A hundred and twenty pages of pure Ralph without any taint of Waddington. It seemed to be part of Mr. Waddington's book, and yet no part of it, for it was inconceivable that it should belong to anything but itself. Ralph didn't ramble; he went straight for the things he had seen. He saw the Cotswolds round Wyck-on-the-Hill, he made you see them, as they were: the high curves of the hills, multiplied, thrown off, one after another; the squares and oblongs and vandykes and spread fans of the fields; and their many colours; grass green of the pastures, emerald green of the young wheat, white green of the barley; shining, metallic green of the turnips; the pink, the brown, the purple fallows, the sharp canary yellow of the charlock. And the trees, the long processions of trees by the great grass-bordered roads; trees furring the flanks and groins of the parted hills, dark combs topping their edges. Ralph knew what he was doing. He went about with the farmers and farm hands; he followed the ploughing and sowing and the reaping, the feeding and milking of the cattle, the care of the ewes in labour and of the young lambs. He went at night to the upland folds with the shepherds; he could tell you about shepherds. He sat with the village women by their firesides and listened to their talk; he could tell you about village women. Mr. Waddington did not tell you about anything that mattered. She took the manuscript to Ralph at the White Hart with a note to say how she had found it. He came running out to walk home with her. "Did you know it was there?" she said. "No. I thought I'd lost it. You see what it is?" "Part of your book." "Horatio's book." "But you wrote it." "Yes. That's what he fired me out for. He got tired of the thing and asked me to go on with it. He called it working up his material. I went on with it like that, and he wouldn't have it. He said it was badly written--jerky, short sentences--he'd have to re-write it. Well--I wouldn't let him do that, and he wouldn't have it as it stood." "But--it's beautiful--alive and real. What more does he want?" "The stamp of his personality." "Oh, he'd _stamp_ on it all right." "I'm glad you like it." "_Like_ it. Don't you?" Ralph said he thought he'd liked it when he wrote it, but now he didn't know. "You'll know when you've finished it." "I don't suppose I shall finish it," he said. "But you must. You can't _not_ finish a thing like that." "I own I'd like to. But I can't publish it." "Why ever not?" "Oh, it wouldn't be fair to poor old Waddy. After all, I wrote it for him." "What on earth does that matter? If he doesn't want it. Of course you'll finish it, and of course you'll publish it." "Well, but it's all Cotswold, you see. And _he's_ Cotswold. If it _is_ any good, you know, I shouldn't like to--to well, get in his way. It's his game. At least he began it." "It's a game two can play, writing Cotswold books." "No. No. It isn't. And he got in first."