“'Mary Morrison'?” suggested the younger.
Edgar agreed. He had a good tenor voice, and he loved to learn all the songs his friend could teach him, so that he could sing whilst he was carting. Paul had a very indifferent baritone voice, but a good ear. However, he sang softly, for fear of Clara. Edgar repeated the line in a clear tenor. At times they both broke off to sneeze, and first one, then the other, abused his horse.
Miriam was impatient of men. It took so little to amuse them—even Paul. She thought it anomalous in him that he could be so thoroughly absorbed in a triviality.
It was tea-time when they had finished.
“What song was that?” asked Miriam.
Edgar told her. The conversation turned to singing.
“We have such jolly times,” Miriam said to Clara.
Mrs. Dawes ate her meal in a slow, dignified way. Whenever the men were present she grew distant.
“Do you like singing?” Miriam asked her.
“If it is good,” she said.
Paul, of course, coloured.
“You mean if it is high-class and trained?” he said.
“I think a voice needs training before the singing is anything,” she said.
“You might as well insist on having people's voices trained before you allowed them to talk,” he replied. “Really, people sing for their own pleasure, as a rule.”
“And it may be for other people's discomfort.”
“Then the other people should have flaps to their ears,” he replied.
The boys laughed. There was a silence. He flushed deeply, and ate in silence.
After tea, when all the men had gone but Paul, Mrs. Leivers said to Clara:
“And you find life happier now?”
“Infinitely.”
“And you are satisfied?”
“So long as I can be free and independent.”
“And you don't MISS anything in your life?” asked Mrs. Leivers gently.
“I've put all that behind me.”
Paul had been feeling uncomfortable during this discourse. He got up.
“You'll find you're always tumbling over the things you've put behind you,” he said. Then he took his departure to the cowsheds. He felt he had been witty, and his manly pride was high. He whistled as he went down the brick track.
Miriam came for him a little later to know if he would go with Clara and her for a walk. They set off down to Strelley Mill Farm. As they were going beside the brook, on the Willey Water side, looking through the brake at the edge of the wood, where pink campions glowed under a few sunbeams, they saw, beyond the tree-trunks and the thin hazel bushes, a man leading a great bay horse through the gullies. The big red beast seemed to dance romantically through that dimness of green hazel drift, away there where the air was shadowy, as if it were in the past, among the fading bluebells that might have bloomed for Deidre or Iseult.
The three stood charmed.
“What a treat to be a knight,” he said, “and to have a pavilion here.”
“And to have us shut up safely?” replied Clara.
“Yes,” he answered, “singing with your maids at your broidery. I would carry your banner of white and green and heliotrope. I would have 'W.S.P.U.' emblazoned on my shield, beneath a woman rampant.”
“I have no doubt,” said Clara, “that you would much rather fight for a woman than let her fight for herself.”
“I would. When she fights for herself she seems like a dog before a looking-glass, gone into a mad fury with its own shadow.”
“And YOU are the looking-glass?” she asked, with a curl of the lip.
“Or the shadow,” he replied.
“I am afraid,” she said, “that you are too clever.”
“Well, I leave it to you to be GOOD,” he retorted, laughing. “Be good, sweet maid, and just let ME be clever.”
But Clara wearied of his flippancy. Suddenly, looking at her, he saw that the upward lifting of her face was misery and not scorn. His heart grew tender for everybody. He turned and was gentle with Miriam, whom he had neglected till then.
At the wood's edge they met Limb, a thin, swarthy man of forty, tenant of Strelley Mill, which he ran as a cattle-raising farm. He held the halter of the powerful stallion indifferently, as if he were tired. The three stood to let him pass over the stepping-stones of the first brook. Paul admired that so large an animal should walk on such springy toes, with an endless excess of vigour. Limb pulled up before them.
“Tell your father, Miss Leivers,” he said, in a peculiar piping voice, “that his young beas'es 'as broke that bottom fence three days an' runnin'.”
“Which?” asked Miriam, tremulous.
The great horse breathed heavily, shifting round its red flanks, and looking suspiciously with its wonderful big eyes upwards from under its lowered head and falling mane.
“Come along a bit,” replied Limb, “an' I'll show you.”
The man and the stallion went forward. It danced sideways, shaking its white fetlocks and looking frightened, as it felt itself in the brook.
“No hanky-pankyin',” said the man affectionately to the beast.
It went up the bank in little leaps, then splashed finely through the second brook. Clara, walking with a kind of sulky abandon, watched it half-fascinated, half-contemptuous. Limb stopped and pointed to the fence under some willows.
“There, you see where they got through,” he said. “My man's druv 'em back three times.”
“Yes,” answered Miriam, colouring as if she were at fault.
“Are you comin' in?” asked the man.
“No, thanks; but we should like to go by the pond.”
“Well, just as you've a mind,” he said.
The horse gave little whinneys of pleasure at being so near home.
“He is glad to be back,” said Clara, who was interested in the creature.
“Yes—'e's been a tidy step to-day.”
They went through the gate, and saw approaching them from the big farmhouse a smallish, dark, excitable-looking woman of about thirty-five. Her hair was touched with grey, her dark eyes looked wild. She walked with her hands behind her back. Her brother went forward. As it saw her, the big bay stallion whinneyed again. She came up excitedly.
“Are you home again, my boy!” she said tenderly to the horse, not to the man. The great beast shifted round to her, ducking his head. She smuggled into his mouth the wrinkled yellow apple she had been hiding behind her back, then she kissed him near the eyes. He gave a big sigh of pleasure. She held his head in her arms against her breast.
“Isn't he splendid!” said Miriam to her.
Miss Limb looked up. Her dark eyes glanced straight at Paul.
“Oh, good-evening, Miss Leivers,” she said. “It's ages since you've been down.”
Miriam introduced her friends.
“Your horse IS a fine fellow!” said Clara.
“Isn't he!” Again she kissed him. “As loving as any man!”
“More loving than most