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The Shuttle Chapter 36 - By the Roadside Everywhere · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER XXXVI. BY THE ROADSIDE EVERYWHERE His breakfast and the
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  Speaker 1: talk over it with Penzance seemed good things. It suddenly
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: had become worthwhile to discuss the approaching hop-harvest and the
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  Speaker 1: yearly influx of the hop-pickers from London. Yesterday the subject
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  Speaker 1: had appeared discouraging enough— The great hop-gardens of the estate
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  Speaker 1: had been in times past its most prolific source of
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  Speaker 1: agricultural revenue, and the boast and wonder of the hop-growing county.
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  Speaker 1: The neglect and scant food of the lean years had
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  Speaker 1: cost them their reputation. Each season they had needed smaller
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: bands of hoppers, and their standard had been lowered. It
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  Speaker 1: had been his habit to think of them gloomily, as
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  Speaker 1: of hopeless and irretrievable loss. Because this morning, for a
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  Speaker 1: remote reason, the pulse of life beat strong in him,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: he was taking a new view. Might not study of
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  Speaker 1: the subject, constant attention, and the application of all available
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  Speaker 1: resource to one end, produce appreciable results? The idea presented
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  Speaker 1: itself in the form of a thing worth thinking of.'
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  Speaker 1: It would provide an outlook and give one work to do,'
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  Speaker 1: he put it to his companion.' To have a roof
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  Speaker 1: over one's head, a sound body, and work to do
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  Speaker 1: is not so bad. Such things form the whole of G.
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  Speaker 1: Seldon's cheerful aim.' His spirit is a light within me.
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  Speaker 1: I will walk over and talk to Walter. Walter was
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  Speaker 1: a farmer whose struggle to make ends meet was almost
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  Speaker 1: too much for him. Holdings, whose owners, either through neglect
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  Speaker 1: or lack of money, have failed to do their duty
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  Speaker 1: as landlords in the matter of repairs of farmhouses, outbuildings, fences,
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  Speaker 1: and other things, gradually fall into poor hands. Resourceful and
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  Speaker 1: prosperous farmers do not care to hold lands under unprosperous landlords.
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  Speaker 1: There were farms lying vacant on the Mount Dunstan estate,
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  Speaker 1: There were others whose tenants were uncertain rent-payers or slipshod workers,
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  Speaker 1: or dishonest in small ways. Waste or sale of the
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  Speaker 1: fertilizer which should have been given to the soil as
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  Speaker 1: its due, neglect in the case of things whose decay
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  Speaker 1: meant depreciation of property and expense to the landlord, were dishonesties.
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  Speaker 1: But Mount Dunstan knew that if he turned out thorn
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  Speaker 1: and fiddle, whom no watching could wholly frustrate in their tricks,
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  Speaker 1: under Mount Farm an oak-filled rise would stand empty for
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  Speaker 1: many a year. but for his poverty bolter would have
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  Speaker 1: been a good tenant enough he was in trouble now
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  Speaker 1: because though his hops promised well he faced difficulties in
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  Speaker 1: the matter of pickers last year he had not been
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  Speaker 1: able to pay satisfactory prices in return for labour and
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  Speaker 1: as a result the prospect of securing good workers was
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  Speaker 1: an unpromising one the hordes of men women and children
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  Speaker 1: who flock year after year to the hop growing districts
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  Speaker 1: know each other they learn also which may be called
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  Speaker 1: the good neighbourhoods and which the bad the gardens whose
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  Speaker 1: holders are considered satisfactory as masters, and those who are undesirable.
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  Speaker 1: They know by experience or report where the best huts
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  Speaker 1: are provided, where tents are supplied, and where one must
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  Speaker 1: get along as one can. Generally the regular flocks are
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  Speaker 1: under a captain who gathers his followers each season, manages them,
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  Speaker 1: and looks after their interests and their employers. In some
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  Speaker 1: cases the same captain brings his regiment to the same
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  Speaker 1: gardens year after year, and ends by counting himself as
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  Speaker 1: of the soil and almost of the family of his employer.
