as of wheat, a scarlet thread that showed
White with ox-eye daisies here and there and chalky cobbles,
Blue with waving corn-flowers: far and far away it glowed,
Winding into heaven, I thinks; but, Lord, the way she hobbles,
Lord, she'll never reach it, for she bears too great a load;
Yus, and then I knowed,
If she did, she couldn't, for the board was marked _No Road_.

VI

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, I couldn't wait no longer!
Up I gets and bows polite and pleasant as a toff--
"Arternoon," I says, "I'm glad your boots are going stronger;
Only thing I'm dreading is your feet 'ull both come off."
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she didn't stop to answer,
"Arternoon," she says, and sort o' chokes a little cough,
"I must get to Piddinghoe to-morrow if I can, sir!"
"Demme, my good woman! Haw! Don't think I mean to loff,"
Says I, like a toff,
"Where d'you mean to sleep to-night? God made this grass for go'ff."

VII

_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, and smilingly she eyed me
(Dreadful the low cunning of these creechars, don't you think?)
"That's all right! The weather's bright. Them bushes there 'ull hide me.
Don't the gorse smell nice?" I felt my derned old eyelids blink!
"Supper? I've a crust of bread, a big one, and a bottle,"
(Just as I expected! Ah, these creechars always drink!)
"Sugar and water and half a pinch of tea to rinse my throttle,
Then I'll curl up cosy!"--"If you're cotched it means the clink!"
--"Yus, but don't you think
If a star should see me, God 'ull tell that star to wink?"

VIII

"Now, look here," I says, "I don't know what your blooming age is!"
"Three-score years and five," she says, "that's five more years to go
_Tick, tack, tick tack_, before I gets my wages!"
"Wages all be damned," I says, "there's one thing that I know--
Gals that stay out late o' nights are sure to meet wi' sorrow.
Speaking as a toff," I says, "it isn't _comme il faut_!
Tell me why you want to get to Piddinghoe to-morrow."--
"That was where my son worked, twenty years ago!"--
"Twenty years ago?
Never wrote? May still be there? Remember you?... Just so!"

IX

Yus, it was a drama; but she weren't my long-lost parent!
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she trotted all t