The voice, though positive and silvery, had been tremulous. They
walked on in parallel lines, and, waiting her pleasure, Jude watched
till she showed signs of closing in, when he did likewise, the place
being where the carriers' carts stood in the daytime, though there
was none on the spot then.
"I am sorry that I asked you to meet me, and didn't call," began Jude
with the bashfulness of a lover. "But I thought it would save time
if we were going to walk."
"Oh--I don't mind that," she said with the freedom of a friend. "I
have really no place to ask anybody in to. What I meant was that the
place you chose was so horrid--I suppose I ought not to say horrid--I
mean gloomy and inauspicious in its associations... But isn't it
funny to begin like this, when I don't know you yet?" She looked him
up and down curiously, though Jude did not look much at her.
"You seem to know me more than I know you," she added.
"Yes--I have seen you now and then."
"And you knew who I was, and didn't speak? And now I am going away!"
"Yes. That's unfortunate. I have hardly any other friend. I have,
indeed, one very old friend here somewhere, but I don't quite like
to call on him just yet. I wonder if you know anything of him--Mr.
Phillotson? A parson somewhere about the county I think he is."
"No--I only know of one Mr. Phillotson. He lives a little way out in
the country, at Lumsdon. He's a village schoolmaster."
"Ah! I wonder if he's the same. Surely it is impossible! Only a
schoolmaster still! Do you know his Christian name--is it Richard?"
"Yes--it is; I've directed books to him, though I've never seen him."
"Then he couldn't do it!"
Jude's countenance fell, for how could he succeed in an enterprise
wherein the great Phillotson had failed? He would have had a day of
despair if the news had not arrived during his sweet Sue's presence,
but even at this moment he had visions of how Phillotson's failure in
the grand university scheme would depress him when she had gone.
"As we are going to take a walk, suppose we go and call upon him?"
said Jude suddenly. "It is not late."
She agreed, and they went along up a hill, and through some prettily
wooded country. Presently the embattled tower and square turret
of the church rose into the sky, and then the school-house. They
inquired of a person in the street if Mr. Phillotson was likely to
be at home, and were informed that he was always at home. A knock
brought him to the school-house door, with a candle in his hand and a
look of inquiry on his face, which had grown thin and careworn since
Jude last set eyes on him.