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  Speaker 1: Each hard, thick-fogged winter they fight through in their east-end
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  Speaker 1: courts and streets. They look forward to the open-air week
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  Speaker 1: spent between long, narrow, green groves of tall, garlanded poles,
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  Speaker 1: whose wreathings hang thick with fresh and pungent-scented hop-clusters. Children
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  Speaker 1: play op-in in dingy rooms and alleys, and talk to
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  Speaker 1: each other of days when the sun shone hot and
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  Speaker 1: birds were singing and flowers smelling sweet in the hedgerows.
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  Speaker 1: of others when the rain streamed down and made mud
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  Speaker 1: of the soft earth, and yet there was pleasure in
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  Speaker 1: the gypsying life and high cheer in the fire of
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  Speaker 1: sticks built in the field by some bold spirit who
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  Speaker 1: hung over it a tin kettle to boil for tea.
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  Speaker 1: They never forgot the gentry they had caught sight of
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  Speaker 1: riding or driving by on the road, the parson who
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  Speaker 1: came to talk, and the occasional groups of ladies from
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  Speaker 1: the great house who came into the gardens to walk
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  Speaker 1: about and look at the bins and ask queer questions
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  Speaker 1: in their gentry-sounding voices. They never knew anything, and they
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  Speaker 1: always seemed to be entertained. Sometimes there were enterprising laughing
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  Speaker 1: ones who asked to be shown how to strip the
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  Speaker 1: hops into the bins, and after being shown played at
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  Speaker 1: the work for a little while, taking off their gloves
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  Speaker 1: and showing white fingers with rings on. They always looked
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  Speaker 1: as if they had just been washed, and as if
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  Speaker 1: all of their clothes were fresh from the tub, and
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  Speaker 1: when anyone stood near them it was observable that they
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  Speaker 1: smelt nice. Generally they gave pennies to the children before
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  Speaker 1: they left the garden, and sometimes shillings to the women.
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  Speaker 1: The hop-picking was in fact a wonderful blend of work
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  Speaker 1: and holiday combined. Mount Dunstan had liked the hopping from
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  Speaker 1: his first memories of it. He could recall his sensations
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  Speaker 1: of welcoming a renewal of interesting things when season after
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  Speaker 1: season he had begun to mark the early stragglers on
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  Speaker 1: the road. The stragglers were not of the class gathered
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  Speaker 1: under captains, they were derelicts. Tramps who spent their summers
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  Speaker 1: on the highways, and their winters in such workhouses as
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  Speaker 1: would take them in. Tinkers who differ from the tramps
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  Speaker 1: only because sometimes they owned a rickety cart full of
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  Speaker 1: strange household goods, and drunken tenth-hand perambulators piled with dirty
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  Speaker 1: bundles and babies, these last propelled by robust or worn-out
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  Speaker 1: slatternly women who sat by the small roadside fire stirring
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  Speaker 1: the battered pot or tending the battered kettle when resting-time
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  Speaker 1: had come and food must be cooked. Gypsies there were
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  Speaker 1: who had cooking fires also, and hobbled horses cropping the grass.
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  Speaker 1: Now and then appeared a grand one who was rumoured
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  Speaker 1: to be a lee and therefore royal, and who came
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  Speaker 1: and lived regally in a gaily painted caravan. During the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: late summer weeks one began to see slouching figures tramping
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  Speaker 1: along the high road at intervals. These were men who
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  Speaker 1: were old, men who were middle-aged, and some who were young,
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  Speaker 1: all of them more or less dust-grimed, weather-beaten, or ragged.
