The Woodlanders - Page 190/314

"I don't see that I ought. I wish I had never got into it. I wish you

had never, never thought of educating me. I wish I worked in the woods

like Marty South. I hate genteel life, and I want to be no better than

she."

"Why?" said her amazed father.

"Because cultivation has only brought me inconveniences and troubles.

I say again, I wish you had never sent me to those fashionable schools

you set your mind on. It all arose out of that, father. If I had

stayed at home I should have married--" She closed up her mouth

suddenly and was silent; and he saw that she was not far from crying.

Melbury was much grieved. "What, and would you like to have grown up

as we be here in Hintock--knowing no more, and with no more chance of

seeing good life than we have here?"

"Yes. I have never got any happiness outside Hintock that I know of,

and I have suffered many a heartache at being sent away. Oh, the

misery of those January days when I had got back to school, and left

you all here in the wood so happy. I used to wonder why I had to bear

it. And I was always a little despised by the other girls at school,

because they knew where I came from, and that my parents were not in so

good a station as theirs."

Her poor father was much hurt at what he thought her ingratitude and

intractability. He had admitted to himself bitterly enough that he

should have let young hearts have their way, or rather should have

helped on her affection for Winterborne, and given her to him according

to his original plan; but he was not prepared for her deprecation of

those attainments whose completion had been a labor of years, and a

severe tax upon his purse.

"Very well," he said, with much heaviness of spirit. "If you don't

like to go to her I don't wish to force you."

And so the question remained for him still: how should he remedy this

perilous state of things? For days he sat in a moody attitude over the

fire, a pitcher of cider standing on the hearth beside him, and his

drinking-horn inverted upon the top of it. He spent a week and more

thus composing a letter to the chief offender, which he would every now

and then attempt to complete, and suddenly crumple up in his hand.