“Why don’t you come, anyway? It will not be for long, probably.” “Shall I?” A cow bugled dejectedly. He thought that the neck would be stretched out with the mouth half open as though it were going to vomit. Idiotic cows. “No, I can’t leave Father.” “Well, don’t say now that I didn’t ask you.” “But you never meant me to go.” Another cow answered from a long way off, and they exchanged dull grief across the hedges and the meadows. The hedges would be black at this time of the year, and the trees bare. The plough creaked leisurely, how slow everything was. “I’m not blaming you. You’re not the sort that are meant to stay. Your sort can get rid of anything that displeases them, as Father says.” “June, do come.” “No.” “Then I don’t see what you have to complain of from me.” “Poor John.” “It’s not as if you are going to have a baby or anything.” “Don’t.” “Well, is it?” “You don’t understand.” There was a long pause. “Oh, to be in a town again, to hear a barrel-organ, for instance, across the street through gaps in the traffic! And all the rush there, and the thousands of people. I’d give anything to be there and just listen, so much would be going on, while here ...” “I couldn’t leave Father, could I, now?” “No, perhaps not. But I think it is really fine of you to stay with him, I really do.” “Fine? I don’t know about that.” “Well, I mean, if he attacks you. And he has not done a great deal for you.” “It isn’t his fault--besides, I won’t have you say things like that about him. Anyway I shouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for him.” “I am sorry. I did not mean that. Certainly I have much to be grateful to him for.” “Why, how do you mean?” “For your being here.” “Nice John.” Why had he made a compliment like that? And why had she swallowed it? “What will you do, June?” “I don’t know.” She never knew, perhaps that was the best. But he was beginning to. “Well, remember, if ever you want to run away, come up to London and stay with us. We have not yet arranged to go to London; that is, I have not even broached the subject with Mamma, but I must go, and in the end she and I will go. So just you come when you want.” “I will. An’ may I bring Father too?” “But--but yes, if you think he needs it.” “I know you. An’ what’s wrong with Father? He’s nothing to be ashamed of. You think I don’t notice the way people pass us as if we weren’t there when they meet us on the road. It’s not his fault his being what he is. He was brought to it, and by your lot too.” “June, what do you mean?” “They were always criticising him--d’you suppose I don’t know how it was?--always carping away at him till his life wasn’t his own and as if it didn’t belong to him and no one else, and not to everyone as they thought, and finding fault with Mother for being in love with the postman, of course it was wrong, but why shouldn’t she, and them saying that he didn’t do his duty to his parish when he was worth the whole crew of them put together.”