But he came to a bridge. On it he rested. And in that bright air, that sylvan peace, his rancour fell away from him, like sand from a glass, leaving him dumb and blank at the meanness of his deed. He went back to the lane as fast as he could go. She was not there. "Kate, Kate, my dove!" But he could not find her.
He was lost in the fields until he came at last upon a road and a lonely tavern thereby. It had a painted sign; a very smudgy fox, in an inexplicable attitude, destroying a fowl that looked like a plum-pudding but was intended to depict a snipe. At the stable door the tiniest black kitten in the world was shaping with timid belligerency at a young and fluffy goose who, ignoring it, went on sipping ecstatically from a pan of water. On the door were nailed, in two semi-circles of decoration, sixteen foxpads in various stages of decay, an entire spiral shaving from the hoof of a horse, and some chalk jottings:
2 pads.
3 cruppers.
1 bellyband.
2 set britchin.
The tavern was long and low and clean, its garden was bare but trim. There was comfort; he rested, had tea, and then in the bar his musings were broken upon by a ragged importunate old pedlar from Huddersfield.
"Born and bred in Slatterwick, it's no lie ah'm speaking, ah were born and bred Slatterwick, close to Arthur Brinkley's farm, his sister's in Canady, John Orkroyd took farm, Arthur's dead."
"Humph!"
"And buried. That iron bridge at Jackamon's belong to Daniel Cranmer. He's dead."