timber, fagots, bundles, and other products of the wood.
It was divided from the lane by a lichen-coated wall, in which hung a
pair of gates, flanked by piers out of the perpendicular, with a round
white ball on the top of each.

The building on the left of the enclosure was a long-backed erection,
now used for spar-making, sawing, crib-framing, and copse-ware
manufacture in general. Opposite were the wagon-sheds where Marty had
deposited her spars.

Here Winterborne had remained after the girl's abrupt departure, to see
that the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterborne was connected
with the Melbury family in various ways. In addition to the
sentimental relationship which arose from his father having been the
first Mrs. Melbury's lover, Winterborne's aunt had married and
emigrated with the brother of the timber-merchant many years before--an
alliance that was sufficient to place Winterborne, though the poorer,
on a footing of social intimacy with the Melburys. As in most villages
so secluded as this, intermarriages were of Hapsburgian frequency among
the inhabitants, and there were hardly two houses in Little Hintock
unrelated by some matrimonial tie or other.

For this reason a curious kind of partnership existed between Melbury
and the younger man--a partnership based upon an unwritten code, by
which each acted in the way he thought fair towards the other, on a
give-and-take principle. Melbury, with his timber and copse-ware
business, found that the weight of his labor came in winter and spring.
Winterborne was in the apple and cider trade, and his requirements in
cartage and other work came in the autumn of each year. Hence horses,
wagons, and in some degree men, were handed over to him when the apples
began to fall; he, in return, lending his assistance to Melbury in the
busiest wood-cutting season, as now.

Before he had left the shed a boy came from the house to ask him to
remain till Mr. Melbury had seen him. Winterborne thereupon crossed
over to the spar-house where two or three men were already at work, two
of them being travelling spar-makers from White-hart Lane, who, when
this kind of work began, made their appearance regularly, and when it
was over disappeared in silence till the season came again.

Firewood was the one thing abundant in Little Hintock; and a blaze of
gad-cuds made the outhouse gay with its light, which vied with that of
the day as yet. In the hollow shades of the roof