Having finished my bars, with four strong brackets to hold them,
I put away my tools, and donned hat and coat.
It was yet early, and there was, besides, much work waiting to be
done, but I felt unwontedly tired and out of sorts, wherefore,
with my bars and brackets beneath my arm, I set out for the
Hollow.
From the hedges, on either side of me, came the sweet perfume of
the honeysuckle, and beyond the hedges the fields stood high with
ripening corn--a yellow, heavy-headed host, nodding and swaying
lazily. I stood awhile to listen to its whisper as the gentle
wind swept over it, and to look down the long green alleys of the
hop-gardens beyond; and at the end of one of these straight
arched vistas there shone a solitary, great star.
And presently, lifting my eyes to the sky, already deepening to
evening, and remembering how I had looked round me ere I faced
Black George, I breathed a sigh of thankfulness that I was yet
alive with strength to walk within a world so beautiful.
Now, as I stood thus, I heard a voice hailing me, and, glancing
about, espied one, some distance up the road, who sat beneath the
hedge, whom, upon approaching, I recognized as Gabbing Dick, the
Pedler.
He nodded and grinned as I came up, but in both there was a vague
unpleasantness, as also in the manner in which he eyed me slowly
up and down.
"You've stood a-lookin' up into the sky for a good ten minutes!"
said he.
"And what if I have?"
"Nothin," said the Pedler, "nothin' at all--though if the moon
'ad been up, a cove might ha' thought as you was dreamin' of some
Eve or other; love-sick folk always stares at the moon--leastways,
so they tell me. Any one as stares at the moon when 'e might be
doin' summ'at better is a fool, as great a fool as any man as
stares at a Eve, for a Eve never brought any man nothin' but
trouble and sorrer, and never will, no'ow? Don't frown, young
cove, nor shake your 'ead, for it's true; wot's caused more
sorrer an' blood than them Eves? Blood?--ah! rivers of it!
Oceans of good blood's been spilt all along o' women, from the
Eve as tricked old Adam to the Eve as tricks the like o' me, or
say--yourself." Here he regarded me with so evil a leer that I
turned my back in disgust.
"Don't go, young cove; I ain't done yet, and I got summ'at to
tell ye."