Chapter 20

CHAPTER XX.

The leaves over Hintock grew denser in their substance, and the
woodland seemed to change from an open filigree to a solid opaque
body of infinitely larger shape and importance. The boughs cast
green shades, which hurt the complexion of the girls who walked
there; and a fringe of them which overhung Mr. Melbury's garden
dripped on his seed-plots when it rained, pitting their surface
all over as with pock-marks, till Melbury declared that gardens in
such a place were no good at all. The two trees that had creaked
all the winter left off creaking, the whir of the night-jar,
however, forming a very satisfactory continuation of uncanny music
from that quarter. Except at mid-day the sun was not seen
complete by the Hintock people, but rather in the form of numerous
little stars staring through the leaves.

Such an appearance it had on Midsummer Eve of this year, and as
the hour grew later, and nine o'clock drew on, the irradiation of
the daytime became broken up by weird shadows and ghostly nooks of
indistinctness. Imagination could trace upon the trunks and
boughs strange faces and figures shaped by the dying lights; the
surfaces of the holly-leaves would here and there shine like
peeping eyes, while such fragments of the sky as were visible
between the trunks assumed the aspect of sheeted forms and cloven
tongues. This was before the moonrise. Later on, when that
planet was getting command of the upper heaven, and consequently
shining with an unbroken face into such open glades as there were
in the neighborhood of the hamlet, it became apparent that the
margin of the wood which approached the timber-merchant's premises
was not to be left to the customary stillness of that reposeful
time.

Fitzpiers having heard a voice or voices, was looking over his
garden gate--where he now looked more frequently than into his
books--fancying that Grace might be abroad with some friends. He
was now irretrievably committed in heart to Grace Melbury, though
he was by no means sure that she was so far committed to him.
That the Idea had for once completely fulfilled itself in the
objective substance--which he had hitherto deemed an
impossibility--he was enchanted enough to fancy must be the case
at last. It was not Grace who had passed, however, but several of
the ordinary village girls in a group--some steadily walking, some
in a mood of wild gayety. He quietly asked his landlady, who was
also in the garden, what these girls were intending, and she
informed him that it being Old Midsummer Eve, they were about to
attempt some spell or enchantment which would afford them a
glimpse of their future partners for life. She declared it to be
an ungodly performance, and one which she for