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  Speaker 1: occasionally one was to be seen in heavy beery slumber
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  Speaker 1: under the hedgerow or lying on the grass smoking lazily
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  Speaker 1: or with painful thrift cobbling up a hole in a
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  Speaker 1: garment such as these were drifting in early that they
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  Speaker 1: might be on the ground when pickers were wanted they
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  Speaker 1: were the forerunners of the regular army on his walk
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  Speaker 1: to westways the farm bolter lived on mount dunstan passed
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  Speaker 1: two or three of these strays they were the usual
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  Speaker 1: flotsam and jetsam but on the roadside near a hop
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  Speaker 1: garden he came upon a group of an aspect so
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  Speaker 1: unusual that it attracted his attention. Its unusualness consisted in
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  Speaker 1: its air of exceeding bustling cheerfulness. It was a domestic
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  Speaker 1: group of the most luckless type, and ragged, dirty, and
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  Speaker 1: worn by an evidently long tramp, might well have been
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  Speaker 1: expected to look forlorn, discouraged, and out of spirits. A
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  Speaker 1: slouching father of five children, one plainly but a few
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  Speaker 1: weeks old, and slung in a dirty shawl at its
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  Speaker 1: mother's breast— an unhealthy-looking slatten mother, two ancient perambulators, one
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  Speaker 1: piled with dingy bundles and cooking utensils, the seven-year-old eldest
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  Speaker 1: girl unpacking things and keeping an eye at the same
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  Speaker 1: time on the two youngest, who were neither of them
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  Speaker 1: old enough to be steady on their feet, the six-year-old
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  Speaker 1: gleefully aiding the slouching father to build the wayside fire,
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  Speaker 1: the mother sat upon the grass nursing her baby and
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  Speaker 1: staring about her with an expression at once stupefied and
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  Speaker 1: illuminated by some temporary bliss. Even the slouching father was grinning,
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  Speaker 1: as if good luck had befallen him, and the two
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  Speaker 1: youngest were tumbling about with squeals of good cheer. This
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  Speaker 1: was not the humour in which such a group usually
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  Speaker 1: dropped wearily on the grass at the wayside to eat
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  Speaker 1: its meagre and uninviting meal and rest its dragging limbs.
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  Speaker 1: As he drew near, Mount Dunstan saw that at the
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  Speaker 1: woman's side there stood a basket full of food and
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  Speaker 1: a can full of milk. Ordinarily he would have passed on,
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  Speaker 1: but perhaps because of the human glow the morning had
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  Speaker 1: brought him he stopped and spoke.' Have you come for
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  Speaker 1: the hopping?' he asked. The man touched his forehead, apparently
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  Speaker 1: not conscious that the grin was yet on his face.' Yes, sir,'
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  Speaker 1: he answered.' How far have you walked?'' A good fifty
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  Speaker 1: miles since we started, sir. Took us a good bit.
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  Speaker 1: We was pretty done up when we stopped here, but
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  Speaker 1: we've had a wonderful piece of good luck,' and his
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  Speaker 1: grin broadened immensely.' I' m glad to hear that,' said Mount Dunstan.
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  Speaker 1: The good luck was plainly of a nature to have
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  Speaker 1: excited them greatly. Chance good luck did not happen to
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  Speaker 1: people like themselves. They were in the state of mind
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  Speaker 1: which in their class can only be relieved by talk.
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  Speaker 1: The woman broke in, her weak mouth and chin quite unsteady.'
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  Speaker 1: Seems like it can't be true, sir,' she said.' I' d
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  Speaker 1: only just come out of the union after this one,'
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  Speaker 1: signifying the new baby at her breast.' I wasn't fit
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  Speaker 1: to drag along day after day.' We had to stop
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  Speaker 1: here because I was near fighting away.' She looked fair
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  Speaker 1: white when she sat down, put in the man, like
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  Speaker 1: she was going off.' And that very minute,' said the woman,'
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  Speaker 1: a young lady comes by an horseback,' and the minute
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  Speaker 1: she sees me she stops her horse and gets down.''
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  Speaker 1: I never seen nothing like the quick way she done it,'
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  Speaker 1: said the husband, 'sharp, like she was a soldier under order,
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  Speaker 1: 'down and gave her bridle to the groom and comes over.''
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  Speaker 1: And kneels down,' the woman took him up,' right by
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  Speaker 1: me and says,' What' s the matter, what can I do?'
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  Speaker 1: and finds out in two minutes and sends to the
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  Speaker 1: farm for some brandy and all this basket full of stuff,
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  Speaker 1: jerking her head toward the treasure at her side, and
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  Speaker 1: gives him, with another jerk towards her mate, money enough
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  Speaker 1: to help us along until I'm fair on my feet.
