Precious Bane quotes

“OPEN THE GATES AS WIDE AS THE SKY”

IT was at a love-spinning that I saw Kester first.

And if, in these new-fangled days, when strange inventions crowd upon us, when I hear tell there is even a machine coming into use in some parts of the country for reaping and mowing, if those that mayhappen will read this don’t know what a …

Kester’s very set about such things. Never will he say caterpillars. He’ll say, “There’s a lot of butterflies-as-is-to-be on our cabbages, Prue.”

He won’t say “It’s winter.” He’ll say, “Summer’s sleeping.”

And there’s no bud little enough nor sad-coloured enough for Kester not to callen it the beginnings of the blow.

Only in our oak wood there was always a look of the back-end of the year, their young leaves being so brown.

So there was always a breath of October in our May.

But it was a pleasant thing to sit in the meadows and look away to the far hills.

The larches spired up in their quick green, and the cowslip gold seemed to get into your heart, and even Sarn Mere was nothing but a blue mist in a yellow mist of birch-tops.

And there was such a dream on the place that if a wild bee came by, let alone a bumble, it startled you like a shout.

If a bee comes in at the window now to my jar of gillyflowers, I can see it all in clear colours, with Plash lying under the sunset, beyond the woods, looking like a jagged piece of bottle glass.

… not many great ladies, even, that could do much more scribing than to write a love-letter, and some could but just write such things as “This be quince and apple” on their jellies, and others had ado to put their names in the marriage register.

Many have come to me, time and again, to write their love-letters for them, and a bitter old task it is, to write other women’s love-letters out of your own burning heart.

If it hadna been for Mister Beguildy I never could have written down all these things. He learned me to read and write, and reckon up figures.

He said the past and the future were two shuttles in the hands of the Lord, weaving Eternity. Kester was a weaver himself, which may have made him think of it thus. But I think we cannot know what the past and the future are.

We are so small and helpless on the earth that is like a green rush cradle where mankind lies, looking up at the stars, but not knowing what they be.

As soon as I could write, I made a little book with a calico cover, and every Sunday I wrote in it any merry time or good fortune we had had in the week, and so kept them.

And seemingly the lightning got into his blood. He could tell when tempest brewed, long afore it came, and it is said that when a storm broke, the wildfire played about him so none could come near him.

Sarns have the lightning in their blood since his day.

I wonder sometimes whether it be a true tale, or whether it’s too old to be true. It used to seem to me sometimes as if Sarn was too old to be true.

There was Tivvy with her father, coming from the East Coppy, and Jancis in the flat water-meadows where the big thorn hedges were all in blow.

Jancis was a little thing, not tall like me, but you always saw her before you saw other people, for it seemed that the light gathered round her.

She’d got golden hair, and all the shadows on her face seemed to be stained with the pale colour of it. I was used to think she was like a white water-lily full of yellow pollen or honey.

When they were a long way off you could scarcely disentangle them from all the other birds, for there was a regular charm of them, thrushes and willow-wrens, seven-coloured linnets, canbottlins, finches, and writing-maisters.

It was a weaving of many threads, with one maister-thread of clear gold, a very comfortable thing to hear.

I thought maybe love was like that—a lot of coloured threads, and one maister-thread of pure gold.

It was a weaving of many threads, with one maister-thread of clear gold, a very comfortable thing to hear.

I thought maybe love was like that—a lot of coloured threads, and one maister-thread of pure gold.

The attic was close under the thatch, and there were many nests beneath the eaves, and a continual twittering of swallows.

Only this was not of the day, but of summat beyond it. I cared not to ask what it was.

For when the nut-hatch comes into her own tree, she dunna ask who planted it, nor what name it bears to men.

For the tree is all to the nut-hatch, and this was all to me. Afterwards, when I had mastered the reading of the book, I read—

There was a great wooden bolt on the door, and I was used to fasten it, though there was no need, for the attic was such a lost-and-forgotten place nobody ever came there but the travelling weaver, and Gideon in apple harvest, and me.

Nobody would ever think of looking for me there, and it was parlour and church both to me.

The roof came down to the floor all round, and all the beams and rafters were oak, and the floor went up and down like stormy water. The apples and pears had their places according to kind all round the room.

