"
Liff looked more and more perplexed. "Bash is ugly sometimes in the
afternoons."
She threw her head back, her eyes full on Hyatt's. "I'm coming too: you
tell him."
"They won't none of them trouble you, the Hyatts won't. What d'you want
a take a stranger with you though?"
"I've told you, haven't I? You've got to tell Bash Hyatt."
He looked away at the blue mountains on the horizon; then his gaze
dropped to the chimney-top below the pasture.
"He's down there now?"
"Yes."
He shifted his weight again, crossed his arms, and continued to survey
the distant landscape. "Well, so long," he said at last, inconclusively;
and turning away he shambled up the hillside. From the ledge above
her, he paused to call down: "I wouldn't go there a Sunday"; then he
clambered on till the trees closed in on him. Presently, from high
overhead, Charity heard the ring of his axe.
She lay on the warm ridge, thinking of many things that the woodsman's
appearance had stirred up in her. She knew nothing of her early life,
and had never felt any curiosity about it: only a sullen reluctance to
explore the corner of her memory where certain blurred images lingered.
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