On the bridge Ernie paused and looked across towards the village lying in the morning sunlight, a tumble of russet roofs hugger-mugger among gardens on the hill, the old brown tiles crudely patched here and there with raw red ones; beyond the roofs the bare Downs; and at the foot of the hill, just across the green, tiny Frogs' Hall with the honeysuckle about the door, and Mus Boam sitting as always on his bricks, spectacles on nose, and Book spread on his knees. Then Ernie was aware of a movement in the water underneath him and glanced down. Just beside the bridge a willow leaned over the stream. Here in a pool, sheltered by bridge and tree, a young woman stood, her skirts kilted, and the water to her knees. She wore the same orange scarf as on the previous evening, and the same earth-coloured gabardine; but her arms were bare; and in them was a naked babe. Standing amid water-weeds, the stream glancing in the sunshine about her, and the lights and shadows dappling her face as the willow above her stirred, she dipped the child and cooed, and dipped and cooed again, while the babe kicked and flung its arms and laughed. Beyond the stream heifers, black and red and white, moved leisurely in the flat green water-meadow or flicked their tails in the shadow of the straggling hedge that divided the Brooks from the long foot-hill, of the form and colour of a rainbow, which curved against the background of smooth Windhover. Ernie, on the bridge, himself unseen, watched the young woman, with contented eyes. Happy in her motherhood, Ruth had clearly forgotten for the moment her troubles and her tragedy. Quietly Ernie moved off the bridge and took his stand beside the willow on the bank. Ruth saw him now, smiled a casual greeting, and continued her labours. Suffering, it was clear, had crushed all self-consciousness out of her. She knew no shyness, no false shame; performing her natural functions simple as a creature of the Wilderness. Then she came wading towards him, her baby wet and slippery in her arms. The sun had burnt her a rich olive hue, deepening the red in her cheek, touching her throat to gold. With her orange turban crowning her swarthy hair she looked a gypsy Juno. More massive than of old, matured in face and figure, she was a woman now and not a girl: one who had fought and suffered and endured, and bore on her body the stigmata of her ordeal. There was no laughter in her, and no trace of coquetry. Almost austere, nobly indifferent, she was facing life without fear and with little hope. Ernie was shy and self-conscious as she was the reverse. "You don't go to the Lock then?" he said stupidly. "Nay," Ruth answered. "The Lock's for the lads. This'n's for baby and me. More loo like." "She seems to favour it," said Ernie. "Aye, she's unaccountable fond of the water, same as her mother." Her speech had taken once again the tone of her village environment.