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Updated: June 11, 2025
He recalled those words of hers that he had overheard, the slow utterance of them as of some pronouncement of doom. "If I can't have corn, I won't have husks. I will die of starvation sooner." He had caught the pain in those words. Had Hugh Chesyl failed to do so? If so, Hugh Chesyl was a fool.
I wonder why you particularly want to be a farmer's wife?" Doris's pointed chin still looked slightly scornful. "You wouldn't wonder if you took the trouble to reflect, Mr. Chesyl," she said. He laughed easily. "Oh, don't ask me to do that! You know what a sluggish brain mine is.
The pretty brows went up in astonishment. "Oh!" she said, in quick confusion. "You heard that too?" "Wouldn't it be easier?" persisted Jeff in his slow, stubborn way. She shook her head swiftly and vehemently. "I shall never marry Mr. Chesyl," she said with determination. "Where is he?" asked Jeff. The soft colour rose in her face at the question. She looked away from him for the first time.
And so Hugh Chesyl, being moved beyond his wont, lifted the hand that lay so confidingly in his, and kissed it with all reverence. "I want you to be happy," he said. A moment later they parted without further words on either side, he to retrace his steps across the bridge, she to turn wearily in at the iron gate under the dripping trees that led to the Mill House porch.
He had conquered the man's enmity, overthrown his passionate jealousy, humbled him into admitting himself to be in the wrong. Very curiously that silent admission of Jeff's hurt her pride almost as if it had been made on her behalf. The thought of Jeff worsted by Hugh Chesyl, however deeply in the wrong he might be, was somehow very hard to bear. Her heart ached for the man.
The preparations went forward under Granny Grimshaw's guidance without a hitch, but they were kept busy up to the last moment, and on the day before Christmas Eve Doris scribbled a hasty note to Hugh Chesyl, excusing herself from attending the meet.
"I would rather have nothing than that," she said quickly. Hugh Chesyl turned and regarded her curiously. "Would you really?" he said. She nodded several times emphatically. "Yes; just live my own life out-of-doors and do without everything else." She pulled a long stalk of corn from the sheaf against which she rested and looked at it thoughtfully.
Why had she refused to marry Chesyl? he asked himself. The man was lukewarm in speech and action; but that surely was but the way of the world to which he belonged. No excess of emotion was ever encouraged there. Doubtless behind that amiable mask there beat the same devouring longing that throbbed in his own racing pulses. Surely Doris knew this! Surely she understood her own kind!
He had never thought very highly of him, though he supposed him to be clever after his own indolent fashion. Chesyl was the old squire's nephew and heir a highly suitable parti for any girl. Yet Doris had refused him, not wholly without ignominy. A gentleman, too! Jeff's mouth twisted.
"Things never are." Doris considered him for a moment. He was certainly a fine animal, as Hugh Chesyl had said, well made and well put together. She liked the freedom of his pose, the strength of the great bull neck. At close quarters he certainly did not look like an ordinary labourer. He had an air of command that his rough clothes could not hide.
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