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  Speaker 1: That quick it was, that quick, passing her hand over
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  Speaker 1: her forehead, as if it wasn't for the basket. With
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  Speaker 1: a nervous, half-hysteric giggle, I wouldn't believe— but what it
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  Speaker 1: was a dream, I wouldn't.' She was a very kind
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  Speaker 1: young lady,' said Mount Dunstan,' and you were in luck.'
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  Speaker 1: He gave a few coppers to the children and strode
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  Speaker 1: on his way. The glow was hot in his heart,
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  Speaker 1: and he held his head high.' She has gone by,'
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  Speaker 1: he said, 'she has gone by.' He knew he should
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  Speaker 1: find her at Westway's farm, and he did so. Slim
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  Speaker 1: and straight as a young birch-tree, and alate with her
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: ride in the morning air, she stood silhouetted in her
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  Speaker 1: black habit against the ancient whitewashed brick porch as she
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  Speaker 1: talked to Bolter.' I have been drinking a glass of
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  Speaker 1: milk and asking questions about hops,' she said, giving him
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  Speaker 1: her hand bare of glove.' Until this year I have
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  Speaker 1: never seen a hop-garden or a hop-picker.' After the exchange
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: of a few words, Bolter respectfully melted away and left
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  Speaker 1: them together. It was such a wonderful day that I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to be out under the sky for a long time,
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  Speaker 1: to ride a long way, she explained. I have been
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  Speaker 1: looking at hop-gardens as I rode. I have watched them
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  Speaker 1: all the summer, from the time when there was only
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  Speaker 1: a little thing with two or three pale green leaves,
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  Speaker 1: looking imploringly all the way up to the top of
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  Speaker 1: each immensely tall hop-pole, from its place in the earth
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  Speaker 1: at the bottom of it. as if it were saying
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  Speaker 1: over and over again under its breath, Can I get
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  Speaker 1: up there? Can I get up? Can I do it
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  Speaker 1: in time? Can I do it in time? Yes, that
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  Speaker 1: was what they were saying, the little bold things. I
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  Speaker 1: have watched them ever since putting out tendrils and taking
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  Speaker 1: hold of the poles and pulling and climbing like little acrobats,
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  Speaker 1: and curling round and unfolding leaves and more leaves, until
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  Speaker 1: at last they threw them out as if they were
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  Speaker 1: beginning to boast that they could climb up to the
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  Speaker 1: blue of the sky if the summer were long enough.
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  Speaker 1: And now look at them. Her hand waved towards the
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  Speaker 1: great gardens, forests of them, cool green pathways and avenues
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: with leaf canopies over them.' You have seen it all,'
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: he said.' You do see things, don't you? A few
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: hundred yards down the road I passed something you'd seen.
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  Speaker 1: I knew it was you who had seen it, though
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  Speaker 1: the poor wretches had not heard your name.' She hesitated
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  Speaker 1: a moment, then stooped down and took up in her
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: hand a bit of pebbled earth from the pathway. There
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: was storm in the blue of her eyes as she
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: held it out for him to look at as it
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: lay on the bare, rose-flesh of her palm.' See,' she said, 'see,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: it is like that, what we give, it is like that,'
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and she tossed the earth away.' It does not seem
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: like that to those others.'' No, thank God, it does not.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: But to oneself it is the mere luxury of self-indulgence.'
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  Speaker 1: and the realisation of it sometimes tempts one to be
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: even a trifle morbid. Don't you see— a sudden thrill in
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: her voice startled him— they are on the roadside everywhere, all
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: over the world. Yes, all over the world. Once, when
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I was a child of ten, I read a magazine
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: article about the suffering millions and the monstrously rich, who
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: were obviously to blame for every starved sob and cry.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: It almost drove me out of my childish senses. I
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: went to my father and threw myself into his arms
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: in a violent fit of crying. I clung to him
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and sobbed out,' Let us give it all away, let
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: us give it all away and be like other people.'
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: What did he say? He said we could never be
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: quite like other people. We had a certain load to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: carry along the highway. It was the thing the whole
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: world wanted and which we ourselves wanted as much as
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the rest, and we could not sanely throw it away.'