I fell to thinking how all this blessedness of the attic came through me being curst. For if I hadna had a hare-lip to frighten me away into my own lonesome soul, this would never have come to me.

The apples would have crowded all in vain to see a marvel, for I should never have known the glory that came from the other side of silence.

Even while I was thinking this, out of nowhere suddenly came that lovely thing, and nestled in my heart, like a seed from the core of love.

IN telling this story I take little count of time.

For when the heart is in stress, what is time?

It is nought. Does the bridegroom, that has clemmed for his love a long while, hearken to the watchman’s voice telling over the hastening hours?

It wouldna have come so hard to me, if it hadna been all for the money, if I could have been a bit house-proud, and if Gideon had taken a pride in fettling the farm. But there was none of that.

It was just scrat and scrape to get the money out of the place and be off.

I grew as lanky as a clothes prop, and Mother began to show signs of wringing her hands about that too.

But Gideon would only laugh when I questioned him, and stroke his chin, and look at me warily.

There was no doubt he was a very comely man, and it used to seem to me unfair that it was me, and not Gideon, that was born after the hare looked at Mother.

For Gideon could have grown what they call a moustachio and looked very well, and none need have known he’d got a hare-shotten lip. But with me it was past hiding.

I was used to envy the fat thrushes hopping on the lawn.

It drew me as heaven draws the poor sinner, weary of his miry wanderings.

So to-day, as we rode by, I said—

There was the smithy too, where the little boys crowded after Dame-School every winter dusk, begging to warm their hands and roast chestnuts and taters.

It was a pleasant thing to see the sparks go up, roaring, and to feel the hearty glow about you, warming you to the heart’s core, with nothing to pay or to do, like love.

Near by the smithy was the row of little cottages where was the weaver’s. Like the tailor, he went abroad over the countryside in summer, and sometimes to a village in winter, if it was open weather.

One window would shine for a minute and then go black, and another shine. It had a very strange, uncontented look, wandering like that.

There’s nothing so contented as a steadfast light, but a flickering light going to and agen in a void is a sad thing to see.

It went on like that a long time, and the cold strengthened. There was no sound at all. We stood there like beggars outside the gate, and the unquiet light wandered in the dark. All of a sudden it went out.

“It was but the housekeeper looking for her knitting-needles or old Camperdine seeking his snuff-box. And now they’ve found it, they’ve douted the light. Very sensible too.”

“No!” I said. “No! It was love, lad, wanting to steady and shine. But the house was too much for it. The dark’s closed in now. The light’s douted.”

And I began to cry, which was a foolish thing to do. But Gideon wasna so angered as he met have been, for he was in a good temper about the oxen and the house.

I never meant to go furder than a bit of fun. I didna reckon to marry, nor yet I didna mean lawless love. I meant fair by Jancis, and so long as we had our Sunday evenings it was all right.

When there’s no gainsaying there’s no burning in the blood. Gainsay, and the blood’s on fire.

Afore old Beguildy found us out we were contented enow and as innicent as two pinks on a stem.”

“Dear to goodness, what a God Almighty!” I says, mocking a bit, though I knew he could ha’ done it if he’d a mind.

He was ever a strong man, which is almost the same, times, as to say, a man with little time for kindness.

For if you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. So when folk tell me of this great man and that great man, I think to myself, Who was stinted of joy for his glory?

I says, mocking a bit, though I knew he could ha’ done it if he’d a mind. He was ever a strong man, which is almost the same, times, as to say, a man with little time for kindness.

For if you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path.

So when folk tell me of this great man and that great man, I think to myself, Who was stinted of joy for his glory? How many old folk and children did his coach wheels go over?

He was ever a strong man, which is almost the same, times, as to say, a man with little time for kindness. For if you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path.

So when folk tell me of this great man and that great man, I think to myself, Who was stinted of joy for his glory?

How many old folk and children did his coach wheels go over? What bridal lacked his song, and what mourner his tears, that he found time to climb so high?

For if you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. So when folk tell me of this great man and that great man, I think to myself, Who was stinted of joy for his glory?

How many old folk and children did his coach wheels go over?

What bridal lacked his song, and what mourner his tears, that he found time to climb so high?

