Alone on the marsh, Thomas had once again nearly repented and turned back. It was not that the fiddle seemed to call him back. It had, on the contrary, the effect of shutting him out. It seemed to mark the final detachment of father from son, to emphasise the division of two who by rights should have held together, but were nevertheless going to drift apart. It was Kit’s swan-song to his own place, and as such it kept its ecstasy for himself and its poignancy for the listener on the waste. Thomas had an idea that he was hurrying back to the farm, plodding again through the meadow along the rutted track. He heard the little click of the garden gate, saw himself pushing gently at the door, met the sweet flood of music rushing out, and warmed to the old man’s welcome and relief. But always his feet were taking him away, and the pull of the farm and its trouble lessened with every mile. Now his thoughts reached forward rather than behind, fixed on a dweller in another house. In his mind he saw her home between gentle curves of the land, the night brooding over its walls that seemed as much grown out of the earth as the hedgerows in the fields. He saw the syringa over the porch lifting its star-faces to the moon. He saw faint candle-light in a room upstairs, and herself a moving shadow across the blind.... He was late at his own place, and found himself locked out, but even as he tried the door he heard stumbling on the stairs, and knew that his step had warned the folk across the yard. While he waited he said to himself that if there was any bother he would give in his notice right away. It only wanted some little thing like that to fix his mind. He tried to work himself into a fiercer mood, ready to lash out at the first suggestion of rebuke. It would be grand to be his own master after so long, instead of a hired man at beck and call. With a word he could alter the position when he liked. But when the bolts were unshot the farmer said nothing except that it was a dirty night, and Thomas took off his boots in silence and followed him upstairs. In the morning the porridge was badly burnt, and again he tried to drive himself to a break, but once again something put him off and he kept still. That evening, however, he met Agnes in the lane between the farm and her home, and the thing rose in him with a rush and he spoke out. “You can take it or leave it, as suits you,” he said, “but there it be to your hand. The farm’s ready and waiting on you, and so’s the man. I’ve had enough o’ your putting off and keeping me hanging round. You’ve got to fix it up now or let me gang.” “You must give me time,” she answered, using his own words of the night before. “I’m not ready—I don’t know my mind. As for keeping you hanging round, you’ve been free to go this many a long day, as you know right well. I’m not that anxious to get wed, not I. But if it’s me you’re wanting, as you seem to think, well, there’s nothing for it but to give me time.”