"Yes, my lady."It was David who drew William's attention to the woman sitting at the other end of their seat. David piqued himself on his knowledge of the world.Fate, having thus generously given him a start, continued to encourage him in the race he was running against her. On the way to Rye he fell in with Bertie Ditch. Bertie was going to marry a girl up at [Pg 162]Brightling, and Robert found that there was nothing easier than to discuss with him the ways and means of marriage. From his ravings on his marriage in particular precious information with regard to marriage in general could be extracted. Oh, yes, he had heard of fellows who got married by licence, but banns were more genteel, and he didn't doubt but that a marriage by banns was altogether a better and more religious sort. He and Nellie, etc., etc.... Oh, he didn't think a licence cost much��two or three pounds, and an ordinary wedding by banns would cost quite as much as that; when one had paid for the choir and the ringers and the breakfast. Now he and Nellie ... oh, of course, if you were in a hurry��yes; but anyhow he thought one of the parties must live a week or so in the parish where the marriage was to take place.
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ONE:He had struck the path that ran by the bottom of the garden, and swaggered along it with the seaman's peculiar rolling gait, accentuated by strong liquor. Caro felt him coming nearer, and told herself uneasily that she had better go back into the house. He was drunk, and he might speak to her. Still she did not move, she found herself clinging to the gate, leaning her breast against it, while her tongue felt thick and dry in her mouth.
THREE:Reuben was strangely silent on the walk home. His mother made one or two small remarks which passed unheeded. She noticed that his arm, on which her hand lay, was very tense.
"And so there is, child��but I am old; and the aged, as well as the young, love to be talking. Stephen, you must bear with your mother."They met on the further side of the fir clump, on the edge of Grandturzel's inclosure. Here Tilly would sit under a gorse-bush with her sewing, while young Realf lay along the grass at her feet. They did not talk much, for Tilly was busy, and generally had her mouth full of pins; but Realf's manhood worshipped her as she sat there, her delicious head bowed, and stains of sunshine, with sprinkled gorse-petals, in her hair. He loved her little determined chin, and the sweet smudge of freckles on her nose. Love filled their simplest actions, kindled their simplest words; it dreamed in their eyes and laughed on their lips; its silences linked them closer than the most passionate embraces."No," replied Margaret: "he would have found some means of getting to the forest; but they hold the villeins bound for him��if he flies, all they possess of crops or cattle will be seized. But here is Stephen. I was just going over the hill to meet him, when I saw you."Reuben opened the door, and the welcome, longed-for smell stole out to him��smothering the rivalry of a clump of chrysanthemums, rotting in dew.
