The Sheriff knows him: it is Arthur Donnithorne,
carrying in his hand a hard-won release from death.
Another Meeting in the Wood
The next day, at evening, two men were walking
from opposite points towards the same scene, drawn
thither by a common memory. The scene was the
Grove by Donnithorne Chase: you know who the men
were.
The old squire’s funeral had taken place that
morning, the will had been read, and now in the first
breathing-space, Arthur Donnithorne had come out for
a lonely walk, that he might look fixedly at the new
future before him and confirm himself in a sad resolution.
He thought he could do that best in the Grove.
Adam too had come from Stontion on Monday evening,
and to-day he had not left home, except to go to the
family at the Hall Farm and tell them everything that
Mr. Irwine had left untold. He had agreed with
the Poysers that he would follow them to their new
neighbourhood, wherever that might be, for he meant
to give up the management of the woods, and, as soon
as it was practicable, he would wind up his business
with Jonathan Burge and settle with his mother and
Seth in a home within reach of the friends to whom
he felt bound by a mutual sorrow.
“Seth and me are sure to find work,” he
said. “A man that’s got our trade
at his finger-ends is at home everywhere; and we must
make a new start. My mother won’t stand
in the way, for she’s told me, since I came
home, she’d made up her mind to being buried
in another parish, if I wished it, and if I’d
be more comfortable elsewhere. It’s wonderful
how quiet she’s been ever since I came back.
It seems as if the very greatness o’ the trouble
had quieted and calmed her. We shall all be better
in a new country, though there’s some I shall
be loath to leave behind. But I won’t part
from you and yours, if I can help it, Mr. Poyser.
Trouble’s made us kin.”
“Aye, lad,” said Martin. “We’ll
go out o’ hearing o’ that man’s name.
But I doubt we shall ne’er go far enough for
folks not to find out as we’ve got them belonging
to us as are transported o’er the seas, and
were like to be hanged. We shall have that flyin’
up in our faces, and our children’s after us.”
That was a long visit to the Hall Farm, and drew too
strongly on Adam’s energies for him to think
of seeing others, or re-entering on his old occupations
till the morrow. “But to-morrow,”
he said to himself, “I’ll go to work again.
I shall learn to like it again some time, maybe; and
it’s right whether I like it or not.”
This evening was the last he would allow to be absorbed
by sorrow: suspense was gone now, and he must
bear the unalterable. He was resolved not to
see Arthur Donnithorne again, if it were possible to
avoid him. He had no message to deliver from
Hetty now, for Hetty had seen Arthur. And Adam
distrusted himself—he had learned to dread
the violence of his own feeling. That word of
Mr. Irwine’s—that he must remember
what he had felt after giving the last blow to Arthur
in the Grove—had remained with him.
