“A good fifty miles since we started, sir. It took us a good bit. We was pretty done up when we stopped here. But we’ve ‘ad a wonderful piece of good luck.” And his grin broadened immensely.
“I am glad to hear that,” said Mount Dunstan. The good luck was plainly of a nature to have excited them greatly. Chance good luck did not happen to people like themselves. They were in the state of mind which in their class can only be relieved by talk. The woman broke in, her weak mouth and chin quite unsteady.
“Seems like it can’t be true, sir,” she said. “I’d only just come out of the Union—after this one,” signifying the new baby at her breast. “I wasn’t fit to drag along day after day. We ‘ad to stop ‘ere ‘cos I was near fainting away.”
“She looked fair white when she sat down,” put in the man. “Like she was goin’ off.”
“And that very minute,” said the woman, “a young lady came by on ‘orseback, an’ the minute she sees me she stops her ‘orse an’ gets down.”
“I never seen nothing like the quick way she done it,” said the husband. “Sharp, like she was a soldier under order. Down an’ give the bridle to the groom an’ comes over”
“And kneels down,” the woman took him up, “right by me an’ says, `What’s the matter? What can I do?’ an’ finds out in two minutes an’ sends to the farm for some brandy an’ all this basketful of stuff,” jerking her head towards the treasure at her side. “An’ gives ‘IM,” with another jerk towards her mate, “money enough to ‘elp us along till I’m fair on my feet. That quick it was—that quick,” passing her hand over her forehead, “as if it wasn’t for the basket,” with a nervous, half-hysteric giggle, “I wouldn’t believe but what it was a dream—I wouldn’t.”
“She was a very kind young lady,” said Mount Dunstan, “and you were in luck.”
He gave a few coppers to the children and strode on his way. The glow was hot in his heart, and he held his head high.
“She has gone by,” he said. “She has gone by.”
He knew he should find her at West Ways Farm, and he did so. Slim and straight as a young birch tree, and elate with her ride in the morning air, she stood silhouetted in her black habit against the ancient whitewashed brick porch as she talked to Bolter.
“I have been drinking a glass of milk and asking questions about hops,” she said, giving him her hand bare of glove. “Until this year I have never seen a hop garden or a hop picker.”
After the exchange of a few words Bolter respectfully melted away and left them together.
“It was such a wonderful day that I wanted to be out under the sky for a long time—to ride a long way,” she explained. “I have been looking at hop gardens as I rode. I have watched them all the summer—from the time when there was only a little thing with two or three pale green leaves looking imploringly all the way up to the top of each immensely tall hop pole, from its place in the earth at the bottom of it— as if it was saying over and over again, under its breath, `Can I get up there? Can I get up? Can I do it in time? Can I do it in time?’ Yes, that was what they were saying, the little bold things. I have watched them ever since, putting out tendrils and taking hold of the poles and pulling and climbing like little acrobats. And curling round and unfolding leaves and more leaves, until at last they threw them out as if they were beginning to boast that they could climb up into the blue of the sky if the summer were long enough. And now, look at them!” her hand waved towards the great gardens. “Forests of them, cool green pathways and avenues with leaf canopies over them.”
“You have seen it all,” he said. “You do see things, don’t you? A few hundred yards down the road I passed something you had seen. I knew it was you who had seen it, though the poor wretches had not heard your name.”
She hesitated a moment, then stooped down and took up in her hand a bit of pebbled earth from the pathway. There was storm in the blue of her eyes as she held it out for him to look at as it lay on the bare rose-flesh of her palm.
“See,” she said, “see, it is like that—what we give. It is like that.” And she tossed the earth away.
“It does not seem like that to those others.”
“No, thank God, it does not. But to one’s self it is the mere luxury of self-indulgence, and the realisation of it sometimes tempts one to be even a trifle morbid. Don’t you see,” a sudden thrill in her voice startled him, “they are on the roadside everywhere all over the world.”
“Yes. All over the world.”
“Once when I was a child of ten I read a magazine article about the suffering millions and the monstrously rich, who were obviously to blame for every starved sob and cry. It almost drove me out of my childish senses. I went to my father and threw myself into his arms in a violent fit of crying. I clung to him and sobbed out, `Let us give it all away; let us give it all away and be like other people!’ “
“What did he say?”
“He said we could never be quite like other people. We had a certain load to carry along the highway. It was the thing the whole world wanted and which we ourselves wanted as much as the rest, and we could not sanely throw it away. It was my first lesson in political economy and I abhorred it. I was a passionate child and beat furiously against the stone walls enclosing present suffering. It was horrible to know that they could not be torn down. I cried out, `When I see anyone who is miserable by the roadside I shall stop and give him everything he wants—everything!’ I was ten years old, and thought it could be done.”
“But you stop by the roadside even now.”
“Yes. That one can do.”
“You are two strong creatures and you draw each other,” Penzance had said. “Perhaps you drew each other across seas. Who knows?”
Coming to West Ways on a chance errand he had, as it were, found her awaiting him on the threshold. On her part she had certainly not anticipated seeing him there, but—when one rides far afield in the sun there are roads towards which one turns as if answering a summoning call, and as her horse had obeyed a certain touch of the rein at a certain point her cheek had felt momentarily hot.
Until later, when the “picking” had fairly begun, the kilns would not be at work; but there was some interest even now in going over the ground for the first time.
