'Leave me be, Mr. Reddin. I be comforble, and Foxy be, and they're all settling so nice. The bird's sung.' 'The parson, too, no doubt. If you don't come often enough, I shall walk past the house and look in. If you go on not coming, I shall tell the parson you stayed the night with me, and he'll turn you out.' 'He wouldna! You wouldna!' 'Yes, I would. He would, too. A parson doesn't want a wife that isn't respectable. So as you've got to'--he dropped his harshness and became persuasive--'you may as well come with a good grace.' 'But it wunna my fault as I stayed the night over. It was aunt Prowde's. What for should folk chide me and not auntie?' 'Lord, I don't know! Because you're pretty.' 'Be I?' 'Hasn't that fellow told you so?' 'No. He dunna say much.' 'You could make such a good chap of me if you liked, Hazel.' 'How ever?' 'I'd give up the drink.' 'And fox-hunting?' 'Well, I might give up even that--for you. Be my friend, Hazel.' He spoke with an indefinable charm inherited from some courtly ancestor. Hazel was fascinated. 'But you've got blood on you!' she protested. 'So have you!' he retorted unexpectedly. 'You say you kill flies, so you're as bad as I am, Hazel. So be my friend.' 'I mun go!' 'Say you'll come tomorrow.' 'Not but for a minute, then.' Edward's voice came from the house. 'I've found her!' Hazel ran home. But as she left the wood she turned and looked down the shadowy steeps of green at Reddin as he strode homewards. She watched him until he passed out of sight; then, sighing, she went home. Chapter 19 Next day Hazel did not go into the woods. In the evening, sitting in the quiet parlour while Edward read aloud and Mrs. Marston knitted, she felt afraid as she remembered it. Yet she had been still more afraid at the idea of going. She had helped Mrs. Marston to cover rhubarb jam in the dim store-room while Edward visited a sick man at some distance. It had been delightful, gumming on the clean tops, and then writing on them. She had dipped freely into the biscuit-box. Then Edward had returned, and they had gardened again. Now they were settled for the evening, and she was learning to knit, twisting obdurate wool round anarchic needles, while Mrs. Marston--the pink shawl top--chanted: 'Knit, purl! Knit, purl!' 'Will it come to aught ever?' queried Hazel. 'It's nought but a tail o' string now!' 'It will come to anything you like to make, dear,' said the old lady. 'Is knitting so like life, mother?' Edward spoke amusedly. 'But it wunna,' said Hazel. 'It'll only come a tanglement,' Edward suggested that he should help; there was great laughter over this interlude, while Mrs. Marston still chanted, 'Knit, purl!' Reddin walked lingeringly past the house in the dark, heard it, and was very angry and miserable.