“You can tame us,” said Leslie, in mighty good humour. She did not reply. George, began, in that deliberate voice that so annoyed Emily:
“It does make you mad, though, to touch the fur, and not be able to grab him”— he laughed quietly.
Emily moved off in disgust. Lettie opened her mouth sharply to speak, but remained silent.
“I don’t know,” said Leslie. “When it comes to killing it goes against the stomach.”
“If you can run,” said George, “you should be able to run to death. When your blood’s up, you don’t hang half-way.”
“I think a man is horrible,” said Lettie, “who can tear the head off a little mite of a thing like a rabbit, after running it in torture over a field.”
“When he is nothing but a barbarian to begin with —” said Emily.
“If you began to run yourself — you’d be the same,” said George.
“Why, women are cruel enough,” said Leslie, with a glance at Lettie. “Yes,” he continued, “they’re cruel enough in their way”— another look, and a comical little smile.
“Well,” said George, “what’s the good finicking! If you feel like doing a thing — you’d better do it.”
“Unless you haven’t courage,” said Emily, bitingly.
He Hooked up at her with dark eyes, suddenly full of anger.
“But,” said Lettie — she could not hold herself from asking, “Don’t you think it’s brutal, now — now that you do think — isn’t it degrading and mean to run the poor little things down?”
“Perhaps it is,” he replied, “but it wasn’t an hour ago.”
“You have no feeling,” she said bitterly.
He laughed deprecatingly, but said nothing.
We finished tea in silence, Lettie reading, Emily moving about the house. George got up and went out at the end. A moment or two after we heard him across the yard with the milk-buckets, singing “The Ash Grove”.
“He doesn’t care a scrap for anything,” said Emily with accumulated bitterness. Lettie looked out of the window across the yard, thinking. She looked very glum.
After a while we went out also, before the light faded altogether from the pond. Emily took us into the lower garden to get some ripe plums. The old garden was very low. The soil was black. The cornbind and goosegrass were clutching at the ancient gooseberry bushes, which sprawled by the paths. The garden was not very productive, save of weeds, and, perhaps, tremendous lank artichokes or swollen marrows. But at the bottom, where the end of the farm buildings rose high and grey, there was a plum tree which had been crucified to the wall, and which had broken away and leaned forward from bondage. Now under the boughs were hidden great mist-bloomed, crimson treasures, splendid globes. I shook the old, ragged trunk, green, with even the fresh gum dulled over, and the treasures fell heavily, thudding down among the immense rhubarb leaves below. The girls laughed, and we divided the spoil, and turned back to the yard. We went down to the edge of the garden, which skirted the bottom pond, a pool chained in a heavy growth of weeds. It was moving with rats, the father had said. The rushes were thick below us; opposite, the great bank fronted us, with orchard trees climbing it like a hillside. The lower pond received the overflow from the upper by a tunnel from the deep black sluice.
Two rats ran into the black culvert at our approach. We sat on some piled, mossy stones to watch. The rats came out again, ran a little way, stopped, ran again, listened, were reassured, and slid about freely, dragging their long naked tails. Soon six or seven grey beasts were playing round the mouth of the culvert, in the gloom. They sat and wiped their sharp faces, stroking their whiskers. Then one would give a little rush and a little squirm of excitement and would jump vertically into the air, alighting on four feet, running, sliding into the black shadow. One dropped with an ugly plop into the water, and swam towards us, the hoary imp, his sharp snout and his wicked little eyes moving at us. Lettie shuddered. I threw a stone into the dead pool, and frightened them all. But we had frightened ourselves more, so we hurried away, and stamped our feet in relief on the free pavement of the yard.
Leslie was looking for us. He had been inspecting the yard and the stock under Mr Saxton’s supervision.
“Were you running away from me?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “I have been to fetch you a plum. Look!” And she showed him two in a leaf.
“They are too pretty to eat!” said he.
“You have not tasted yet,” she laughed.
“Come,” he said, offering her his arm. “Let us go up to the water.” She took his arm.
It was a splendid evening, with the light all thick and yellow lying on the smooth pond. Lettie made him lift her on to a leaning bough of willow. He sat with his head resting against her skirts. Emily and I moved on. We heard him murmur something, and her voice reply, gently, caressingly:
“No — let us be still — it is all so still — I love it best of all now.”
Emily and I talked, sitting at the base of the alders, a little way on. After an excitement, and in the evening, especially in autumn, one is inclined to be sad and sentimental. We had forgotten that the darkness was weaving. I heard in the little distance Leslie’s voice begin to murmur like a flying beetle that comes not too near. Then, away down in the yard, George began singing the old song, “I sowed the seeds of love”.
This interrupted the flight of Leslie’s voice, and as the singing came nearer, the hum of low words ceased. We went forward to meet George. Leslie sat up, clasping his knees, and did not speak. George came nearer, saying:
“The moon is going to rise.”
“Let me get down,” said Lettie, lifting her hands to him to help her. He, mistaking her wish, put his hands under her arms, and set her gently down, as one would a child. Leslie got up quickly, and seemed to hold himself separate, resenting the intrusion.
“I thought you were all four together,” said George quietly. Lettie turned quickly at the apology:
“So we were. So we are — five now. Is it there the moon will rise?”
“Yes — I like to see it come over the wood. It lifts slowly up to stare at you. I always think it wants to know something, and I always think I have something to answer, only I don’t know what it is,” said Emily.
Where the sky was pale in the east over the rim of wood came the forehead of the yellow moon. We stood and watched in silence. Then, as the great disc, nearly full, lifted and looked straight upon us, we were washed off our feet in a vague sea of moonlight. We stood with the light like water on our faces. Lettie was glad, a little bit exalted; Emily was passionately troubled; her lips were parted, almost beseeching; Leslie was frowning, oblivious, and George was thinking, and the terrible, immense moonbeams braided through his feeling. At length Leslie said softly, mistakenly:
“Come along, dear”— and he took her arm.
She let him lead her along the bank of the pond, and across the plank over the sluice.
“Do you know,” she said, as we were carefully descending the steep bank of the orchard, “I feel as if I wanted to laugh, or dance — something rather outrageous.”
“Surely not like that now,” Leslie replied in a low voice, feeling really hurt.
“I do though! I will race you to the bottom.”
“No, no, dear!” He held her back. When he came to the wicket leading on to the front lawns, he said something to her softly, as he held the gate.
I think he wanted to utter his half-finished proposal, and