It was far on in the forenoon as she drew near the orchards of Yprès, brown in their leaflessness, and with gray lichens blowing from their boughs, like hoary beards of trembling paupers shaking in the icy breaths of charity.
She saw that Claudis Flamma was at work amidst his trees, pruning and delving in the red and chilly day.
She went up the winding stairs, planks green and slippery with wet river weeds, which led straight through the apple orchards to the mill.
"I have found the boat," she said, standing before him; her voice was faint and very tired, her whole body drooped with fatigue, her head for once was bowed.
He turned with his billhook in his hand. There was a leap of gladness at his heart; the miser's gladness over recovered treasure; but he showed such weakness neither in his eye nor words.
"It is well for you that you have," he said with bitter meaning. "I will spare you half the stripes:—strip."
Without a word of remonstrance, standing before him in the gray shadow of the lichens, and the red mists of the morning, she pushed the rough garments from her breast and shoulders, and vanquishing her weakness, drew herself erect to receive the familiar chastisement.
"I am guilty—this time," she said to herself as the lash fell:—she was thinking of her theft.