IN A HAMPSHIRE VILLAGE 163 



it was not so: when they were together, and when they 

 sat at table, where I sometimes sat witli them, she tuned 

 herself to him and talked with a gentle cheerfulness, 

 watching his face and hanging on his words. Their 

 manner was so unlike that of most persons in their state 

 of life that it was a puzzle to me, and I might have 

 guessed the secret of it from a peculiar pathos in his 

 voice and the inward-gazing, dreamy expression in his 

 eyes wliich haunted mc ; l)ut I guessed nothing, and only 

 learnt it just before quitting the village. 



Then there was the boy, who in the house was just 

 as still, gentle, and low-voiced as his father; a boy who 

 disliked his books and crawled reluctantly to school and 

 took no part in games, but who had an intense love of 

 the wild, a desire to be always out of doors by himself, 

 following and watching the birds. 



I was like that myself at his age, but was more happily 

 placed, having no school to crawl to nor miserable books 

 to pore over. 



One day, just before leaving, I came in to my six- 

 o'clock meal, after a long spell on the heath, to find 

 my landlady, as usual ready and even eager to listen 

 to anytliing I had to tell her. For she, too, at home in 

 her cottage, had been alone all day, except for a few 

 minutes when her boy came in at noon to swallow his 

 dinner and run off to the nearest wood or heath to get 

 as much time as possible before the clanging of the 

 school-bell called him in again. Now everything I ever 

 told her about my rambles on the heath had appeared to 

 interest her in an extraordinary way. She would listen 



