An old-fashioned carrier's cart, such as you may still meet on the roads of Sussex, tilted, one-horsed, and moving at the leisurely pace of a bye-gone age, turned East at the Turnpike, and made slowly along the Lewes-Beachbourne road under the northern scarp of the Downs one evening of autumn in 1908. In it, at the back of the driver, were a young man and a young woman, the only passengers, ensconced among hen-coops, flitches of bacon, and baskets of greens.
They sat hand-in-hand.
The woman was a noble creature, about her the majestic tranquillity of a great three-decker that comes to rest in sunset waters after its Trafalgar. The man, but for a certain wistfulness about his eyes which betokened undue sensibility, was not remarkable. Till he spoke you would have said he was a gentleman--that is to say if your eyes confined their scrutiny to his face and refused to see his hands, his boots, his clothes. When he spoke you would have recognised at once that he was Sussex of the soil as, surely, was the woman beside him; though the speech of both was faintly marred with the all-pervading cockney accent of those who have passed beyond the village-green into the larger world of the England of to-day.
Both ca-a-ad musically enough; but less by far than the little carrier, whose round back blocked the view of the road, and the twitching ears of old mare Jenny. For nearly fifty years, man and boy, Isaac Woolgar had travelled twice a day, six days a week, the road on which he was travelling now. He had seen the long-horns--those "black runts" so familiar to old-world Sussex--give place to horses in the plough upon the hill; the horses in their turn supplanted on the road by motors; and men using the legs God had given them to trundle wheels instead of walk. Undisturbed, he plodded on his way, accompanied always by the wires lifted on tall black poles, crowned with tiers of tiny porcelain chimney-pots unknown in his youth, which had linked Lewes with Beachbourne these forty years; and he would so plod until he died. The Star on the hill in Old Town, Beachbourne, marked one end of his day's journey; and the equally ancient Lamb, at Aldwoldston, black-timbered and gabled too, marked the other. He had never been further "oop country," as he called it, than Heathfield. Lewes was the utmost term of his wanderings West, Beau-nez East; while the sea at Newhaven had bounded him on the South. Within this tiny quadrilateral, which just about determined also the wanderings of an old dog-fox in Abbot's Wood, he had passed his life; and nothing now would ever induce him to pass the bounds he had allotted himself.
To the man and woman in the cart old Mus. Woolgar had been a familiar figure from childhood. The little girl skipping by the market-cross in Aldwoldston would stop to watch him start; the little boy would wait at Billing's Corner on the top of the hill to see him come along the New Road past Motcombe at the end of his journey. Long before either had been aware of the other's existence the old carrier had served as an invisible link between them.
Now the two were married.
Ruth Boam had become Mrs. Ernie Caspar that afternoon in the cathedral-church of Aldwoldston, on the mound among the ash-trees above Parsons' Tye and the long donkey-backed clergy-house that dates from the fourteenth century.
It had been a very quiet wedding. The father and mother of the bride had stumped across from Frogs' Hall, at the foot of the village, Ruth accompanying them, her little daughter in her arms. For the rest, Dr. and Mrs. Trupp had come over from Beachbourne with Mr. Pigott and his wife in the chocolate-bodied car driven by the bridegroom's brother.
Alf had not entered the church to see Ernie married. He had mouched sullenly down to the river instead, and stood there during the service, his back to the church, looking across the Brooks to old Wind-hover's dun and shaven flank with eyes that did not see, and ears that refused to hear.
After the ceremony the car-party returned to Beachbourne by way of the sea--climbing High-'nd-over, to drop down into Sea-ford, and home by Birling Gap and Beau-nez. From the almost violent gesture with which Alf had set his engines in motion and drawn out of the lane under the pollarded willows of Parson's Tye, he at least had been glad to turn his back on the scene.
Ruth and her husband had returned to Frogs' Hall with the old folk.
Later, as the sun began to lower behind Black Cap into the valley of the Ouse, they went up River Lane and picked up the carrier's cart by the market-cross.
For the moment they were leaving little Alice with her grandmother while they settled into the Moot, Old Town, where Ernie had found a cottage close to his work, not a quarter of a mile from the home of his father and mother in Rectory Walk.
