The Hand of Ethelberta | Page 4

passed out of the town in a few moments and,
following the highway across meadows fed by the Froom, she crossed
the railway and soon got into a lonely heath. She had been watching the
base of a cloud as it closed down upon the line of a distant ridge, like
an upper upon a lower eyelid, shutting in the gaze of the evening sun.
She was about to return before dusk came on, when she heard a
commotion in the air immediately behind and above her head. The
saunterer looked up and saw a wild-duck flying along with the greatest
violence, just in its rear being another large bird, which a countryman
would have pronounced to be one of the biggest duck-hawks that he
had ever beheld. The hawk neared its intended victim, and the duck
screamed and redoubled its efforts.
Ethelberta impulsively started off in a rapid run that would have made a
little dog bark with delight and run after, her object being, if possible,
to see the end of this desperate struggle for a life so small and
unheard-of. Her stateliness went away, and it could be forgiven for not
remaining; for her feet suddenly became as quick as fingers, and she
raced along over the uneven ground with such force of tread that, being
a woman slightly heavier than gossamer, her patent heels punched little
D's in the soil with unerring accuracy wherever it was bare, crippled the
heather-twigs where it was not, and sucked the swampy places with a
sound of quick kisses.
Her rate of advance was not to be compared with that of the two birds,
though she went swiftly enough to keep them well in sight in such an
open place as that around her, having at one point in the journey been
so near that she could hear the whisk of the duck's feathers against the
wind as it lifted and lowered its wings. When the bird seemed to be but
a few yards from its enemy she saw it strike downwards, and after a
level flight of a quarter of a minute, vanish. The hawk swooped after,
and Ethelberta now perceived a whitely shining oval of still water,
looking amid the swarthy level of the heath like a hole through to a
nether sky.
Into this large pond, which the duck had been making towards from the
beginning of its precipitate flight, it had dived out of sight. The excited

and breathless runner was in a few moments close enough to see the
disappointed hawk hovering and floating in the air as if waiting for the
reappearance of its prey, upon which grim pastime it was so intent that
by creeping along softly she was enabled to get very near the edge of
the pool and witness the conclusion of the episode. Whenever the duck
was under the necessity of showing its head to breathe, the other bird
would dart towards it, invariably too late, however; for the diver was
far too experienced in the rough humour of the buzzard family at this
game to come up twice near the same spot, unaccountably emerging
from opposite sides of the pool in succession, and bobbing again by the
time its adversary reached each place, so that at length the hawk gave
up the contest and flew away, a satanic moodiness being almost
perceptible in the motion of its wings.
The young lady now looked around her for the first time, and began to
perceive that she had run a long distance--very much further than she
had originally intended to come. Her eyes had been so long fixed upon
the hawk, as it soared against the bright and mottled field of sky, that
on regarding the heather and plain again it was as if she had returned to
a half-forgotten region after an absence, and the whole prospect was
darkened to one uniform shade of approaching night. She began at once
to retrace her steps, but having been indiscriminately wheeling round
the pond to get a good view of the performance, and having followed
no path thither, she found the proper direction of her journey to be a
matter of some uncertainty.
'Surely,' she said to herself, 'I faced the north at starting:' and yet on
walking now with her back where her face had been set, she did not
approach any marks on the horizon which might seem to signify the
town. Thus dubiously, but with little real concern, she walked on till
the evening light began to turn to dusk, and the shadows to darkness.
Presently in front of her Ethelberta saw a white spot in the shade, and it
proved to be in some way attached to the head of a man who was
coming towards her out of