The good soul seized the flask, and went off hugging it. She returned it
to me half empty.
“Lapped it like a kitten laps milk. I misdaoubt it's straong, poor
lamb, it lusened 'er tongue praaperly. 'I've a-done it,' she says to me,
'Mums-I've a-done it,' an' she laughed like a mad thing; and then, sir,
she cried, an' kissed me, an' pusshed me thru the door. Gude Lard! What
is 't she's a-done...?”
It rained all the next day and the day after. About five o'clock
yesterday the rain ceased; I started off to Kingswear on Hopgood's
nag to see Dan Treffry. Every tree, bramble, and fern in the lanes was
dripping water; and every bird singing from the bottom of his heart.
I thought of Pasiance all the time. Her absence that day was still a
mystery; one never ceased asking oneself what she had done. There are
people who never grow up—they have no right to do things. Actions have
consequences—and children have no business with consequences.
Dan was out. I had supper at the hotel, and rode slowly home. In the
twilight stretches of the road, where I could touch either bank of
the lane with my whip, I thought of nothing but Pasiance and her
grandfather; there was something in the half light suited to wonder and
uncertainty. It had fallen dark before I rode into the straw-yard. Two
young bullocks snuffled at me, a sleepy hen got up and ran off with a
tremendous shrieking. I stabled the horse, and walked round to the
back. It was pitch black under the apple-trees, and the windows were all
darkened. I stood there a little, everything smelled so delicious after
the rain; suddenly I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being
watched. Have you ever felt like that on a dark night? I called out at
last: “Is any one there?” Not a sound! I walked to the gate-nothing! The
trees still dripped with tiny, soft, hissing sounds, but that was all. I
slipped round to the front, went in, barricaded the door, and groped up
to bed. But I couldn't sleep. I lay awake a long while; dozed at last,
and woke with a jump. A stealthy murmur of smothered voices was going
on quite close somewhere. It stopped. A minute passed; suddenly came the
soft thud as of something falling. I sprang out of bed and rushed to
the window. Nothing—but in the distance something that sounded like
footsteps. An owl hooted; then clear as crystal, but quite low, I heard
Pasiance singing in her room:
“The apples are ripe and ready to fall. Oh! heigh-ho! and ready to
fall.”