But on New Year’s Day I went, and, as I ever liked to pay first, I took the oxen straight away to the field I was ploughing for Beguildy.

He couldna abide ploughing, so for every lesson I did so many furrows.

I could plough nearly as well as most men, though not so well as Gideon. He drove the straightest furrow I ever saw. It was impossible to him to do anything ill.

… the tall hedges with meadowsweet below, the woods and the hills and the sweet blue air with larks hanging in it as if them above had let them down on threads, and shaking so with their joyful song that they threatened to break their threads.

Not a bit did they care who won the prize, nor which of them sang best or loudest, so long as all sang, so long as none lacked nest or cropful, drink of dew and space to sing in.

These things I thought while I was ploughing the five-acre field at Plash with the white oxen, that looked yellow in the deathly white of the hoar-frost which lay over the earth like a shroud, though not too hard for ploughing.

It was a fine fresh morning with a damp wind full of the scent of our ricks.

There’s no scent like it for bringing summer in winter.

When I smell it now I see the long gleamy waves of grass like green silk, and the big red clover bobs, and corncrakes running low in the thick grass, dark with dew.

HOW did he look? What like was he? Was he well-favoured? It be hard to say. There are no looks in love, no outward seeming, no telling over of features.

When you are but a moth in the candle of his eye, can you tell his stature, or if he be dark or fair?

Did Magdalene, that was like Felena, know, when she lay at the feet of the only man she ever loved yet never loved, whether the carpenter’s Son featured His mother or not, whether He was big or little in stature?

Shall we know, when we be come into His presence that made us, what outward seeming His majesty has? No.

Only our hearts will tremble in the light.

I could never tell you how he looked as he stood there; but I can tell you how the women looked that glassed him.

HOW did he look? What like was he? Was he well-favoured? It be hard to say.

There are no looks in love, no outward seeming, no telling over of features.

When you are but a moth in the candle of his eye, can you tell his stature, or if he be dark or fair?

I hoped their mother wouldna get to know, and slipper them again, for they’d saved me from being seen. I couldna bear that he should see me, for fear of a cold look, or scorn.

I’d liefer stay down-under, like the daffadily, lest the weather be winterly.

For if she too eagerly comes up, desirous of the sun, she can but stand and shudder in the bitter frost, torn by the fangs of the winds. So she has lost her warmship, and yet hanna won through to summer.

“Who sews yer buttons on?”

“I do for myself, my dears, and my thoughts be my company.”

He looked round very contented, and I could see he was thankful that none of all these women had a right to come over his door-sill.

Such things were first said in idleness or mischief or to scare children, and then, in the loneliness of old farms, full of creakings and meanings on windy nights, they grew.

And none can tell what such things will grow into at long last, nor what harm they may do.

I didna like it much when Felena took his name on her lips, for all on a sudden it was a precious name to me. And it seemed to me then, as it ever has, that he was not a man to speak of lightly.

As I sat down I twisted the words of Felena in my mind, and said in the deeps of myself—

“Not a man to gamble for. A man to die for.”

We gave our minds to the game, and the four girls having been sent into the yard, the room was as silent as a dream.

Though my hands were hard and chapped and my face red and coarsened with weather, I should be, while I thought upon him I loved, a flower and the petal of a flower.

For love is a May-dew that can turn the swartest woman to a Jancis.

And though I had but the shadow of it, yes!

“Amna I working for that? Inna she going to have maids and men, the best of good things, a pew in church, and real chaney to eat off?”

“Ah! In the years to come, if she lasts. But she met not. It be now that matters.”

“There’s nought ails Mother. She can go on very well. She gets good air minding pigs, and she can croodle over the fire after dark, to ease the rheumatics.”

“Book?” he says. “Why, no, I see no book. But I see a plenty of good land running to waste, as might be under corn.”

So we see in the script of God what we’ve a mind to see, and nought else.

We came beneath a wild pear tree in early blow, and it put me in mind of Jancis.

Then it came over me on a sudden that I should see the mind of Kester Woodseaves in those letters as open as the sky. I should know him as if I lived along of him.

For it inna by the deal that’s said, but by what’s in the things said, that you can know a person.

