Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/186



awoke in the silver dawn, her limbs cramped by a curled-up position, the rough hay scratching her tender neck, the chill of an autumn morning sending shivers to her very marrow. Her dress had not yet dried from the splash caused by Perkin's fall into the stream and clung damply to her bosom. She crept to a crack, and through it looked at the farm-house. It squatted, low and grey, on the hillside, a scarf of mist rising towards it from the stream. A dead house sheltering ghosts it seemed. Sinister ghosts who were angry because she would not stay and be another ghost. Not that Perkin had not life in him. But it was a cruel flame that frightened her. She must run from all this. She did not know where except that it must be the opposite direction from Brancepeth, somewhere past the quarries and Stebbing where they bred brook trout, to some place where no one had ever heard of her.

She descended the ladder and went to the byre. The Jersey cow was lying down, her black face resting against her bony cream-coloured flank, her liquid eyes gazing dreamily before her.

"Get up, Jersey," said Delight, slapping her.

The cow could not understand such an unusual proceeding, and closed her eyes as though to shut out the apparition. But when she was slapped again she rose and