We kept up the dance very late that night, mother being in such
wonderful spirits, that she would not hear of our going to bed: while
she glanced from young Squire Marwood, very deep in his talk with our
Annie, to me and Ruth Huckaback who were beginning to be very pleasant
company. Alas, poor mother, so proud as she was, how little she dreamed
that her good schemes already were hopelessly going awry!

Being forced to be up before daylight next day, in order to begin right
early, I would not go to my bedroom that night for fear of disturbing my
mother, but determined to sleep in the tallat awhile, that place being
cool, and airy, and refreshing with the smell of sweet hay. Moreover,
after my dwelling in town, where I had felt like a horse on a lime-kiln,
I could not for a length of time have enough of country life. The mooing
of a calf was music, and the chuckle of a fowl was wit, and the snore of
the horses was news to me.

"Wult have thee own wai, I reckon," said Betty, being cross with
sleepiness, for she had washed up everything; "slape in hog-pound, if
thee laikes, Jan."

Letting her have the last word of it (as is the due of women) I stood in
the court, and wondered awhile at the glory of the harvest moon, and the
yellow world it shone upon. Then I saw, as sure as ever I was standing
there in the shadow of the stable, I saw a short wide figure glide
across the foot of the courtyard, between me and the six-barred gate.
Instead of running after it, as I should have done, I began to consider
who it could be, and what on earth was doing there, when all our people
were in bed, and the reapers gone home, or to the linhay close against
the wheatfield.

Having made up my mind at last, that it could be none of our
people--though not a dog was barking--and also that it must have been
either a girl or a woman, I ran down with all speed to learn what might
be the meaning of it. But I came too late to learn, through my own
hesitation, for this was the lower end of the courtyard, not the
approach from the parish highway, but the end of the sledd-way, across
the fields where the brook goes down to the Lynn stream, and where
Squire Faggus had saved the old drake. And of course the dry channel
of the brook, being scarcely any water now, afforded plenty of place to
hide, leading also to a little coppice, beyond our cabbage-garden, and
so further on to the parish highway.

I saw at once that it was vain to make any pursuit b