tching a material representation
of time's gradual glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she did
scheme, her plans showed rather the comprehensive strategy of a
general than the small arts called womanish, though she could utter
oracles of Delphian ambiguity when she did not choose to be direct.
In heaven she will probably sit between the Heloises and the
Cleopatras.

VIII

Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody

As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he clasped
the money tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify his
courage, and began to run. There was really little danger in allowing
a child to go home alone on this part of Egdon Heath. The distance
to the boy's house was not more than three-eighths of a mile, his
father's cottage, and one other a few yards further on, forming part
of the small hamlet of Mistover Knap: the third and only remaining
house was that of Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood quite away
from the small cottages, and was the loneliest of lonely houses on
these thinly populated slopes.

He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous,
walked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about a
sailor-boy and a fair one, and bright gold in store. In the middle of
this the child stopped: from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone a
light, whence proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise.

Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The shrivelled
voice of the heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar. The
thorn-bushes which arose in his path from time to time were less
satisfactory, for they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit
after dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling
giants, and hideous cripples. Lights were not uncommon this evening,
but the nature of all of them was different from this. Discretion
rather than terror prompted the boy to turn back instead of passing
the light, with a view of asking Miss Eustacia Vye to let her servant
accompany him home.

When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found the fire
to be still burning on the bank, though lower than before. Beside it,
instead of Eustacia's solitary form, he saw two persons, the second
being a man. The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain from
the nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent to interrupt so
splendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on his poor t