The carrier's cart moved slowly on under the telegraph wires on which the martins were already gathering: for it was September. Now and then Ernie raised the flap that made a little window in the side of the tilt, and looked out at the accompanying Downs, mysterious in the evening.
"They're still there," he announced comfortably, "and like to be yet a bit, I reckon."
"They move much same pace as us doos, seems to me," said Ruth.
"We should get there afoor them yet though," answered Ernie.
"Afoor the Day of Judgment we might, if so be we doosn't die o breathlessness first," the woman replied.
"You'd like a car to yourself you would," chaffed Ernie. "And Alf drivin you."
Ruth turned in her lips.
They moved leisurely forward, leaving Folkington clustered about its village-green upon the right, passing the tea-gardens at Wannock, and up the long pull to Willingdon, standing among old gardens and pleasant fig-trees. Once through the village the woods of Hampden Park green-bosomed upon the left, blocked out the marshes and the splendid vision of Pevensey Bay. Now the road emerged from the shelter of hedges and elm-trees and flowed with a noble billowy motion between seas of corn that washed the foot of the Downs and swept over Rodmill to the outposts of Beachbourne. Between the road and the Downs stood Motcombe, islanded in the ruddy sea, amongst its elms and low piggeries. Behind the farm, at the very foot of the hill, was Huntsman's Lodge where once, when both were boys, Alf had betrayed his brother on the occasion of the looting of the walnut-tree.
Ern pointed out the spot to his bride and told the tale. Ruth listened with grim understanding.
"That's Alf," she said.
"Mr. Pigott lived there that time o day," Ern continued. "One of the five Manors of Beachbourne, used to be--I've heard dad say. Belonged to the Salwyns of Friston Place over the hill--the clergy-folk. The farm's where the Manor-house used to be; and the annual sheep-fair was held in a field outside from William the Conqueror till a few years back."
He pointed to one of a little row of villas on the left which looked over the allotment gardens to the Downs.
"That's where Mr. Pigott lives now. My school-master he were that time o day."
"Who's Mr. Pigott?" Ruth asked.
Ernie rootled her with a friendly elbow.
"My guv'nor, stoopid! Manager of the Southdown Transport Company. Him that was at the wedding--with the beard. Settin along o Mrs. Trupp."
"Oh, Mr. Pigott!" answered Ruth. Now that the strain of the last two years was over at last, she brimmed over with a demure naughtiness. "Well, why couldn't you say so, then? You are funny, men are."
The cart climbed the steep hill to Billing's Corner and Ernie looked down the familiar road to the Rectory and even caught a peep of the back of his old home. Then they turned down Church Street with its old-world fragrance of lavender and yesterday.
On the left the parish-church, long-backed and massive-towered upon the Kneb, brooded over the centuries it had seen come and go.
"Dad says the whole history of Beachbourne's centred there," said Ernie in awed voice. "Steeped in it, he says."
Ernie, who had been leaning forward to peep at the Archdeacon posed in the entrance of St. Michael's, now dropped back suddenly, nudging his companion.
A lean woman with white hair and wrathful black eyebrows, her complexion still delicate as a girl's, was coming up the hill.
"Mother," whispered Ernie.
It was Ruth's turn to raise the flap and peer forth stealthily at the figure passing so close and so unconsciously on the pavement.
So that was the woman who had opposed her marriage with such malevolent persistency!
Ruth observed her enemy with more curiosity than hostility, and received a passing impression of a fierce unhappy face.
"She don't favour you no-ways," she said, as she relapsed into a corner. "Where's dad though?"
Ernie shook his head.
"He's never with her," he said. "I ca-a-n't call to mind as ever I've seen them out together, not the pair of them."
"I'd ha liked him to have been at the wedding," murmured Ruth a thought discontentedly.
"And he'd ha liked it too, I'll lay," Ernie answered. "Only she'd never have let him."
The cart stopped; and the two passengers descended at the old Star opposite the Manor-house, which bore the plate of Mr. William Trupp, the famous surgeon.
On the Manor-house steps a tall somewhat cadaverous man was standing. He was so simply dressed as almost to be shabby; and his straw hat, tilted on the back of his head, disclosed a singularly fine forehead. There was something arresting about the man and his attitude: a delicious mixture of mischievous alertness and philosophical detachment. He might have been a mediæval scholar waiting at the door of his master; or a penitent seeking absolution; or, not least, a youth about to perpetrate a run-away knock.
