THREE:"Yesthey couldn't pick any holes in his claim, or they would have, I reckon. The Squire 'ud like every rood of Boarzell, though the Lard knows wot he'll do wud it now he's got it."She walked slowly down the drive till she came to the little path that led across the fields to Handshut's cottage. A light gleamed from the window, and she crept towards it through tall moon-smudged grasswhile from the distance came for the last time:
THREE:As the summer wore on she grew steadily worse. She lay stiff and helpless, through the long August days, watching the sunlight creep up the wall, slip along the ceiling, and then vanish into the pale, heat-washed sky that gleamed with it even after the stars had come. She did not fret much, or think muchshe watched things. She watched the sunshine from its red kindling to its red scattering, she watched the moon slide across the window, and haunt the mirror after it had passedor the sign of the Scales dangling in the black sky. Sometimes the things she looked at seemed to fade, and she would see a room in which she and her husband were sitting or a lane along which they were walking ...[Pg 201] but just as she had begun to wonder whether she were not really still young and happy and married and this vision the fact and the sickness and loneliness the dream, then suddenly everything would pass away like smoke, and she would be back in her bed, watching the travelling sun, or the haunting moon, or the hanging stars.
THREE:The practices were held in the clerk's kitchen, into which the choristers would crush and huddle. On full attendance nights all elbows touched, and occasionally old Spodgram's bow would be jolted out of his hand, or someone would complain that Leacher was blowing his trumpet down his neck. Afterwards the choristers would wander home in clusters through the fields; the clusters generally split into small groups, and then the groups into couples. The couples would scatter widely, and vex their homes with late returnings.
