Dream Days | Page 9

bottom together. When he had shaken himself free and regained
his legs, he trotted smartly off in the direction of his mother's cottage;
but over his shoulder he discharged at me both imprecation and
deprecation, menace mixed up with an under-current of tears.
But as for me, I made off smartly for the road, my frame tingling, my
head high, with never a backward look at the Settlement of suggestive
aspect, or at my well-planned future which lay in fragments around it.
Life had its jollities, then; life was action, contest, victory! The present
was rosy once more, surprises lurked on every side, and I was
beginning to feel villainously hungry.

Just as I gained the road a cart came rattling by, and I rushed for it,
caught the chain that hung below, and swung thrillingly between the
dizzy wheels, choked and blinded with delicious- smelling dust, the
world slipping by me like a streaky ribbon below, till the driver licked
at me with his whip, and I had to descend to earth again. Abandoning
the beaten track, I then struck homewards through the fields; not that
the way was very much shorter, but rather because on that route one
avoided the bridge, and had to splash through the stream and get
refreshingly wet. Bridges were made for narrow folk, for people with
aims and vocations which compelled abandonment of many of life's
highest pleasures. Truly wise men called on each element alike to
minister to their joy, and while the touch of sun-bathed air, the
fragrance of garden soil, the ductible qualities of mud, and the
spark-whirling rapture of playing with fire, had each their special
charm, they did not overlook the bliss of getting their feet wet. As I
came forth on the common Harold broke out of an adjoining copse and
ran to meet me, the morning rain-clouds all blown away from his face.
He had made a new squirrel-stick, it seemed. Made it all himself;
melted the lead and everything! I examined the instrument critically,
and pronounced it absolutely magnificent. As we passed in at our gate
the girls were distantly visible, gardening with a zeal in cheerful
contrast to their heartsick lassitude of the morning.
"There's bin another letter come toÄday," Harold explained, "and the
hamper got joggled about on the journey, and the presents worked
down into the straw and all over the place. One of 'em turned up inside
the cold duck. And that's why they weren't found at first. And Edward
said, Thanks awfully!"
I did not see Martha again until we were all re-assembled at tea-time,
when she seemed red-eyed and strangely silent, neither scolding nor
finding fault with anything. Instead, she was very kind and thoughtful
with jams and things, feverishly pressing unwonted delicacies on us,
who wanted little pressing enough. Then suddenly, when I was busiest,
she disappeared; and Charlotte whispered me presently that she had
heard her go to her room and lock herself in. This struck me as a funny
sort of proceeding.

MUTABILE SEMPER
She stood on the other side of the garden fence, and regarded me
gravely as I came down the road. Then she said, "Hi--o!" and I
responded, "Hullo!" and pulled up somewhat nervously.
To tell the truth, the encounter was not entirely unexpected on my part.
The previous Sunday I had seen her in church, and after service it had
transpired who she was, this new-comer, and what aunt she was staying
with. That morning a volunteer had been called for, to take a note to the
Parsonage, and rather to my own surprise I had found myself stepping
forward with alacrity, while the others had become suddenly absorbed
in various pursuits, or had sneaked unobtrusively out of view. Certainly
I had not yet formed any deliberate plan of action; yet I suppose I
recollected that the road to the Parsonage led past her aunt's garden.
She began the conversation, while I hopped backwards and forwards
over the ditch, feigning a careless ease.
"Saw you in church on Sunday," she said; "only you looked different
then. All dressed up, and your hair quite smooth, and brushed up at the
sides, and oh, so shiny! What do they put on it to make it shine like that?
Don't you hate having your hair brushed?" she ran on, without waiting
for an answer. "How your boots squeaked when you came down the
aisle! When mine squeak, I walk in all the puddles till they stop. Think
I'll get over the fence."
This she proceeded to do in a businesslike way, while, with my hands
deep In my pockets, I regarded her movements with silent interest, as
those of some strange new animal.
"I've been gardening," she explained, when she had joined me, "but I
didn't like