Book 6 - Chapter 11

In the Lane

Maggie had been four days at her aunt Moss's giving the early June
sunshine quite a new brightness in the care-dimmed eyes of that
affectionate woman, and making an epoch for her cousins great and
small, who were learning her words and actions by heart, as if she had
been a transient avatar of perfect wisdom and beauty.

She was standing on the causeway with her aunt and a group of cousins
feeding the chickens, at that quiet moment in the life of the
farmyards before the afternoon milking-time. The great buildings round
the hollow yard were as dreary and tumbledown as ever, but over the
old garden-wall the straggling rose-bushes were beginning to toss
their summer weight, and the gray wood and old bricks of the house, on
its higher level, had a look of sleepy age in the broad afternoon
sunlight, that suited the quiescent time. Maggie, with her bonnet over
her arm, was smiling down at the hatch of small fluffy chickens, when
her aunt exclaimed,--

"Goodness me! who is that gentleman coming in at the gate?"

It was a gentleman on a tall bay horse; and the flanks and neck of the
horse were streaked black with fast riding. Maggie felt a beating at
head and heart, horrible as the sudden leaping to life of a savage
enemy who had feigned death.

"Who is it, my dear?" said Mrs. Moss, seeing in Maggie's face the
evidence that she knew.

"It is Mr. Stephen Guest," said Maggie, rather faintly. "My cousin
Lucy's--a gentleman who is very intimate at my cousin's."

Stephen was already close to them, had jumped off his horse, and now
raised his hat as he advanced.

"Hold the horse, Willy," said Mrs. Moss to the twelve-year-old boy.

"No, thank you," said Stephen, pulling at the horse's impatiently
tossing head. "I must be going again immediately. I have a message to
deliver to you, Miss Tulliver, on private business. May I take the
liberty of asking you to walk a few yards with me?"

He had a half-jaded, half-irritated look, such as a man gets when he
has been dogged by some care or annoyance that makes his bed and his
dinner of little use to him. He spoke almost abruptly, as if his
errand were too pressing for him to trouble himself about what would
be thought by Mrs. Moss of his visit and request. Good Mrs. Moss,
rather nervous in the presence of this apparently haughty gentleman,
was inwardly wondering whether she would be doing right or wrong to
invite him again to leave his horse and walk in, when Maggie, feeling
all the embarrassment of the situation, and unable to say anything,
put on her bonnet, and turned to walk toward the gate.

Stephen turned too, and walked by her side, leading his horse.

Not a word was spoken till they were out in