Just as it inna the extra length or breadth of a gown that keeps you warm, but the quality of the stuff. In all he wrote, I’d find him.

In all he wrote, I’d find him. For you canna write a word, even, but you show yourself—in the word you choose, and the shape of the letters, and whether you write tall or short, plain or flourished.

It’s a game of I spy and there’s nowhere to hide.

I thought how Mister Woodseaves would go tramping home, pleased to ha’ done a kindness, and very pleased to be unlocking his own door, lighting his own fire, and keeping himself to himself.

It’s a game of I spy and there’s nowhere to hide. I thought how Mister Woodseaves would go tramping home, pleased to ha’ done a kindness, and very pleased to be unlocking his own door, lighting his own fire, and keeping himself to himself.

And all the while he’d have showed himself to me, let me into the house of his mind, bid me to sit down by the fire of his great kindness.

“He brought me to his noble house.

I used to wonder how they felt, poor folk, going jogging along in the evening, back where they came from. I was glad I worked at whome, and had no need to go and be hired, for certain sure nobody ud have taken me.

It was a bitter thought, that.

The market-place was emptying fast, for the people were getting some refreshment afore the bull-baiting. But I’d still got some daffodillies to sell, and Gideon didna like anything to go back.

Never could I be let to get away from my misfortune. Here I sat, as peaceful as could be, till she must come up and say that. “A great affliction.” But afore she said it I’d forgotten it, so I hadna got it.

I was out of the cage till she put me in again.

I was vexed, and the tears stood in my eyes.

He looked up, and came our way.

What did I do, I, that knew his smile was my summer?

Why, I got up so hasty that I upset the daffodillies. I left all our baskets and butter-cloths, and the jam-pots for flowers, and I ran from the place as if summat was after me.

He had ever a very out-of-the-ornary voice.

It was like as if, when he spoke, the sound of the speaking made the world new for itself, not caring about the old world.

It was like a wide, blossomy thorn-tree on a sweltering day in early June. You could sit down under it and rest you.

“Who be she?” he says.

And even though it be only a passing thought and three words, I’m a flower that knows the sun.

“Why, her be Sarn’s sister from away yonder at the mere. Prue Sarn. The woman with the hare-shotten lip. A very queer creature. But it makes ’em queer, you mind, to be born the like of that. Some say she’s a bit of a witch.”

The bull-ring was well beyond the town, in a green meadow where a brook ran.

And though if you’d gone a-walking in that green meadow any other day in the year, to gather lilies or forget-me-nots, or to walk beside the water, folk would have thought it a soft thing to do, it was all right and proper to-day, because they were going to kill a creature there.

The people in the road never noticed me, in my plain black, with my face hid in my bonnet.

I wonder to myself, times, if it was fair, clear weather on Golgotha when Mary looked up at the cross, and whether there was some small bird singing, and the bees busy in the clover. Ah! I think it was glass-clear weather, and bright.

For no bitter lacked in that cup, and surely one of the bitterest things is to see the cruelty of man on some fair morning with blessing in it.

AS I came nearer I saw that, as the custom was, not only all the women of Lullingford were there, but all the children as well.

“Why, you’d make ’em as soft as ’ool,” he said. “They mun be brave and well-plucked.”

I said I couldna see that it was soft not to like to see a cruel deed, and that it seemed to me to be braver not to like seeing another’s pain.

“Well, well, we canna make the world, for it’s made already,” says Gideon.

I said I couldna see that it was soft not to like to see a cruel deed, and that it seemed to me to be braver not to like seeing another’s pain.

“Well, well, we canna make the world, for it’s made already,” says Gideon.

There it all was, then, the crowd, the shouting and betting, the yapping and snarling of the dogs, people elbowing and pushing, men crying hot taters and chestnuts, apples, spiced ale, and gingerbread, children in their white pinnies watching the bull, very skeered, for it …

And something drove me on, so that I must seek him in the crowd, and keep nigh him, as if I was his angel for that day.

A poor angel, but God minds not much, I think, what like His angels be, so that they do His work proper.

The shepherd’s collie that runs home to warn the missus that her man has fallen down the rock, is his angel sure enough, though he may be a mongrel of the very worst, with ears as flat as a spaniel.

