The garden-front remained much as it had always been, and there was a
porch and entrance that way. But the principal house-door opened on
the square yard or quadrangle towards the road, formerly a regular
carriage entrance, though the middle of the area was now made use of
for stacking 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.