'THE DEWY MORN' 229 



to be with him, but his feehng for her is only converted 

 to perfect love when he believes himself to be drowning 

 in an attempt to save the life of Felise's maid, Polly Shaw. 

 Another lover is Robert Godwin, the hard bailiff of the 

 great Cornleigh Estate, who has secretly grown tender 

 over her since she rolled in his mowing grass as a child 

 and he said nothing. Seeing her the frank lover of his 

 rival, Barnard, he one day seizes her, binds her, and tries 

 to make his horse trample on her face as she lies upon the 

 ground. Martial shoots the horse, and Godwin soon 

 afterwards kills himself. Martial's fortunes mend, and 

 he is able to marry Felise at the end of the book. 



As a background there are the Downs and the swollen 

 Cornleigh Estate belonging to a stupid rich man who has 

 long represented the county in Parliament, and has gone 

 on rounding off his estate with the best nature in the 

 world, allowing his bailiff to see that no one not working 

 on the estate shall dwell in one of his cottages, to deny the 

 villagers access to drinking water, and so on. Goring is 

 a stiff, quiet opponent to Cornleigh ; Martial, in a long 

 speech at a meeting where everyone is bowing down to 

 Cornleigh, an eloquent opponent who has his coat torn 

 for his pains. 



Goring, a musing, reticent fugitive from the superfluous 

 troubles of the world, is not a well-defined character, but 

 his library, his garden, his filbert walk, and the bathing- 

 pool in his woods, make a lovely refuge for Felise. They 

 are a pair not unlike Prospero and Miranda. 



She has flawless physical strength, and at the opening 

 of the book her splendid energy, all the unhesitating 

 sensuousness of health, innocence, and youth, soars with 

 the emotion of love for Barnard. She is out by Ashpen 

 Hill a little after four in the summer morning. 



' Felise sat down on a great trunk of oak lying in the 

 lane by a gateway, and sighed with very depth of enjoy- 

 ment. There was a yellow-hammer perched on the gate, 

 and he had been singing. When Felise approached, he 

 ceased ; but seeing that she was quiet and intended him 



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