“I had to.” He blew on his fingers and took off his cap. Water trickled over his unshaven cheeks. His hair was so wet that it seemed worked upon his scalp in bronze. “Get away, bad dog!” screamed the lady, for he had given himself a shake and spattered her dress with water. He was a powerful boy of twenty, admirably muscular, but rather too broad for his height. People called him “Podge” until they were dissuaded. Then they called him “Stephen” or “Mr. Wonham.” Then he said, “You can call me Podge if you like.” “As for Flea—!” he began tempestuously. He sat down by her, and with much heavy breathing told the story,—“Flea has a girl at Wintersbridge, and I had to go with his sheep while he went to see her. Two hours. We agreed. Half an hour to go, an hour to kiss his girl, and half an hour back—and he had my bike. Four hours! Four hours and seven minutes I was on the Rings, with a fool of a dog, and sheep doing all they knew to get the turnips.” “My farm is a mystery to me,” said the lady, stroking her fingers. “Some day you must really take me to see it. It must be like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, with a chorus of agitated employers. How is it that I have escaped? Why have I never been summoned to milk the cows, or flay the pigs, or drive the young bullocks to the pasture?” He looked at her with astonishingly blue eyes—the only dry things he had about him. He could not see into her: she would have puzzled an older and clever man. He may have seen round her. “A thing of beauty you are not. But I sometimes think you are a joy for ever.” “I beg your pardon?” “Oh, you understand right enough,” she exclaimed irritably, and then smiled, for he was conceited, and did not like being told that he was not a thing of beauty. “Large and steady feet,” she continued, “have this disadvantage—you can knock down a man, but you will never knock down a woman.” “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not likely—” “Oh, never mind—never, never mind. I was being funny. I repent. Tell me about the sheep. Why did you go with them?” “I did tell you. I had to.” “But why?” “He had to see his girl.” “But why?” His eyes shot past her again. It was so obvious that the man had to see his girl. For two hours though—not for four hours seven minutes. “Did you have any lunch?” “I don’t hold with regular meals.” “Did you have a book?” “I don’t hold with books in the open. None of the older men read.” “Did you commune with yourself, or don’t you hold with that?” “Oh Lord, don’t ask me!” “You distress me. You rob the Pastoral of its lingering romance. Is there no poetry and no thought in England? Is there no one, in all these downs, who warbles with eager thought the Doric lay?” “Chaps sing to themselves at times, if you mean that.” “I dream of Arcady. I open my eyes. Wiltshire. Of Amaryllis: Flea Thompson’s girl. Of the pensive shepherd, twitching his mantle blue: you in an ulster. Aren’t you sorry for me?” “May I put in a pipe?”