He wore no beard nor whiskers, so you could see the shape and colour and the lines of all his face, which seemed to me to be a face you could never tire of looking on.

Times I wonder if heaven will be thus, a long gazing on a face you canna tire of, but must ever have one more glimpse.

He had a kind of arrowy look, so that though Huglet towered over him, he seemed to tower over Huglet. He looked round about and said—

Mister Grimble looked down at the trampled grass for all the world as if he was reading the words there.

“What’s it matter if they enjoy it or not? I enjoy it!” says Huglet. “That’s enough, inna it?”

The other men drew round. For though it was the ordinary thing to hear Mister Huglet shouting fit to burst, it was out of the common to hear him shouting so long at one person.

“Got ye there, me lad!” he shouted. And Grimble said—

“You may love the dumb creatures ooth yer purse, but ye wunna go so far as to love em ooth yer own blood!”

“Go on with the baiting!” orders Mister Huglet.

But one thing I was determined on, I’d keep nigh him, and when he was down I’d rush in and drag him away, and if Grimble interfered it ud be the worse for un.

There’s none so fierce as a loving woman, and it always seemed a strange thing to me that the Mother of Jesus could keep her hands off the centurion, and it could only have been because her Son had given orders afore.

But indeed if it had been me, I think I should have forgot the orders.

Bingo stopped, looked at Towler as much as to say he’d made a mistake, and ran to Kester as pleased as Punch, wagging tail and fawning round.

“We be friends, binna we?” says Kester.

Towler gave a curse, and Huglet looked as black as night. But nobody could say it wunna fair and square, and some of the better sort laughed and said, “Good for you, lad!”

“Nay, Prue Sarn, you be nought but his angel, and a poor daggly sort of angel, too.”

And all the blue bird’s eye in the hedge banks went into a mist of tears as I ran, and looked no more like flowers, but like a blue tide of sorrow to drown me.

I MAY say I went over the distance to the town quicker than it’s been done this long while. I hid the carving-knife in the hedge, for fear of tripping over it.

And there is a touch of truth in it, maybe more than a touch. We went on and on, through country that was neither hilly nor flat, in a night neither dark nor gleamy, feeling neither glad nor sorry.

I thought we were like people bound for some place beyond the world that was neither hell nor heaven.

Our six heads, counting the nag’s, all nid-nodded, and I think we were all asleep, even the old coach horse, when the miller spoke, out of his sleep, I do believe.

Which is all a very strange mystery, and so we must leave it. But it being so, I think we do wrongly to blame ill-doers too hardly.

It is a dreadful fate to be obleeged to act in a curst ugly way, when surely none would choose it.

“Needs be that offences come.” How should Gabriel show his skill with a two-edged sword if Lucifer wouldna fight? “But woe be to him by whom they come.” Ah!

But if we be chosen for a pleasant, merry part, how thankful we ought to be, giving great praise, and helping those less fortunate, and even being grateful to that poor mommet which goeth about night and day to work our destruction.

For it might have been the other way.

And maybe if all of his mind had been used proper, he wouldna have brought ruination on hisself as he did. Ah! And on more than hisself. But that we cannot know.

We are His mommets that made us, I do think.

He takes us from the box, whiles, and saith, “Dance now!” or maybe it must bow, or wave a hand or fall down in a swound. Then He puts it back in box, for the part is played.

When I’d tucked her in, she catched my hand.

“Prue, should you care if he’d got but one leg, or one arm, or was all pitted with the smallpox?”

“Care, Mother?” I cried out all in a minute and never thinking, “of course I shouldna care. I should love un the more for it!”

“Care, Mother?” I cried out all in a minute and never thinking, “of course I shouldna care. I should love un the more for it!”

“I knowed you did, my dear,” says Mother, very contented. “I knowed you loved the man. And I’m right glad of it. Now, dunna you hide from him, Prue. Be well plucked and risk all, like a good player in the game of Costly Colours.”

“No, no! Never will I. Oh, Mother, it was unkind in you to catch me like that!”

So she’d only Missis Grimble, that was a driver and a scold, and Mister Grimble, that was very awkward in bad weather, because of the rheumatics. I used to think of her a deal.

