"Rude!" echoed he, turning to me quickly. "Why, when were you rude?"
"Just now, about the hops and everything."
He laughed aloud, quite merrily. "Good gracious! surely we are good friends enough to stand a sharp word or two," cried he.
I was silent. Harrod walked very fast, and talking was difficult. When he reached the top of the hill he held out his hand, and said, in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice, "Good-night; I must be getting along to Widow Dawes as fast as I can."
I stood watching him as he ran down the slope. At any other time I should have been just as much excited as he was about the breakage of the pipes, but that night there was a dull emptiness about things for which I had no reason.
The west was still clouded, and in the plains the struggling rays of the sinking sun made golden spray of the mists that the rain had left; but to the eastward the sky was clear of showers.
The mill was quite still, its warning arms were silent; it stood white upon the flaxen slope, where the short grass was burned to chaff by the rare summer heat—white and huge against the twilight blue. Behind it—slowly, slowly out of the blue sea—rose the golden August moon.
I turned my back to the clouds and faced the golden moon.