The White Peacock

in the young days when the valley was lusty. The whole place was gathered in the musing of old age. The thick-piled trees on the far shore were too dark and sobe

ill-race murmured to itself of the tumult

e water from my perch on the

lt, brown eyed, with a naturally fair skin burned dark and freckled in patc

place seemed old, br

le, and lay down on his back on the bank,

a doss. I shall laugh when some

put his hands over his e

you laugh?"

'll be amusi

when he rolled over and began to

isurely fashion, "there was so

ed insects ran round the cluster of eggs, most of which were empty now, the crowns gone; a few young bees staggered about in uncertain flight before they could

poor little bee under a grass stalk, while with

the little be

use he couldn't spread his wings that he couldn't f

in the sun. They're only just out of the

ver, and broke the

ilk from round the dead larva, and investigated it all in a desultory manner, asking of me all I knew about the insects. When h

id he, smiling at me. "I always know whe

nk-bridge that crossed the brow of the falling sluice. The bankside where the grey orcha

lac-bush that had once guarded the porch now almost blocked the doorway. We passed out

he said to me over his shou

iedly snatching the table-cloth out of the table drawer, and his mother, a quaint l

" said he with a s

lly, "it isn't. The fire wouldn't burn a bit

o read a novel. I wanted to go, bu

ll be so glad if you stay,-and fat

l and his moustache. Round and round twirled his thick fingers, and the muscles of his bare arm moved slightly under the red-brown skin. The little square window above him filtered a green light from the foliage of the great horse-chestnut outside and the glimmer fell on his dark hair, and trembled across the plates which Annie was reaching down from the rack, and across the face of the tall clock. The kitchen was very big; the table looked lonely, and the chairs mourned darkly for the lost companionship of the sofa; the chimne

tside, and the father entered. He was a big burly farmer,

ully. "You've not forsaken us

more rows in th

lied George, co

n with 'em. The rabbits has bi

s in the saucepans. At last she deemed the pot

ing of four feet along the brick path, and a little girl entered, followed by her grown-up sister. The child's long brown hair was tossed wildly back beneath her sailor hat. She flung aside this article of her attire and sat down to dinner, talk

his raw meat

who was eating industriously. "Give y

t the vegetables. Her brother re-cha

t pass a body that gravy," said Mollie

ied. "Won't you have

dy of twelve, "I don't expe

exclaimed acr

aid the elder sister

as yourself, I see, since you've had her in Standard Six.

that I tried. There-they are mixed-look at this one, it

apologise to him,"

for her this morning," he said

he knocked a lad across hi

wing with difficulty. "I'm glad I d

ed George, but she woul

her eyes, looked at her daughter, who hung her head

last lot?" asked the mo

xtra," was th

said George, calling, as he looked a

e more sug

and the mother also hurried to the cupboard. Emil

te of teaching, it would c

ly, "I could easily bleed the

e bleating like a fatt

urst of laughter, much to the terror of her mother, who

he said, looking at his yo

e. Soon the two men went back to the fallow to the turnips, and I

ing he does and says," burs

g sometime

th his grand know-all way, and his heavy smartness-I can

you wild

ating with nervous passion. We wal

ght me those v

ten them again. As a matter

u promi

es are. I'm as irrespons

essary. When I left her at the corner of the lane I felt a sting of her

he field where the hot sunshine stood as in a bowl, and I was entering the caverns of the wood, where the oaks bowed over and saved us a grateful shade. Within, everything was so still and cool that my steps hung heavily along the path. The bracken held out arms to me, and the bosom

, dozed in sunlight, and slept profoundly in the shade

ndictive insect buzzing about, now louder, now softer, now settling. Then came a jingling of four or five keys at the bottom of the keyboard o

t was not a bronze silk bosom by poking a fold aside,-had become as thin and tuneless as a dried old woman's. Age had yellowed the teeth of my mother's little piano, and shrunken

with curls like bunches of hops on either side of her face, who was touching it. The coy little tune teased me with old sensations, bu

aying, Bec

other,

plays. I though

e prayer-book, and she singing to you. You can't remember her when her curls was long like a piece of br

rown piano, with her plump, rather stiff fingers moving across the keys, a faint smile on her lips. At

aying the piano! Oh, Little Wo

red if I could just strum out this old tune; I learned it when I was qui

the clinking of lustre glasses, and you look so qu

on my fingers is making me sentimental-you wouldn'

again. "You are young enough to play li

what,

u used t

fty odd years? Where have you been, C

o Strelley M

," said mo

course'?"

s soon as Em went to

d," s

two women. After I had swallo

have me stay

vouchsafed

George found a girl

ll at this rate. Nobody will

an find in any of them to take yo

r," I answered, nettled

ed cub. What can you expect when his mother has spoiled him as she has. But I

looking," said Le

him, I am sure," I said,

ted," she replied

fine hairs that were free from bonds m

all I wear Mat

sk me," repli

all, nearly six feet in height, but slenderly formed. Her hair was yellow, tending towards a d

you going

not an

" I said. She

what you can see in

as good as most folk--" th

hink anything about him. I'm merely goin

ou say if I a

ead. "We shall all be

aid I with

me, blushed, an

h the green hazels. Her path lay through the wood in the opposite direction from Strelley Mill, down the red drive across the tree-scattered space to the highroad. This road ran along the end of our lakelet, Nethermere, for about a quarter of a mile. Nethermere is the lowest in a chain of three ponds. The other two are the upper and lower mill ponds at Strelley: this is the largest and

parasol flowing above. She turned through the wicket under the pine clump, c

ylight, and he felt sorry for poor Nell Wycherley, whom he had driven that morning to the station, for would she not be frightfully cut up as the

ing her watchman ungallantly asleep, and his cigar, instead of his lamp untrimmed, broke off a twig of syringa whose ivory buds had not yet burst with luscious scent. I know not how the end of his

nose?" laughed she-"But

the sensatio

ped your nose you

aid he, ex

lied, smiling to herself

man," he said, afraid tha

him one of those brief intimate glances with which wom