“Poachers,” said I. “Did you speak to them?”
“No—they didn’t see me. I was dropping asleep when a rabbit rushed under the blanket, all of a shiver, and a whippet dog after it. I gave the whippet a punch in the neck, and he yelped off. The rabbit stopped with me quite a long time—then it went.”
“How did you feel?”
“I didn’t care. I don’t care much what happens just now. Father could get along without me, and mother has the children. I think I shall emigrate.”
“Why didn’t you before?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There are a lot of little comforts and interests at home that one would miss. Besides, you feel somebody in your own countryside, and you’re nothing in a foreign part, I expect.”
“But you’re going?”
“What is there to stop here for? The valley is all running wild and unprofitable. You’ve no freedom for thinking of what the other folks think of you, and everything round you keeps the same, and so you can’t change yourself—because everything you look at brings up the same old feeling, and stops you from feeling fresh things. And what is there that’s worth anything?—What’s worth having in my life?”
“I thought,” said I, “your comfort was worth having.”
He sat still and did not answer.