For if you thought of anybody at Sarn, you thought of them a deal, it being so quiet, especially in the winter, and time standing still, so it seemed.

And whenever I thought of Jancis I called to mind a thing I saw once in June, when we had strange untoërt weather and a deal of tempest and sleat, which one day for about an hour turned to snow.

I went to the door to listen if he’d finished chopping, and I could hear the axe barking, and the echo of it coming from across the mere. The trees were mounded up with snow, and the mere frozen till near the middle.

The woods, as white as sugar, stood round the water so still, as if they were spelled, like folk in some old tale of witchcraft, so deep they were in trusses and bales of snow, and not a breath stirring.

You couldna call summer to mind. You couldna think of the mere with lilies on it, and ripples.

“Draw up now and take bite and sup. Then you can tell us all about it, and then I’ll write.”

I knew it would do her good to tell it. For when you’ve come through a bad time, to tell of it takes the thorn out.

So she told us how she’d timed it to get to Lullingford on market day and ask Gideon to bring her back, but took the wrong road in the hills, all looking the same in the snow, and wandered far out of the way, and …

“If you mean, maybe Gideon’ll want to get wed, I say, in my own good time and not afore. I’ve told Jancis if it’s a good harvest and we do well I’ll be willing to get wed at Harvest Home. And she’s willing as well.”

“I’m right glad. Loving’s never too early. And if you be fond of a girl, you mun want her to be in your house, by fireside and table, indoors and out.”

I was thinking of a little house not twenty miles away, as different as could be from ours, and one in it as was a very obstinate bachelor, and didna want any woman there, let alone poor Prue Sarn.

“Ah, well, there’s summat new I want to learn, but I dunno if it’s in the books.”

“It’s an old ancient charm, Missis Beguildy, and it’s called content.”

“Oh, that! It’s in no book of hisn.”

I make no doubt that if any read this book it will seem strange to them that a farm woman should look at the things about her in this wise, and indeed it is not many do.

But when you dwell in a house you mislike, you will look out of window a deal more than those that are content with their dwelling.

So I, finding my own person and my own life not to my mind, took my pleasure where I could. There were things I waited for as a wench waits for her sweetheart at the edge of the forest.

But when you dwell in a house you mislike, you will look out of window a deal more than those that are content with their dwelling.

So I, finding my own person and my own life not to my mind, took my pleasure where I could.

There were things I waited for as a wench waits for her sweetheart at the edge of the forest.

… was used to tell Gideon that if he took dog’s leave or did other mischief the devil would take needle to him and use the dragon-flies to sew up his ears, so he couldna hear the comfortable word of God and would come to damnation.

But I could never believe that the devil could have power over such a fair thing as a dragon-fly.

That was the best time of year for our lake, when in the still, hot noons the water looked so kind, being of a calm, pale blue, that you would never think it could drown anybody.

When they were buds, they were like white and gold birds sleeping, head under wing, or like summat carven out of glistering stone, or, as I said afore, they were like gouts of pale wax.

But when they were come into full blow they wunna like anything but themselves, and they were so lovely you couldna choose but cry to see them.

The yellow ones had more of a spread of petals, having five or six apiece, but the white ones opened their four wider and each petal was bigger.

And as if they were not enough to shake your soul, there beneath every lily, white and green or pale gold, was her bright shadow, as it had been her angel.

And through the long, untroubled day the lilies and their angels looked one upon the other and were content.

There were plenty of dragon-flies about, both big and little.

Then began the wrostling, and the travail to get free, first its legs, then its shoulders and soft wrinkled wings. It was like a creature possessed, seeming to fall into a fit, times, and, times, to be struck stiff as a corpse.

Just afore the end, it stayed a long while still, as if it was wondering whether it durst get quite free in a world all new.

Then it gave a great heave and a kind of bursting wrench and it was out.

“The damsel fly, coming out of its shroud.”

“Once out,” he says, “they’re out for good. It costs a deal to get free. But once free, they never fold their wings.”

“No,” I said, “and some of ’em go so high, I think, times, they might flitter right into heaven.”

“No,” I said, “and some of ’em go so high, I think, times, they might flitter right into heaven.”

