The Dewy Morn

The sunbeams streamed over Ashpen Hill into a broad lane, a little after four in the morning. Felise was walking slowly towards the hill, which was yet at some distance, staying every moment to glance aside into the green and dew-laden hedges. On her right the hedge came to the sward; on the left a bank rose, and the hedge went along the summit.

The fragrance of the dew, invisibly evaporating, filled the air she breathed. From sweet-green hawthorn leaves, from heavy grasses drooping, the glittering drops dissolving brought with them the odour of leaf and flower. The larks, long since up, had sung the atmosphere clear of the faint white mist left by the night.

She found blue veronica in a bunch of grass under a dead thorn-branch, blown by the winds months ago out from the hedge. She lifted up the branch to fling it aside, and give the flowers more room and freedom; but she replaced it, reflecting that the thorns would perhaps prevent passing sheep from treading on them.

Upon the bank there was a cowslip; one stalk bore deep orange flowers, the others bunches yet unopened, and clothed in delicate green. Felise took the flower, which no bee had yet sipped, put it to her lips, and then placed it in her dress.

She stepped lightly round the smooth brown boulder-stones with which the lane was dotted in places⁠—rude disjointed efforts at paving⁠—beside which grew bunches of rushes, safe there from the cartwheels. Not even cartwheels could stand the jolt over these iron rocks. She walked sometimes on the elevated sides of the ruts⁠—the earth had been forced up by the crushing weight of wagon-loads; they were grass-grown, and the grass hung over the groove, along which weasels often hunted.

She knew he did, although no alteration was perceptible in his manner. Watching him so narrowly, she felt that he had seen her, yet there was no visible change. Eyes that love have a way of seeing more than is understood by scientific people, though they may analyze light with the spectrum and the polariscope, and all the other appliances together.

At the beeches he rode slowly up towards her. All at once he turned again, and began to descend the hill away from her; then, as suddenly, slipped off his horse to his feet, and walked towards her up the slope.

“Good morning!”

He did not offer his hand; their previous acquaintance was extremely slight. She held out hers, and he took it.

“Can I direct you?” he said, a little awkwardly.

“Oh, I know the way!”

“I did not know; I thought⁠—”

“I came up to see the sunrise,” she said, explaining; “but I was too late.”

“It is a beautiful morning,” said he.

No very brilliant conversation yet; as a matter of fact, people who are tête-à-tête for the first time in their lives do not talk brilliantly. Much, however, may be conveyed by tone and manner.

He did not look at her more than courtesy demanded: he looked at the sward, at the tree, anywhere but at her; yet his nature was truthful.

She looked straight in his face; she did not disguise her wistful glance. If he could only have let himself gaze into her eyes! But he would not. Her right hand moved restlessly; she almost put it on his shoulder.

He could not help but look, at the sound of his name. He saw a face full of wistful meaning upturned to him. Her golden hair had strayed a little on her forehead, three or four glistening threads wandered over it, asking some loving hand to smooth them back. The white brow without a stain, a mark, a line; no kiss there but must be purified by the touch; it was an altar which could not be tainted⁠—which would turn taint to purity. Large grey eyes that seemed to see him only⁠—to whom the whole world, the hills round them, the sky over, was not⁠—eyes that drew his towards them, and held his vision in defiance of his will. If once you look over the side of a boat into the clear sea, you must continue looking⁠—the depth fascinates the mind. Some depth in her rapt gaze fascinated him.

Her eyebrows arched⁠—not too much arched⁠—the curve of the cheek, roseate, almost but not quite smiling, carried his thought downwards to her breathing lips. Her lips were apart, rich, dewy, curved; they kissed him by their expression, if not in deed. In that instant his heart throbbed violently; the beat rose to thrice its usual rate.

The first moment of awaking to a happy morning, the daylight that means a joyful event; the first view of the sea in youth, when the

Nine years ago, that very time of the year, Robert Godwin, starting forth into the fields one day, saw a trespasser in a meadow of mowing-grass. A trespasser rolling about in the sacred mowing-grass, wilfully damaging it⁠—with the aid of a dog, too.

To walk among mowing-grass is a guilty thing, you must understand, in country places. This meadow in particular did not concern Godwin, but the fact of trespassing did; he could not have passed a trespasser without ordering the criminal off any more than a dog could pass a bone. He walked rapidly towards the place, full of hard language, bitter words and threats, swelling with eagerness to drive this daring human being. As he came near he was astounded at the absolute abandon of the youthful sinner; she not only trespassed, she revelled in her wickedness.

It was a girl about ten or eleven, tall for her age, and with her a great spaniel; together they were making themselves joyful in the flower-strewn grass.

Sometimes she ran, and leaped, and danced in the beautiful sweet grass which rose above her knees. Sometimes she threw herself at full length in it, lying down on the breast of the earth, as a swimmer lies on the breast of the sea. As children dance and play without much covering on the sands in their innocence, so in her wild gambols her short frock permitted the shape of her limbs to be occasionally seen.

Two or three minutes afterwards he heard a slight cry and a great splash in the mill-pool, and jumped up in alarm to see what it could be. He had to run some yards before he could see down into the pool. Leaning over the fence he strained his short neck and saw Mary Shaw struggling and gasping in the water.

Some kind of shout or loud exclamation issued from his lips, and then, as if by mechanism, he put his gun to his shoulder and fired up in the air.

At the same moment Martial came up⁠—looked over⁠—exclaimed⁠—tore off his coat, and then paused, for he remembered his heavy boots. They were laced and tied tightly; he got his penknife and slit the laces, kicked them off, stepped upon the fence, balanced himself a second, and sprang forward.

The miller, at the sound of the splash when Martial struck the surface, hurled his gun away and set up another shout. He then began dancing, stamping his feet up and down like a child in a rage.

Martial went down feet first, holding his breath; the water closed over him. In another second he rose and began to swim, and in half a minute⁠—he had to go round a little to seize her properly⁠—he had hold of poor Mary. She fainted immediately after he touched her.

Martial instantly swam with her towards the side of the pool, for a moment forgetting that he could not land on a perpendicular wall of chalk.