LITMIR.BIZ

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      “What’s that?” he said.

      “Nothing.”

      “That’s a private trough,” exclaimed a thin voice, high like a peewit’s cry. We started in surprise to see a tall, black-bearded man looking at us and away from us nervously, fidgeting uneasily some ten yards off.

      “Is it?” said Lettie, looking at her wet hands, which she proceeded to dry on a fragment of a handkerchief.

      “You mustn’t meddle with it,” said the man in the same reedy, oboe voice. Then he turned his head away, and his pale grey eyes roved the country-side — when he had courage, he turned his back to us, shading his eyes to continue his scrutiny. He walked hurriedly, a few steps, then craned his neck, peering into the valley, and hastened a dozen yards in another direction, again stretching and peering about. Then he went indoors.

      “He is pretending to look for somebody,” said Lettie, “but it’s only because he’s afraid we shall think he came out just to look at us”— and they laughed.

      Suddenly a woman appeared at the gate; she had pale eyes like the mouse-voiced man.

      “You’ll get Bright’s disease sitting on that there damp stone,” she said to Lettie, who at once rose apologetically.

      “I ought to know,” continued the mouse-voiced woman, “my own mother died of it.”

      “Indeed,” murmured Lettie, “I’m sorry.”

      “Yes,” continued the woman, “it behooves you to be careful. Do you come from Strelley Mill Farm?” she asked suddenly of George, surveying his shameful deshabille with bitter reproof.

      He admitted the imputation.

      “And you’re going to leave, aren’t you?”

      Which also he admitted.

      “Humph! — we s’ll ‘appen get some neighbours. It’s a dog’s life for loneliness. I suppose you knew the last lot that was here.”

      Another brief admission.

      “A dirty lot — a dirty beagle she must have been. You should just ha’ seen these grates.”

      “Yes,” said Lettie. “I have seen them.”

      “Faugh — the state! But come in-come in, you’ll see a difference.”

      They entered, out of curiosity.

      The kitchen was indeed different. It was clean and sparkling, warm with bright red chintzes on the sofa and on every chair cushion. Unfortunately the effect was spoiled by green and yellow antimaccassars, and by a profusion of paper and woollen flowers. There were three cases of woollen flowers, and on the wall, four fans stitched over with ruffled green and yellow paper, adorned with yellow paper roses, carnations, arum lilies, and poppies; there were also wall pockets full of paper flowers; while the wood outside was loaded with blossom.

      “Yes,” said Lettie, “there is a difference.”

      The woman swelled, and looked round. The black-bearded man peeped from behind the Christian Herald — those long blaring trumpets! — and shrank again. The woman darted at his pipe, which he had put on a piece of newspaper on the hob, and blew some imaginary ash from it. Then she caught sight of something — perhaps some dust — on the fireplace.

      “There!” she cried, “I knew it; I couldn’t leave him one second! I haven’t work enough burning wood, but he must be poke — poke —”

      “I only pushed a piece in between the bars,” complained the mouse voice from behind the paper.

      “Pushed a piece in!” she re-echoed, with awful scorn, seizing the poker and thrusting it over his paper. “What do you call that, sitting there telling your stories before folks —”

      They crept out and hurried away. Glancing round, Lettie saw the woman mopping the doorstep after them, and she laughed. He pulled his watch out of his breeches’ pocket; it was half-past three.

      “What are you looking at the time for?” she asked. “Meg’s coming to tea,” he replied.

      She said no more, and they walked slowly on.

      When they came on to the shoulder of the hill, and looked down on to the mill, and the millpond, she said:

      “I will not come down with you — I will go home.”

      “Not come down to tea!” he exclaimed, full of reproach and amazement. “Why, what will they say?”

      “No, I won’t come down — let me say farewell — jamque Vale! Do you remember how Eurydice sank back into Hell?”

      “But”— he stammered, “you must come down to tea — how can I tell them? Why won’t you come?”

      She answered him in Latin, with two lines from Virgil. As she watched him, she pitied his helplessness, and gave him a last cut as she said, very softly and tenderly:

      “It wouldn’t be fair to Meg.”

      He stood looking at her; his face was coloured only by the grey-brown tan; his eyes, the dark, self-mistrustful eyes of the family, were darker than ever, dilated with misery of helplessness; and she was infinitely pitiful. She wanted to cry in her yearning.

      “Shall we go into the wood for a few minutes?” she said in a low, tremulous voice, as they turned aside.

      The wood was high and warm. Along the ridings the forget-me-nots were knee deep, stretching, glimmering into the distance like the Milky Way through the night. They left the tall, flower-tangled paths to go in among the bluebells, breaking through the close-pressed flowers and ferns till they came to an oak which had fallen across the hazels, where they sat half screened. The hyacinths drooped magnificently with an overweight of purple, or they stood pale and erect, like unripe ears of purple corn. Heavy bees swung down in a blunder of extravagance among the purple flowers. They were intoxicated even with the sight of so much blue. The sound of their hearty, wanton humming came clear upon the solemn boom of the wind overhead. The sight of their clinging, clambering riot gave satisfaction to the soul. A rosy campion flower caught the sun and shone out. An elm sent down a shower of flesh-tinted sheaths upon them.

      “If there were fauns and hamadryads!” she said softly, turning to him to soothe his misery. She took his cap from his head, ruffled his hair, saying:

      “If you were a faun, I would put guelder roses round your hair, and make you look Bacchanalian.” She left her hand lying on his knee, and looked up at the sky. Its blue looked pale and green in comparison with the purple tide ebbing about the wood. The clouds rose up like towers, and something had touched them into beauty, and poised them up among the winds. The clouds passed on, and the pool of sky was clear.

      “Look,” she said, “how we are netted down — boughs with knots of green buds. If we were free on the winds! — But I’m glad we’re not.” She turned suddenly to him, and with the same movement, she gave him her hand, and he clasped it in both his. “I’m glad we’re netted down here; if we were free in the winds — Ah!”

      She laughed a peculiar little laugh, catching her breath.

      “Look!” she said, “it’s a palace, with the ash-trunks smooth like a girl’s arm, and the elm-columns, ribbed and bossed and fretted, with the great steel shafts of beech, all rising up to hold an embroidered care-cloth over us; and every thread of the care-cloth vibrates with music for us, and the little broidered birds sing; and the hazel-bushes fling green spray round us, and the honeysuckle leans down to pour out scent over us. Look at the harvest of bluebells — ripened for us! Listen to the bee, sounding among all the organ-play — if he sounded exultant for us!” She looked at him, with tears coming up into her eyes, and a little, winsome, wistful smile hovering round her mouth. He was very pale, and dared not look at her. She put her hand in his, leaning softly against him. He watched, as if fascinated, a young thrush with full pale breast who hopped near to look at them — glancing

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