Ernie across the road watched him with eyes in which affection and amusement mingled. Then the door opened, and the scholar-penitent-youth was being greeted with glee by Bess Trupp.
Ernie turned to his wife.
"My old Colonel," he said confidentially. "What I was in India with. Best Colonel the Hammer-men ever had--and that's saying something."
"Colonel Lewknor, aren't it?" asked Ruth.
"That's him," said Ernie keenly. "Do you knaw him?"
"He was over at Auston last summer," answered Ruth, "lecturin we got to fight Germany or something. I went, but I didn't pay no heed to him. No account talk, I call that."
Together they dropped down Borough Lane and turned to the left along the Moot where dwelt the workers of Old Town--a few in flint cottages set in gardens, rank with currant bushes, a record of the days, not so long ago, when corn flowed down both sides of Water Lane, making a lake of gold between the village on the hill and the Sea-houses by the Wish; and most in the new streets of little red houses that looked up, pathetically aware of their commonness, to the calm dignity of the old church upon the Kneb above.
At one of these latter Ernie stopped and made believe to fumble with a key. Ruth, who had not seen her new home, was thrilling quietly, as she had been throughout the journey, though determined not to betray her emotion to her mate.
The door opened and they entered.
A charming voice from the kitchen greeted them.
"Ah, there you are--punctual to the minute!"
A woman, silver-haired and gracious, turned from deft busy-ness at the range.
"Oh, Mrs. Trupp!" cried Ruth, looking about her.
The table was laid already, and gay with flowers; the fire lit, the kettle on the boil, the supper ready.
"It is kind," said Ruth. "Was this you and Miss Bess?"
"Perhaps we had a hand in it," laughed the other. "She couldn't be here, as she's got a meeting of her Boy Scouts. But she sent her best wishes. Now I hand over the key to the master; and my responsibilities are over!" And she was gone with the delicious ripple of laughter Ernie had loved from babyhood.
Ruth was now thirsting to explore her new home, but Ernie insisted on supping first. This he did with malicious deliberation. When at length he was satisfied they went upstairs together, he leading the way.
"This is our room!" he said with ill-disguised complacency, stepping aside.
The bridal chamber was swept and garnished. In it were more flowers, bowls of them; and the furniture simple, solid, and very good, was of a character rarely found in houses of that class.
Ernie enjoyed the obvious pleasure of his bride as she touched and glanced and dipped like some large bird flitting gracefully from piece to piece.
Then she paused solemnly and looked about her.
"Reckon it must ha cost a tidy penny," she said.
"It did," Ernie answered.
She cocked a soft brown eye at him.
"Could you afford it, Ernie?"
"I could not," said Ernie, standing grimly and with folded arms.
At the moment her eyes fell on a card tied to the bed-post on which was written: From Mr., Mrs. and Miss Trupp. Ruth's eyes caressed the bed, and her fingers stroked the smooth wood.
"It's like them," she said. "None o your cheap trash."
"Ah," answered Ernie. "Trust them. They're just all right, they are."
Before the looking-glass on the chest of drawers Ruth now took off her hat.
She was perhaps too simple, too natural, too near to earth to be shy at this the supreme moment of a woman's life. At least she was too wary to show it.
"Rich folks they have two little beds laid alongside, these days," she said, speaking from her experience as a maid. "I wouldn't think it was right myself. Only you mustn't judge others." She added in her slow way, as she patted her hair--"I wouldn't feel prarperly married like only in a prarper two-bed."
Ernie drew down the blind.
Then he marched upon his bride deliberately and with remorseless eyes. Suddenly she turned and met him with a swift and lovely smile, dropping her mask, and discovering herself to him in the surprising radiance of a moon that reveals its beauty after long obscurity. She laid her hands upon his shoulders in utter surrender. He gathered her gradually in his arms; and closing his eyes, dwelt on her lips with the slow and greedy passion of a bee, absorbed in absorption, and drinking deep in the cloistered seclusion of a fox-glove bell,
"You're prarperly married all right," he said. "And you ca-a-n't get out of it--not no-ways."
