently in his own narrow

valley, he also had attained the better sunlight.
The next day Will made a sort of declaration across the dinner-

table, while the parson was filling his pipe.
'Miss Marjory,' he said, 'I never knew any one I liked so well as

you. I am mostly a cold, unkindly sort of man; not from want of
heart, but out of strangeness in my way of thinking; and people

seem far away from me. 'Tis as if there were a circle round me,
which kept every one out but you; I can hear the others talking and

laughing; but you come quite close. Maybe, this is disagreeable to
you?' he asked.

Marjory made no answer.
'Speak up, girl,' said the parson.

'Nay, now,' returned Will, 'I wouldn't press her, parson. I feel
tongue-tied myself, who am not used to it; and she's a woman, and

little more than a child, when all is said. But for my part, as
far as I can understand what people mean by it, I fancy I must be

what they call in love. I do not wish to be held as committing
myself; for I may be wrong; but that is how I believe things are

with me. And if Miss Marjory should feel any otherwise on her
part, mayhap she would be so kind as shake her head.'

Marjory was silent, and gave no sign that she had heard.
'How is that, parson?' asked Will.

'The girl must speak,' replied the parson, laying down his pipe.
'Here's our neighbour who says he loves you, Madge. Do you love

him, ay or no?'
'I think I do,' said Marjory, faintly.

'Well then, that's all that could be wished!' cried Will, heartily.
And he took her hand across the table, and held it a moment in both

of his with great satisfaction.
'You must marry,' observed the parson, replacing his pipe in his

mouth.
'Is that the right thing to do, think you?' demanded Will.

'It is indispensable,' said the parson.
'Very well,' replied the wooer.

Two or three days passed away with great delight to Will, although
a bystander might scarce have found it out. He continued to take

his meals opposite Marjory, and to talk with her and gaze upon her
in her father's presence; but he made no attempt to see her alone,

nor in any other way changed his conduct towards her from what it
had been since the beginning. Perhaps the girl was a little

disappointed, and perhaps not unjustly; and yet if it had been
enough to be always in the thoughts of another person, and so

pervade and alter his whole life, she might have been thoroughly
contented. For she was never out of Will's mind for an instant.

He sat over the stream, and watched the dust of the eddy, and the
poised fish, and straining weeds; he wandered out alone into the

purple even, with all the blackbirds piping round him in the wood;
he rose early in the morning, and saw the sky turn from grey to

gold, and the light leap upon the hill-tops; and all the while he
kept wondering if he had never seen such things before, or how it

was that they should look so different now. The sound of his own
mill-wheel, or of the wind among the trees, confounded and charmed

his heart. The most enchanting thoughts presented themselves
unbidden in his mind. He was so happy that he could not sleep at

night, and so restless, that he could hardly sit still out of her
company. And yet it seemed as if he avoided her rather than sought

her out.
One day, as he was coming home from a ramble, Will found Marjory in

the garden picking flowers, and as he came up with her, slackened
his pace and continued walking by her side.

'You like flowers?' he said.
'Indeed I love them dearly,' she replied. 'Do you?'

'Why, no,' said he, 'not so much. They are a very small affair,
when all is done. I can fancy people caring for them greatly, but

not doing as you are just now.'
'How?' she asked, pausing and looking up at him.

'Plucking them,' said he. 'They are a deal better off where they
are, and look a deal prettier, if you go to that.'

'I wish to have them for my own,' she answered, 'to carry them near
my heart, and keep them in my room. They tempt me when they grow

here; they seem to say, "Come and do something with us;" but once I
have cut them and put them by, the charm is laid, and I can look at

them with quite an easy heart.'
'You wish to possess them,' replied Will, 'in order to think no

more about them. It's a bit like killing the goose with the golden
eggs. It's a bit like what I wished to do when I was a boy.

Because I had a fancy for looking out over the plain, I wished to
go down there - where I couldn't look out over it any longer. Was

not that fine reasoning? Dear, dear, if they only thought of it,
all the world would do like me; and you would let your flowers

alone, just as I stay up here in the mountains.' Suddenly he broke
off sharp. 'By the Lord!' he cried. And when she asked him what

was wrong, he turned the question off and walked away into the
house with rather a humorous expression of face.

He was silent at table; and after the night hid fallen and the
stars had come out overhead, he walked up and down for hours in the

courtyard and garden with an uneven pace. There was still a light
in the window of Marjory's room: one little oblong patch of orange

in a world of dark blue hills and silver starlight. Will's mind
ran a great deal on the window; but his thoughts were not very

lover-like. 'There she is in her room,' he thought, 'and there are
the stars overhead: - a blessing upon both!' Both were good

influences in his life; both soothed and braced him in his profound
contentment with the world. And what more should he desire with

either? The fat young man and his councils were so present to his
mind, that he threw back his head, and, putting his hands before

his mouth, shouted aloud to the populous heavens. Whether from the
position of his head or the sudden strain of the exertion, he

seemed to see a momentary shock among the stars, and a diffusion of
frosty light pass from one to another along the sky. At the same

instant, a corner of the blind was lifted and lowered again at
once. He laughed a loud ho-ho! 'One and another!' thought Will.

'The stars tremble, and the blind goes up. Why, before Heaven,
what a great magician I must be! Now if I were only a fool, should



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