“We’d all like to do that, I’ll be bound, if we could choose our heaven. I’m not very choice of golden streets myself. And I’d like my heaven afore I die.”

“And what ud it be?” I asked him. I was so interested, I declare I’d clean forgot my curse.

“Oh! Well, what is it?”

“I said as I’d thought of it, Mister Woodseaves. But my thoughts be my own.”

He laughed. Then he says—

“Well,” he said, “there’s a tuthree people know you, Prue. And there’s few know you and dunna love you. And I expect I’ve been leasing in their hearts a bit. And I think there’s not much that I dunna know about you, Prue.”

There was rest in that saying.

And oh, the summer in his voice, then and always! I forgot the time and all. Yes, indeed to goodness, I forgot milking time!

Then I thought, seeing the lilies looking at their angels, how I’d called myself Kester’s angel at the baiting.

“Why, it was only that I was your angel for that day,” I said at long last. “A poor daggly angel too.”

“If you’re ever wanting an angel’s situation, you can send to me for a written character,” he said, and though his words were merry, his eyes were as grave as grave could be.

“Why, it was only that I was your angel for that day,” I said at long last. “A poor daggly angel too.”

“If you’re ever wanting an angel’s situation, you can send to me for a written character,” he said, and though his words were merry, his eyes were as grave as grave could be.

And then, as we said good night and I turned home, he called out after me—“Not so daggly, neither!”

It was very early when the waggons began to roll into the fold, with a solemn gladsome sound, and each with its own pair of horses or oxen. Each farmer brought his own men and his own waggon, and sometimes he brought two.

The teams were decked out with ribbons and flowers, and some had a motto as well, such as, “Luck to our Day,” or “God bless the Corn.”

It was a fine thing to see the big horses, with great manes on their fetlocks, groomed till they shone like satin, stepping along as proud as Lucifer, knowing very well how long the waggoner had been, a-plaiting their ribbons.

… Sexton’s Sammy, a queer, long lad like an eel, with twice as many teeth as he wanted, and a power of texts in his head that ud fly out at you on every excuse, and hit you like a startle-de-buz will on a summer evening.

It seemed as if all the texts his dad had ever read had lodged in his big head, and so he’d always got one pat.

“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest to send down labourers into His harvest,” he says.

“Mam, I’ve found six ears together!” From the rickyard came the far calls of the rickmakers, and, times, a pigeon cooed in the deep woods, where the mere lay like glass, and, times, a jay would scold, or a woodpecker laugh out.

Never a cloud was in the sky, nor any hint of trouble in the little airs that stirred in the leavy hedges.

And there, two fields off, one field off, and now in the same field, was the man I could never think about but in those words, “The Maister be come.”

“Dear to goodness, no! I shall bide.”

There was something very pleasant to me in the way he said that. It was as if he builded a tower of refuge afore my eyes.

He met go for a little while, a year even, but for his life-long he’d bide. And it was only fifteen mile away, and less as the crow flies.

So I went up to the attic and wrote in my book. But first I took a sheet of paper and put down in very neat writing—

“A figure like an apple-blow fairy.”

“ ’Twas me he meant,” I said over and over, “poor Prue Sarn!”

And a glow began in my heart, warm and pleasant as a gledy fire.

For what is there in this earth, or in heaven, if it comes to that, like the knowledge that you’ve found favour in the eyes of him that is your dear acquaintance, and the Maister?

I left off wondering what he thought of my hare-shotten lip, for indeed it seemed he thought of it not at all. I called to mind a thing he’d said while we watched the dragon-flies, about sin.

Knowing this, and being easy in mind about Beguildy, since he’d taken no harm from the blow, I listened to the wind very contented, and made some rounds of toast, and thought about Kester.

For I do think there’s nothing makes you feel so contented as a roaring wind in the chimney when all’s well.

I said should we go to bed early, and Gideon said we might as well, seeing we’d worked hard and the harvest was in.

There are misfortunes that make you spring up and rush to save yourself, but, there are others that are too bad for this, for they leave nought to do.

Then a stillness falls on the soul, like the stillness of a rabbit when the stoat looks hotly upon it and it knows that there is no more to be done.

