“What do they mean, do you think?” said Lettie in a low voice, as her white fingers touched the flowers, and her black furs fell on them.
“There are not so many this year,” said Leslie.
“They remind me of mistletoe, which is never ours, though we wear it.” said Emily to me.
“What do you think they say — what do they make you think, Cyril?” Lettie repeated.
“I don’t know. Emily says they belong to some old wild lost religion. They were the symbol of tears, perhaps, to some strange-hearted Druid folk before us.”
“More than tears,” said Lettie. “More than tears, they are so still. Something out of an old religion, that we have lost. They make me feel afraid.”
“What should you have to fear?” asked Leslie.
“If I knew I shouldn’t fear,” she answered. “Look at all the snowdrops”— they hung in dim, strange flecks among the dusky leaves —“look at them — closed up, retreating, powerless. They belong to some knowledge we have lost, that I have lost and that I need. I feel afraid. They seem like something in fate. Do you think, Cyril, we can lose things off the earth — like mastodons, and those old monstrosities — but things that matter — wisdom?”
“It is against my creed,” said I.
“I believe I have lost something,” said she.
“Come,” said Leslie, “don’t trouble with fancies. Come with me to the bottom of this cup, and see how strange it will be, with the sky marked with branches like a filigree lid.”
She rose and followed him down the steep side of the pit, crying, “Ah, you are treading on the flowers.”
“No,” said he, “I am being very careful.”
They sat down together on a fallen tree at the bottom. She leaned forward, her fingers wandering white among the shadowed grey spaces of leaves, plucking, as if it were a rite, flowers here and there. He could not see her face.
“Don’t you care for me?” he asked softly.
“You?”— she sat up and looked at him, and laughed strangely. “You do not seem real to me,” she replied, in a strange voice.
For some time they sat thus, both bowed and silent. Birds “skirred” off from the bushes, and Emily looked up with a great start as a quiet, sardonic voice said above us:
“A dove-cot, my eyes if it ain’t! It struck me I ‘eered a cooin’, an’ ’ere’s th’ birds. Come on, sweethearts, it’s th’ wrong place for billin’ an’ cooin’, in th’ middle o’ these ’ere snowdrops. Let’s ‘ave yer names, come on.”
“Clear off, you fool!” answered Leslie from below, jumping up in anger.
We all four turned and looked at the keeper. He stood in the rim of light, darkly; fine, powerful form, menacing us. He did not move, but like some malicious Pan looked down on us and said:
“Very pretty — pretty! Two — and two makes four. ’Tis true, two and two makes four. Come on, come on out o’ this ’ere bridal bed, an’ let’s ‘ave a look at yer.”
“Can’t you use your eyes, you fool,” replied Leslie, standing up and helping Lettie with her furs. “At any rate you can see there are ladies here.”
“Very sorry, Sir! You can’t tell a lady from a woman at this distance at dusk. Who may you be, Sir?”
“Clear out! Come along, Lettie, you can’t stay here now.” They climbed into the light.
“Oh, very sorry, Mr Tempest — when yer look down on a man he never looks the same. I thought it was some young fools come here dallyin’—”
“Damn you — shut up!” exclaimed Leslie —“I beg your pardon, Lettie. Will you have my arm?”
They looked very elegant, the pair of them. Lettie was wearing a long coat which fitted close; she had a small hat whose feathers flushed straight back with her hair.
The keeper looked at them. Then, smiling, he went down the dell with great strides, and returned, saying, “Well, the lady might as well take her gloves.”
She took them from him, shrinking to Leslie. Then she started, and said:
“Let me fetch my flowers.”
She ran for the handful of snowdrops that lay among the roots of the trees. We all watched her.
“Sorry I made such a mistake — a lady!” said Annable. “But I’ve nearly forgot the sight o’ one — save the squire’s daughters, who are never out o’ nights.”
“I should think you never have seen many — unless — Have you ever been a groom?”
“No groom but a bridegroom, Sir, and then I think I’d rather groom a horse than a lady, for I got well bit — if you will excuse me, Sir.”
“And you deserved it — no doubt.”
“I got it — an’ I wish you better luck, Sir. One’s more a man here in th’ wood, though, than in my lady’s parlour, it strikes me.”
“A lady’s parlour!” laughed Leslie, indulgent in his amusement at the facetious keeper.
“Oh, yes! ‘Will you walk into my parlour —’”
“You’re very smart for a keeper.”
“Oh yes, Sir — I was once a lady’s man. But I’d rather watch th’ rabbits an’ th’ birds; an’ it’s easier breeding brats in th’ Kennels than in th’ town.”
“They are yours, are they?” said I.
“You know’ em, do you, Sir? Aren’t they a lovely little litter? — aren’t they a pretty bag o’ ferrets? — natural as weasels — that’s what I said they should be-bred up like a bunch o’ young foxes, to run as they would.”
Emily had joined Lettie, and they kept aloof from the man they instinctively hated.
“They’ll get nicely trapped, one of these days,” said I. “They’re natural — they can fend for themselves like wild beasts do,” he replied, grinning.
“You are not doing your duty, it strikes me,” put in Leslie sententiously.
“Duties of parents! — tell me, I’ve need of it. I’ve nine — that is eight, and one not far off. She breeds well, the ow’d lass — one every two years — nine in fourteen years — done well, hasn’t she?”
“You’ve done pretty badly, I think.”
“I— why? it’s natural! When a man’s more than nature he’s a devil. Be a good animal, says I, whether it’s man or woman. You, Sir, a good natural male animal; the lady there — a female un-that’s proper as long as yer enjoy it.”
“And what then?”
“Do as th’ animals do. I watch my brats — I let ’em grow. They’re beauties, they are — sound as a young ash pole, every one. They shan’t learn to dirty themselves wi’ smirking deviltry — not if I can help it. They can be like birds, or weasels, or vipers, or squirrels, so long as they ain’t human rot, that’s what I say.”
“It’s one way of looking at things,” said Leslie.
“Ay. Look at the women looking at us. I’m something between a bull and a couple of worms stuck together, I am. See that spink!” he raised his voice for the girls to hear, “Pretty, isn’t he? What for? — And what for do you wear a fancy vest and twist your moustache, Sir!