Suddenly a shout rang across the hill and silenced her and the woodlarks. She saw against the full-blown flower of the west—black on scarlet—Reddin on his tall black horse, galloping towards her. Clouds were coming up for night. They raced with him. From one great round rift the light poured on Hazel as it does from a burning-glass held over a leaf. It burned steadily on her, and then was moved, as if by an invisible hand. Reddin came on, and the thunder of his horse's hoofs was in her ears. Hurtling thus over the pastures, breaking the year-long hush, he was the embodiment of the destructive principle, of cruelty, of the greater part of human society—voracious and carnivorous—with its curious callousness towards the nerves of the rest of the world.
'I a'most thought it was the death-pack,' said Hazel, speaking first, as the more nervous always does.
She stood uncomfortably looking up at him as a rabbit looks, surprised half-way out of its burrow.
'Where be going?' she asked at last.
'Looking for you.'
Hazel could not enjoy the flattery of this; she was so perturbed by his nearness.
'Where's your lord and master?'
'Ed'ard inna my master. None is.' A hot indignant flush surged over her.
'Yes,' said he; 'I am.'
'That you're not, and never will be.'