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As Hazel descended the mist rose like a wall about her, shutting her off from Undern and the Mountain. She felt like a child out of school, free of everyone, her own for the pearly hours of morning. When she came to the meadows she gathered up her skirts well above her knees, took off her shoes and stockings, and pinned her sleeves to the shoulders.
'For how a girl can live in that stuffy hole with that old woman and that die-away fellow, Lord only knows! he thought. 'She'll be twice the girl she is when she lives with a man that is a man, and she can do as she likes with Undern so long as she's not stand-off with me. No, by ! I'll have no nonsense after this! Here I am, sitting under a tree like a dog with a treed cat!
The last cow had sauntered to the gate before Vessons opened it and milked them that night. Afterwards he went in with the pails, set them on the parlour floor, and said with fury to Hazel: 'Bloody, is it? She owned, faintly, that it was not. 'And now, said Vessons, turning on Reddin, 'it's notice. Notice has been give one month by Andrew Vessons to John Reddin, Esquire, of Undern.
They went on in that fashion, his arm about her, each wondering what manner of companion the other was. When they neared Undern there were gates to open, and he admired her litheness as she jumped in and out. In his pastures, where the deeply rutted track was already white with snow, two foals stood sadly by their mothers, gazing at the cold world with their peculiarly disconsolate eyes.
Reddin of Undern cared as little for the graciousness of life as he did for its pitiful rhapsodies, its purple-mantled tragedies. He had no time for such trivialities. Fox-hunting, horse-breeding, and kennel lore were his vocation. He rode straight, lived hard, exercised such creative faculties as he had on his work, and found it very good.
You've put a spell on me! she moaned. 'I want to be along of Ed'ard, and you've bound me to be along of you. I dunna like you, but I canna think of ought else! She fought a hard battle that night. The compulsion to get up and go straight to Undern was so strong that it could only be compared to the pull of matter on matter.
'But look here, Hazel, he reasoned. 'If you'd come to Undern, I'd make you enjoy life. 'But I dunna want to. I be Ed'ard's missus. 'Be missus! At the phrase his weather-coarsened face grew redder. It intoxicated him. He slipped off his horse and kissed her. 'I dunna want to be anybody's missus! she cried vexedly. 'Not yourn nor Ed'ard's neither!
She left a little blotted note for Edward. 'Dunna think too bad of me, Ed'ard. I be bound to go to Undern and live; I ud liefer bide along of you. She went through the shadow-sweet meadows where birds hopped out across green stretches in the cool, the high corn that had once been her comrade, the honeysuckle hedges that used to bring so childish a glee.
The name rang in the quiet room with a startling sound, like a gunshot in a wood at night when the birds are roosting. At that moment Edward came in, not having waited till Mr. James had affectionately counted the collection. 'Is Hazel all right, mother? he called when he got to the front door. 'Oh yes, my dear. It was but the heat. And here's a gentleman to see you. Mr. Reddin of Undern.
For Nature that sardonic mother while she cries with the silver cadence of ten thousand nightingales, 'Take what you want, my children, sees to it, in the dark of her sorcery-chamber, that her children want what she intends. 'Is it to your liking, Mr. ? I didn't quite catch your name, said Mrs. Marston. 'Reddin, ma'am. Jack Reddin of Undern.
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