"I understand," said Coast, "that you have refused to sell."
"My husband wants the field for sheep washing. It's the only paddock we have with running water. I believe you want the County Council to buy it to make a field for the children to play in. I don't think it would be at all suitable."
Even as she spoke she repictured the paddock, fenced high with hawthorn, and the stream that in summer dried to a thin thread. There John had found her one summer evening shortly after her father's death and had asked her to marry him. Well, her acceptance had been a matter of convenience rather than passion, and no courtship could have been more decorous. But in the shadowy sweetness of that evening she had dreamed of a romance she did not know, and the field was fragrant with memory. Even now she could feel the damp air on her face and smell the delicate scent of hawthorn and wet earth, and hear the tearing sound of cows feeding in the long grass.
"It is very suitable, Mrs. Robson. It opens straight on the playground, right under the supervision of the school house and it's a nice level ground."
"I dare say. But you would find the stream a great inconvenience."
"Not at all, it could be fenced off."
"Why, it nearly cuts the field in half."
"Not quite, I think, if you observe it closely. I see you hardly know the field," he added with patronizing gentleness. "Perhaps if you came down and looked——"
"My good man!" cried Mary, losing patience. "If you think I don't know my own land!"
She broke off with a short laugh.