'Don't forget, mind.'
'Oh, Mr. Reddin, I mun go! What for wunna you let me be?'
But Reddin, finding Miss Clomber's eye on him, was gone.
Mr. James had come to the end of the list. He read out Abel's name and that of an old bent man with grey elf-locks, a famous bee-master. Mr. James looked at Abel as much as to say, 'You've got your prize, you see! It's quite fair.'
'Thank yer,' said Abel to Miss Clomber, and then to James with fine irony: 'You dunna keep bees, do yer, Mr. James?'
* * * * *
The hills loomed in the dusk over the show-ground. They were of a cold and terrific colour, neither purple nor black nor grey, but partaking of all. Kingly, mournful, threatening, they dominated the life below as the race dominates the individual. Hazel gazed up at them. She stood in the attitude of one listening, for in her ears was a voice that she had never heard before, a deep inflexible voice that urged her to do—she knew not what. She looked up at the round wooded hill that hid God's Little Mountain—so high, so cold for a poor child to climb. She felt that the life there would be too righteous, too well-mannered. The thought of it suddenly made her homesick for dirt and the Callow.
She thought of Undern crouched under its hill like a toad. She remembered its echoing rooms and the sound as of dresses rustling that came along the passages while she put on the green gown. Undern made her more homesick than the parsonage.
Edward had gone. She had said she wanted to stay with her father, and Edward had thought her a sweet daughter and had acquiesced, though sadly.
Now she was awaiting Reddin. The dancing had not begun, though the tent was ready. Yellow light flowed from every gap in the canvas, and Hazel felt very forlorn out in the dark; for light seemed her natural sphere. As she stood there, looking very small and slight, she had a cowering air. Always, when she stood under a tree or sheltered from the rain, she had this look of a refugee, furtive and brow-beaten. When she ran she seemed a fugitive, fleeing across the world with no city or refuge to flee into.