The mare paced along with firm and cautious tread through the copse
where Winterborne had worked, and into the heavier soil where the oaks
grew; past Great Willy, the largest oak in the wood, and thence towards
Nellcombe Bottom, intensely dark now with overgrowth, and popularly
supposed to be haunted by the spirits of the fratricides exorcised from
Hintock House.
By this time Fitzpiers was quite recovered as to physical strength.
But he had eaten nothing since making a hasty breakfast in London that
morning, his anxiety about Felice having hurried him away from home
before dining; as a consequence, the old rum administered by his
father-in-law flew to the young man's head and loosened his tongue,
without his ever having recognized who it was that had lent him a
kindly hand. He began to speak in desultory sentences, Melbury still
supporting him.
"I've come all the way from London to-day," said Fitzpiers. "Ah,
that's the place to meet your equals. I live at Hintock--worse, at
Little Hintock--and I am quite lost there. There's not a man within
ten miles of Hintock who can comprehend me. I tell you, Farmer
What's-your-name, that I'm a man of education. I know several
languages; the poets and I are familiar friends; I used to read more in
metaphysics than anybody within fifty miles; and since I gave that up
there's nobody can match me in the whole county of Wessex as a
scientist. Yet I an doomed to live with tradespeople in a miserable
little hole like Hintock!"
"Indeed!" muttered Melbury.
Fitzpiers, increasingly energized by the alcohol, here reared himself
up suddenly from the bowed posture he had hitherto held, thrusting his
shoulders so violently against Melbury's breast as to make it difficult
for the old man to keep a hold on the reins. "People don't appreciate
me here!" the surgeon exclaimed; lowering his voice, he added, softly
and slowly, "except one--except one!...A passionate soul, as warm as
she is clever, as beautiful as she is warm, and as rich as she is
beautiful. I say, old fellow, those claws of yours clutch me rather
tight--rather like the eagle's, you know, that ate out the liver of
Pro--Pre--the man on Mount Caucasus. People don't appreciate me, I
say, except HER. Ah, gods, I am an unlucky man! She would have been
mine, she would have taken my name; but unfortunately it cannot be so.
I stooped to mate beneath me, and now I rue it."
The position was becoming a very trying one for Melbury, corporeally
and mentally. He was obliged to steady Fitzpiers with his left arm,
and he began to hate the contact. He hardly knew what to do. It was
useless to remonstrate with Fitzpiers, in his intellectual confusion
from the rum and from the fall. He remained silent, his hold upon his
companion, however, being stern rather than compassionate.