the girl said to
him, after having hesitated for some time:

"Have you seen the swing?"

"No," he answered. "Where?"

"In the cowshed," she replied.

She always hesitated to offer or to show him anything. Men have such
different standards of worth from women, and her dear things--the
valuable things to her--her brothers had so often mocked or flouted.

"Come on, then," he replied, jumping up.

There were two cowsheds, one on either side of the barn. In the lower,
darker shed there was standing for four cows. Hens flew scolding over
the manger-wall as the youth and girl went forward for the great thick
rope which hung from the beam in the darkness overhead, and was pushed
back over a peg in the wall.

"It's something like a rope!" he exclaimed appreciatively; and he sat
down on it, anxious to try it. Then immediately he rose.

"Come on, then, and have first go," he said to the girl.

"See," she answered, going into the barn, "we put some bags on the
seat"; and she made the swing comfortable for him. That gave her
pleasure. He held the rope.

"Come on, then," he said to her.

"No, I won't go first," she answered.

She stood aside in her still, aloof fashion.

"Why?"

"You go," she pleaded.

Almost for the first time in her life she had the pleasure of giving up
to a man, of spoiling him. Paul looked at her.

"All right," he said, sitting down. "Mind out!"

He set off with a spring, and in a moment was flying through the air,
almost out of the door of the shed, the upper half of which was open,
showing outside the drizzling rain, the filthy yard, the cattle standing
disconsolate against the black cartshed, and at the back of all
the grey-green wall of the wood. She stood below in her crimson
tam-o'-shanter and watched. He looked down at her, and she saw his blue
eyes sparkling.

"It's a treat of a swing," he said.

"Yes."

He was swinging through the air, every bit of him swinging, like a bird
that swoops for joy of movement. And he looked down at her. Her crimson
cap hung over her dark curls, her beautiful warm face, so still in a
kind of brooding, was lifted towards him. It was dark and rather cold in
the shed. Suddenly a swallow came down from the high roof and darted out
of the door.

"I didn't know a bird was watching," he called.

He swung negligently. She could feel him falling and lifting through the
air, as if he were lying on some force.

"Now I'll die," he said, in a detached, dre