Both unconsciously dreaded the time when they should demand more of each otherwhen the occasional enlacing of their hands would no longer be enough to open Paradise, when from sweet looking and longing they would have to pass into the bitterness of action. Tilly, though essentially practical and determined, was enjoying her first visit to faery, and also inherited her mother's gift of languor. She basked in those hours of sun and bees. She, like her father, was passing for the first time into a life outside the dominion of the farmbut,[Pg 220] whereas he fought it, and sought it only to fight it, she submitted to it as to a caress.
"How's the peas gitting on, M?aster?" Ditch of Totease would facetiously enquire. "I rode by that new land of yours yesterday, and, says I, there's as fine a crop of creeping plants as ever I did see.""Then you must choose to submit voluntarily to my lady's wishes," he added."Ho! we shall see that.""I dare notlet me go! Is he not excommunicated? has he not lived on in sin? Let me go."
FORE:The Manor of Seth in the Sussex countrie,