Myra caught at Clem's arm and drew him back into the hall. For the moment
terror overcame her--terror of something sinister within--of their
grandfather sitting there like Giant Pope in the story, waiting to catch
them. She hurried Clem along to the kitchen-passage, which opened out of
the hall at right angles to the front door and close beside it.
The front door had a fanlight through which fell one broken sunray,
filtered to a pale green by the honeysuckle of the porch; and reaching it,
she caught her breath in a new alarm. The bolts were drawn.
After a furtive glance behind her, she peered more closely, holding Clem
fast by the sleeve. Yes, certainly the bolts were drawn, and the key had
not been turned in the lock. Very cautiously she tried the heavy latch.
The door opened easily--though with a creak that fetched her heart into
her mouth.
But there was no going back. Whatever might be the explanation of the
unbolted door, they were free now, at large in the dewy morning with the
world at their feet. The brightness of it dazzled Myra. It broke on
Clem's ears with the dinning of innumerable birds.
They took hands and hurried down the gravel path. Did ever Madonna
lilies, did ever clove carnations smell as did these, lifting their heads
from their morning bath? Yet field challenged garden with the fragrance
of new-mown hay wafted down through the elms from Parc-an-hal, that great
meadow.
On the low wall by the garden-gate Myra found a seat for Clem, helped him
to lace his boots, and then did on her own.
"What's the time?" Clem demanded.
"I don't know, but he'll be coming soon. It can't be four o'clock yet, or
we should hear Jim Tregay knocking about the milk-pails."
The boy sat silent, nursing his knee, drinking in a thousand scents and
sounds. Myra watched the great humble-bees staggering from flower to
flower, blundering among their dew-filled cups. She drew down a lily-stem
gently, and guided her brother's hand so that it held one heady fellow
imprisoned, buzzing under his palm and tickling it. Clem laughed aloud.
"Listen!"
A lad came whistling Up the road from the village. It was Tom Trevarthen,
and the sunshine glinted on his silver earrings.
"Good-morning, missy! Good-morning, Master Clem! I'm good as my word,
you see; though be sure I never reckoned to find 'ee up and out at this
hour."
"Myra woke me," said Clem. "I believe she keeps a clock in her head."
"When I want to wake up at any particular hour, I just do it," Myra
announced calmly. "Have they begun the rafting?"
"Bless your life, they've been working all night. There's one raft
finished, and the other ought to be ready in a couple or three hours, to
save the tide across the bay."
"I don't hear them singing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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