Chapter 19 - Page 2

church, or in passing her dwelling, were what the acquaintance
would have to feed on.

Such anticipated glimpses of her now and then realized themselves
in the event. Rencounters of not more than a minute's duration,
frequently repeated, will build up mutual interest, even an
intimacy, in a lonely place. Theirs grew as imperceptibly as the
tree-twigs budded. There never was a particular moment at which
it could be said they became friends; yet a delicate understanding
now existed between two who in the winter had been strangers.

Spring weather came on rather suddenly, the unsealing of buds that
had long been swollen accomplishing itself in the space of one
warm night. The rush of sap in the veins of the trees could
almost be heard. The flowers of late April took up a position
unseen, and looked as if they had been blooming a long while,
though there had been no trace of them the day before yesterday;
birds began not to mind getting wet. In-door people said they had
heard the nightingale, to which out-door people replied
contemptuously that they had heard him a fortnight before.

The young doctor's practice being scarcely so large as a London
surgeon's, he frequently walked in the wood. Indeed such practice
as he had he did not follow up with the assiduity that would have
been necessary for developing it to exceptional proportions. One
day, book in hand, he walked in a part of the wood where the trees
were mainly oaks. It was a calm afternoon, and there was
everywhere around that sign of great undertakings on the part of
vegetable nature which is apt to fill reflective human beings who
are not undertaking much themselves with a sudden uneasiness at
the contrast. He heard in the distance a curious sound, something
like the quack of a duck, which, though it was common enough here
about this time, was not common to him.

Looking through the trees Fitzpiers soon perceived the origin of
the noise. The barking season had just commenced, and what he had
heard was the tear of the ripping tool as it ploughed its way
along the sticky parting between the trunk and the rind. Melbury
did a large business in bark, and as he was Grace's father, and
possibly might be found on the spot, Fitzpiers was attracted to
the scene even more than he might have been by its intrinsic
interest. When he got nearer he recognized among the workmen the
two Timothys, and Robert Creedle, who probably had been "lent" by
Winterborne; Marty South also assisted.

Each tree doomed to this flaying process was first attacked by
Creedle. With a small billhook he carefully freed the collar of
the tree from twigs and patches of moss which incrusted it to a
height of a foot or two above the ground, an operation