TWO:She said that she must leave directly after supper. Alice fetched her hat, which was not the kind that Reuben had ever seen on country girls, being of the fashionable pork-pie shape. All her clothes were obviously town-made; she wore a blue stuff dress, tight-fitting round her bust and shoulders, full and flounced in the skirtafterwards he heard that Rose had spent some years with relations in London before coming to live at Starvecrow.They walked on down the lane. Rose's chatter had ceased, and a complete silence dropped between the hedges. The moon had risen higher, and the western hazels were bloomed with light. The moon was no longer crimson in the dark sky, but had burnt down to copper, casting a copper glow into the mists, staining all the blues that melted into one another along the hills. Only the middle of the lane was blacklike a well. Reuben[Pg 248] and Rose could see each other's faces in a kind of rusty glimmer, but their feet stumbled in the darkness, and her hand lay clutching and heavy on his arm.
FORE:If he lost Alice now he might be losing her for a dream,[Pg 329] a bubble, a will-o'-the-wisp. Surely he would be wise to pull what he could out of the wreck, take her, and forget all else. Only a fool would turn away from her now, and press forward. In the old days it had been different, he had been successful thennow he was a failure, and saw his chance to fail honourably. Better take it before it was too late."I, John Hartwell, will be to you, my Lord Roland de Boteler, true and faithful, and bear to you fealty and faith for the lands and tenements which I hold of you; and I will truly do and perform the customs and services that I ought to do to you, so help me God!" The old man then kissed the book, and retired to give place to the next; and so on till all who owed fealty had gone through the ceremony.
Nunc at viverra risus. In euismod quam ac dictum varius.
Nunc at viverra risus.