Uncorrected proofs, 1910

Page 13 (2 of 33)

past, lifting their blackened faces to call something to the

driver. Then they passed on, loudly talking, their shapeless

grey-black figures seeming of a piece with the raw November

afternoon, the tea-bottles rolling in their pockets, while the

stumbling of their great boots across the sleepers resounded

from afar.

The train slowed down as it drew near a small cottage squat*

beside the great bay of railway-lines. Four black steps, old

sleepers, led down from the cinder-track to the threshold of the

house, which was small and grimy, a large bony vine scrambling

over it, as if trying to claw down the tiled roof. Round the

small bricked yard was a rim of sooty garden with a few chill

primroses. Beyond, a long garden sloped down to a tree-hidden

brook course. There were twiggy apple-trees and winter-crack

trees*, forlorn and black, and a number of ragged cabbages.

Beside the path there hung torn and scattered groups of dis-

hevelled pink chrysanthemums. A woman came bending out of

the felt-covered fowl-house half-way down the garden. She

closed and padlocked the door, then drew herself erect, having

brushed some bits from her white apron.

She was a tall woman of imperious mien, handsome, with

definite black eyebrows. Her smooth black hair was parted

exactly. For a few moments she stood steadily watching the

miners as they passed along the railway: then she turned

towards the brook-course. There was no quickness, no lightness,

in her movements. Her face was calm and proud with defiance,

her mouth was closed with disillusionment. After a moment

she called:

"John!" There was no answer. She waited, and then

said distinctly:

"Where are you?"

"Here!" replied a child's sulky voice from among the

bushes that crowded darkly on the bank of the brook. The

woman looked piercingly through the dusk.