Someone raised a cheer 'for the Terriers!' Lord Valleys saw round him a
little sea of hats, rising and falling, and heard a sound, rather shrill
and tentative, swell into hoarse, high clamour, and suddenly die out.
"Seem keen enough!" he thought. "Very little does it! Plenty of fighting
spirit in the country." And again a thrill of pleasure shot through him.
Then, as the last soldier passed, his car slowly forged its way through
the straggling crowd, pressing on behind the regiment--men of all ages,
youths, a few women, young girls, who turned their eyes on him with a
negligent stare as if their lives were too remote to permit them to take
interest in this passing man at ease.
CHAPTER IV
At Monkland, that same hour, in the little whitewashed
'withdrawing-room' of a thatched, whitewashed cottage, two men sat
talking, one on either side of the hearth; and in a low chair between
them a dark-eyed woman leaned back, watching, the tips of her delicate
thin fingers pressed together, or held out transparent towards the fire.
A log, dropping now and then, turned up its glowing underside; and the
firelight and the lamplight seemed so to have soaked into the white
walls that a wan warmth exuded. Silvery dun moths, fluttering in from
the dark garden, kept vibrating, like spun shillings, over a jade-green
bowl of crimson roses; and there was a scent, as ever in that old
thatched cottage, of woodsmoke, flowers, and sweetbriar.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34