The fire was in the two biggest stacks of wheat now. It had gone upon them and they were not. Soon they would be as the barley was.

I got together all the pails and buckets, and thought it seemed a pitiful thing that with all that great mere full of water we could only slake our fire with as much as we could get into our little buckets.

And I’ve thought since that when folk grumble about this and that and be not happy, it is not the fault of creation, that is like a vast mere full of good, but it is the fault of their bucket’s smallness.

Mother came with me like a child, very mazed and quiet.

IT was quieter than ever at Sarn without Mother’s quiet ways. I missed her a deal more than if I’d depended on her, for it’s the folk that depend on us for this and for the other that we most do miss.

So the mother is more let and hindered lacking the little creatures clinging to her skirt than she is when they be there, for she has no heart for her work.

So in the lengthening April days I’d often sit and cry, calling to mind her poor little hands uplifted, and her way of giving me a right good welcome when I came in tired of an evening.

IT was quieter than ever at Sarn without Mother’s quiet ways.

I missed her a deal more than if I’d depended on her, for it’s the folk that depend on us for this and for the other that we most do miss.

So the mother is more let and hindered lacking the little creatures clinging to her skirt than she is when they be there, for she has no heart for her work.

… there are some things so hard to write of that even a great scholar might boggle at it, and I, though I can do the tall and the short script, am not anything of a scholar, and words be hard to find for some things.

I think, times, that in our mortal language there are no words for the things that are of most account.

So, when those things come upon us we are struck silent, and can but feel and feel, till our hearts are like a bursting dam.

I think, times, that in our mortal language there are no words for the things that are of most account.

So, when those things come upon us we are struck silent, and can but feel and feel, till our hearts are like a bursting dam.

Maybe, in the life yonder, that already I begin to glimpse on the edge of this world, we shall find the proper words.

I was sitting in the doorway, to get what air there was, for it drew off the mere, evenings. I was carding wool, and the white of it, heaped up on my black, made me look like a magpie, I thought.

The lilac leaves were limp with the heat, and the mere like hot lead to look at, with the tall thick trees around it, carven out of iron.

All round the marges of the mere were the lilies, lying on the heavy water, their small white buds shining. Not a bird spoke, for all were in their coverts, since the heat was so great.

“There, look’s the wet floor!” he said. “It’s like as if she’d brought the mere in along of her. I never thought she’d come in the house.

A castle’s easy kept when none comes against it.

But now—”

Then one-half of the tree-trunks came free, so that the forest seemed to be mounded up with snow. It lifted and lifted, and at last went into the sky, and failed amid the clouds of dawn.

Then the clouds faded, and there were only the proper heavens, blue as bird’s eye.

As soon as the mist lifted, I saw that the mere had broken in the night, and the water was thick and troubled, simmering all over, so that the lilies were stirred as they lay anchored.

I saw Mister Huglet and Mister Grimble, thick as thieves, and they scowled at me as I went by.

All along the wood-path there was a great stirring of dragon-flies, and the lustre-coloured damsels looked grand, sailing over the crimson bosses of dragon’s blood, that is the wild geranium.

I thought, ‘The wind lifts in the branches, the lilies be in blow, the dragon-flies be coming out of their shrouds, but Kester Woodseaves has forgot me.’ For by this he was to have raught back.

… turn people against you, as if they thought it was the hand of the Lord meting punishment for sin, yet it didna seem to me enough to explain the looks I got, which did cut me to the heart, for in them I saw hatred.

I ever loved my kind, and as I once said, I was like one standing at the lane ends with a nosegay to offer to the world as it rode by. But instead, it rode me down.

Ah! On this day of mid August, in the time of the troubling of the waters, it rode me down.

the threat of gentlemen of the road who had long lain at the crossways—nobody could choose to be alone, and nobody without good reason would condemn another to be alone.

Therefore, if you were alone you were as good as damned.

I canna tell you what a sinking of the heart all this gave me.

He’s fause, is Grimble. Huglet’s all of a roar, but you know what he’s after. With Grimble you dunna.

He’ll drop a word here and a word there like thistledown, and you see nought and think nought, but dear to goodness, what a crop of thistles!

And I doubt the thistles be all up and just about in blow.”