Just as Shelton was starting to walk back to Oxford he met Mr. Dennant coming from a ride. Antonia's father was a spare man of medium height, with yellowish face, grey moustache, ironical eyebrows, and some tiny crow's-feet. In his old, short grey coat, with a little slit up the middle of the back, his drab cord breeches, ancient mahogany leggings, and carefully blacked boats, he had a dry, threadbare quality not without distinction. “Ah, Shelton!” he said, in his quietly festive voice; “glad to see the pilgrim here, at last. You're not off already?” and, laying his hand on Shelton's arm, he proposed to walk a little way with him across the fields.
This was the first time they had met since the engagement; and Shelton began to nerve himself to express some sentiment, however bald, about it. He squared his shoulders, cleared his throat, and looked askance at Mr. Dennant. That gentleman was walking stiffly, his cord breeches faintly squeaking. He switched a yellow, jointed cane against his leggings, and after each blow looked at his legs satirically. He himself was rather like that yellow cane-pale, and slim, and jointed, with features arching just a little, like the arching of its handle.
“They say it'll be a bad year for fruit,” Shelton said at last.
“My dear fellow, you don't know your farmer, I 'm afraid. We ought to hang some farmers—do a world of good. Dear souls! I've got some perfect strawberries.”
“I suppose,” said Shelton, glad to postpone the evil moment, “in a climate like this a man must grumble.”
“Quite so, quite so! Look at us poor slaves of land-owners; if I couldn't abuse the farmers I should be wretched. Did you ever see anything finer than this pasture? And they want me to lower their rents!”
And Mr. Dennant's glance satirically wavered, rested on Shelton, and whisked back to the ground as though he had seen something that alarmed him. There was a pause.
“Now for it!” thought the younger man.
Mr. Dennant kept his eyes fixed on his boots.
“If they'd said, now,” he remarked jocosely, “that the frost had nipped the partridges, there 'd have been some sense in it; but what can you expect? They've no consideration, dear souls!”
Shelton took a breath, and, with averted eyes, he hurriedly began:
“It's awfully hard, sir, to—”
Mr. Dennant switched his cane against his shin.
“Yes,” he said, “it 's awfully hard to put up with, but what can a fellow do? One must have farmers. Why, if it was n't for the farmers, there 'd be still a hare or two about the place!”
Shelton laughed spasmodically; again he glanced askance at his future father-in-law. What did the waggling of his head mean, the deepening of his crow's-feet, the odd contraction of the mouth? And his eye caught Mr. Dennant's eye; its expression was queer above the fine, dry nose (one of the sort that reddens in a wind).
“I've never had much to do with farmers,” he said at last.
“Have n't you? Lucky fellow! The most—yes, quite the most trying portion of the human species—next to daughters.”
“Well, sir, you can hardly expect me—” began Shelton.
“I don't—oh, I don't! D 'you know, I really believe we're in for a ducking.”
A large black cloud had covered up the sun, and some drops were spattering on Mr. Dennant's hard felt hat.
Shelton welcomed the shower; it appeared to him an intervention on the part of Providence. He would have to say something, but not now, later.
“I 'll go on,” he said; “I don't mind the rain. But you'd better get back, sir.”
“Dear me! I've a tenant in this cottage,” said Mr. Dennant in his, leisurely, dry manner “and a beggar he is to poach, too. Least we can do 's to ask for a little shelter; what do you think?” and smiling sarcastically, as though deprecating his intention to keep dry, he rapped on the door of a prosperous-looking cottage.
It was opened by a girl of Antonia's age and height.
“Ah, Phoebe! Your father in?”
“No,” replied the girl, fluttering; “father's out, Mr. Dennant.”
“So sorry! Will you let us bide a bit out of the rain?”
The sweet-looking Phoebe dusted them two chairs, and, curtseying, left them in the parlour.
“What a pretty girl!” said Shelton.
“Yes, she's a pretty girl; half the young fellows are after her, but she won't leave her father. Oh, he 's a charming rascal is that fellow!”
This remark suddenly brought home to Shelton the conviction that he was further than ever from avoiding the necessity for speaking. He walked over to the window. The rain was coming down with fury, though a golden line far down the sky promised the shower's quick end. “For goodness' sake,&rdquo............