Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/133

 singularly callous to his need, and offered as a sop only one poor creature, Snailem by name, suspiciously smooth of hand, who now sat in the other end of the coach gazing out of window with dull eyes that, Derek thought, would blink before the problem of distinguishing a reaper from a mower. Still, he was a "hand," and Derek determined to get the utmost out of him till more help came, which was promised shortly.

He, too, gazed through the window at the fields steaming in a hot sunset after a day of rain. He saw woods flash by, rounded in all the rank effulgence of their springing maturity; hillsides dotted by plump ewes with sucking lambs butting against their udders; black, rich fields where wet-booted men still seeded the hungry soil. He saw a deep cut through a cedar wood, where a narrow stream ran far below, its course marked by white lilies and lady's slipper. A heron rose heavily above it, his long legs stiff, his neck stretched, his wings beating against the flaring sunset.

Derek felt very content. Life in all its intensity surged about him, and he was part of all this divine, strange vivacity of living—the steaming fields—the flying heron—the flying train—even Snailem, surreptitiously slipping a wad of tobacco into his untidy mouth.

Across the way a young woman comforted her little boy, who was crying because he had bumped his nose on the window sill. She gave him and his sister each a sponge cake, and kissed the little bumped nose, and laughed. The two children ate the cakes hungrily, but the boy dug the caraway seeds out of his and laid them on the plush seat beside him. His mother, seeing him deposit the last one there, gave him a little slap and brushed the seeds hurriedly to the floor. The boy puckered his face to cry again, but seeing Derek laughing at him, he laughed too, and, in a moment, sidled across the aisle and stood at his side.