Gone to Earth. Mary Gladys Meredith Webb
shawl was top, which meant optimism. With Mrs. Marston, optimism was the direct result of warmth. Her spectacles had crept up and round her head, and had a rakishly benign appearance. On her comfortable lap lay the missionary Word and a large roll of brown knitting which was intended to imitate fur. Edward noted hopefully that the pink shawl was top.
'Here's Hazel come to see you, mother!'
Mrs. Marston straightened her spectacles, surveyed Hazel, and asked if she would like to do her hair. This ceremony over, they sat down to tea.
'And how many brothers and sisters have you, my dear?' asked the old lady.
'Never a one. Nobody but our Foxy.'
'Edward, too, has none. Who is Foxy?'
'My little cub.'
'You speak as if the animals were a relation, dear.'
'So all animals be my brothers and sisters.'
'I know, dear. Quite right. All animals in conversation should be so.
But any single animal in reality is only an animal, and can't be.
Animals have no souls.'
'Yes, they have, then! If they hanna; you hanna!'
Edward hastened to make peace.
'We don't know, do we, mother?' he said. 'And now suppose we have tea?'
Mrs. Marston looked at Hazel suspiciously over the rim of her glasses.
'My dear, don't have ideas,' she said.
'There, Hazel!' Edward smiled. 'What about your ideas in the spinney?'
'There's queer things doing in Hunter's Spinney, and what for shouldna you believe it?' said Hazel. 'Sometimes more than other times, and midsummer most of all.'
'What sort of queer things?' asked Edward, in order to be able to watch her as she answered.
Hazel shut her eyes and clasped her hands, speaking in a soft monotone as if repeating a lesson.
'In Hunter's Spinney on midsummer night there's things moving as move no other time; things free as was fast; things crying out as have been a long while hurted.' She suddenly opened her eyes and went on dramatically 'First comes the Black Huntsman, crouching low on his horse and the horse going belly to earth. And John Meares o' the public, he seed the red froth from his nostrils on the brakes one morning when he was ketching pheasants. And the jeath's with him, great hound-dogs, real as real, only no eyes, but sockets with a light behind 'em. Ne'er a one knows what they's after. If I seed 'em I'd die,' she finished hastily, taking a large bite of cake.
'Myths are interesting,' said Edward, 'especially nature myths.'
'What's a myth, Mr. Marston?'
'An untruth, my dear,' said Mrs. Marston.
'This inna one, then! I tell you John seed the blood!'
'Tell us more.' Edward would have drunk in nonsense rhymes from her lips.
'And there's never a one to gainsay 'em in all the dark 'oods,' Hazel went on, 'except on Midsummer Eve.'
'Midsummer!'—Mrs. Marston's tone was gently wistful—'is the only time I'm really warm. That is, if the weather's as it should be. But the weather's not what it was!'
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