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: It was my first lesson in political economy, and I
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: abhorred it. I was a passionate child, and beat furiously
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: against the stone walls in closing present suffering. It was
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: horrible to know that they could not be torn down.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I cried out, When I see anyone who is miserable
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: by the roadside, I shall stop and give him everything
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  Speaker 1: he wants, everything. I was ten years old, and I
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: thought it could be done. But you stop by the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: roadside even now. Yes, that one can do. You are
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: two strong creatures and you draw each other, Penzance had said.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you drew each other across seas, who knows? Coming
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to Westways on a chance errand, he had, as it were,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: found her awaiting him on the threshold. On her part,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: she had certainly not anticipated seeing him there. But when
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: one rides far afield in the sun, there are roads
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: towards which one turns as if answering a summoning call.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and as her horse had obeyed a certain touch of
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the rain, at a certain point her cheek had felt
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: momentarily hot. Until later, when the picking had fairly begun,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the kilns would not be at work, but there was
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: some interest even now in going over the ground for
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the first time.' I have never been inside an Oast-house,'
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: she said.' Bolter is going to show me his and
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: explain technicalities.'' May I come with you?' he asked. There
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: was a change in him. Something had lighted in his
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: eyes since the day before, when he had told her
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: his story of Red Godwin. She wondered what it was.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: They went together over the place escorted by Bolter. They
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: looked into the great circular ovens on whose floors the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: hops would be laid for drying. They mounted ladder-like steps
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to the upper room, where, when dried, the same hops
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: would lie in soft, light piles, until pushed with wooden
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: shovels into the long pokes, to be pressed and packed
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: into a solid, marketable mass. Bolter was allowed to explain
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the technicalities, but it was plain that Mount Dunstan was
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: familiar with all of them, and it was he who,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: with a sentence here and there, gave her the colour
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: of things.' When it is being done, there is nearly
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: always outside a touch of the sharp sweetness of early autumn,'
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: he said.' The sun slanting through the little window falls
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: on the pale yellow heaps, and there is a pungent
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: scent of hops in the air which is rather intoxicating.''
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I' m coming later to see the entire process,' she answered.'
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: It was a mere matter of seeing common things together
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and exchanging common speech concerning them, but each was so
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: strongly conscious of the other that no sentence could seem
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: wholly impersonal. There are times when the whole world is
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: personal to a mood whose intensity seems a reason for
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: all things. Words are of small moment when the mere
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: sound of a voice makes an unreasonable joy. There was
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that touch of sharp autumn sweetness in the air yesterday morning,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: she said, and the chaplets of briony berries that look
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: as if they had been thrown over the hedges are
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: beginning to change to scarlet here and there. The wild
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: rose-horses are reddening, and so are the clusters of berries
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: on the thorn-trees and bushes. There are millions of them,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan said, and in a few weeks' time they
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: will look like bunches of crimson coral. When the sun
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: shines on them they will be wonderful to see. What
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: was there in such speeches as these to draw any
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: two nearer and nearer to each other as they walked
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: side by side, to fill the morning air with an
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: intensity of life, to seem to cause the world to
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: drop away and become as nothing. As they had been
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: isolated during their waltz in the crowded ballroom at Dunham Castle,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: so they were isolated now. When they stood in the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: narrow green groves of the hop-garden, talking simply of the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: placing of the bins, and the stripping and measuring of
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the vines, there might have been no human being within
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: a hundred miles, within a thousand. For the first time
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: his height and strength conveyed to her an impression of
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: physical beauty. His walk and bearing gave her pleasure. When
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: he turned his red-brown eyes upon her suddenly, she was
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: conscious that she liked their colour, their shape, the power
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: of the look in them. On his part he, for
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the twentieth time, found himself newly moved by the dower
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: nature had bestowed on her. Had the world ever held
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: before a woman-creature so much to be longed for, abnormal wealth,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: New York and Fifth Avenue notwithstanding, a man could only
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: think of folding arms around her and whispering in her
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: lovely ear, follies, oaths, prayers, gratitude. And yet, as they
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: went about together, there was growing in Betty Vanderpool's mind
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a certain realisation. It grew in spite of the recognition
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: of the change in him, the new thing lighted in
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: his eyes. Whatsoever he felt, if he felt anything, he
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: would never allow himself speech. How could he? In his
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: place she could not speak herself. Because he was the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: strong thing which drew her thoughts, he would not come
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: to any woman, only to cast at her feet a
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: burden which in the nature of things she must take up.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: And suddenly she comprehended that the mere obstinate Britain in him,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: even apart from greater things, had an immense attraction for her.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: As she liked now the red-brown colour of his eyes,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and saw beauty in his rugged features, so she liked
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: his British stubbornness and the pride which would not be beaten.'
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: It is the unconquerable thing which leads them in their
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: battles' and makes them bear any horror rather than give in.'
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: They have taken half the world with it.' They' re like
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: bulldogs and lions,' she thought.' And I'm glorying in it.''
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Do you know,' said Mount Dunstan,' that sometimes you suddenly
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: fling out the most magnificent flag of colour' as if
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: some splendid flame of thought had set up a blaze?''
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I hope it is not a habit,' she answered.' WHEN
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: ONE HAS A SPLENDID FLARE OF THOUGHT ONE SHOULD BE
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: MODEST ABOUT IT. WHAT WAS THERE WORTH RECORDING IN THE
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: WHOLE HOUR THEY SPENT TOGETHER? OUTWARDLY THERE'D ONLY BEEN A
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: CHANCE MEETING AND A MERE PASSING BY, BUT EACH LEFT
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: SOMETHING WITH THE OTHER, AND EACH LEARNED SOMETHING, AND THE
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: RECORD MADE WAS DEEP. AT LAST SHE WAS ON HER
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: HORSE AGAIN ON THE ROAD OUTSIDE THE WHITE GATE.' THIS
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: MORNING HAS BEEN SO MUCH TO THE GOOD,' HE SAID.'
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I HAD THOUGHT THAT PERHAPS WE MIGHT SCARCELY MEET AGAIN
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: THIS YEAR.' I shall become absorbed in hops, and you
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: will no doubt go away. You will make visits, or
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: go to the Riviera, or to New York for the winter.'
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I do not know yet, but at least I shall
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: stay to watch the thorn-trees load themselves with coral.' To
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: herself she was saying,' He means to keep away. I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: shall not see him.' As she rode off, Mount Dunstan
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: stood for a few moments, not moving from his place.'
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: At a short distance from the farmhouse gate a side
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: lane opened upon the highway, and as she canted in
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: its direction a horseman turned in from it, a man
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: who was young and well-dressed, and who sat well a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: spirited animal. He came out upon the road almost face
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to face with Miss Vanderpool, and from where he stood
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan could see his delighted smile as he lifted
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: his hat in salute. It was Lord Westholt, and what
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: more natural than that after an exchange of greetings the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: two should ride together on their way. For nearly three
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: miles their homeward road would be the same. But in
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a breath's space Mount Dunstan realized a certain truth, a
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: simple elemental thing. All the exaltation of the morning swooped
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and fell as a bird seems to swoop and fall
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: through space. It was all over and done with, and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: he understood it. His normal awakening in the morning, the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: physical and mental elation of the first clear hours, the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: spring of his foot as he had trod the road,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: had all had but one meaning. In some occult way
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the hypnotic talk of the night before had formed itself
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: into a reality, fantastic and unreasoning as it had been.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Some insistent inner consciousness had seized upon and believed it
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: in spite of him, and set all his waking being
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: in tune to it. That was the explanation of his
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: undue spirits and hope. If Penzance had spoken a truth,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: he would have had a natural, sane right to feel
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: all this and more. but the truth was that he,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: in his guise, was one of those who are on
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the roadside everywhere, all over the world. Poetically figurative as
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the thing sounded, it was prosaic fact. So, still hearing
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the distant sounds of the hooves beating in cheerful diminuendo
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: on the roadway, he turned and went back to talk
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to Bolter. End of chapter 36