A Dozen Ways Of Love eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 303 pages of information about A Dozen Ways Of Love.

A Dozen Ways Of Love eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 303 pages of information about A Dozen Ways Of Love.

‘No sir, I’m no fool,’ said the ploughman sulkily, starting his horses to go up the furrow.  In vain the other called out an attempted apology, and tried to delay him; the accustomed shout and clank of the chains was all he got in answer.  The birds that had settled upon the field rose again at the return of the horses, and curveted in a long fluttering line above their heads.  The man on the road turned reluctantly away, and, too perplexed almost for thought, walked off to catch his home-bound train.

CHAPTER II

The man of science, Skelton by name, passed some seven days in business and pleasure at home among men of his own class, and then, impelled by an intolerable curiosity, he went to seek the home of the woman with whom he had so strange a meeting.  Concerning the mad delusion from which he had suffered in her presence, his mind would give him no rest.  Some further effort he must make to understand the cause of an experience which he could not reason from his memory.  The effort might be futile; he could form no plan of action; yet he found himself again upon the highroad which led from the nearest station to the village of West Chilton.

The autumn leaf that had bedecked the trees was lying upon the ground, its brightness soiled and tarnished.  The cloud rack hung above, a vault of gloom in which the upper winds coursed sadly.

‘This is the field,’ said Skelton within himself.  ’The ploughman has finished his work, but the crows are still flapping about it.  I wonder if they are the same crows!  That is the clump of weeds by which she sat; it was as red as flame then, but now it is colourless as the cinders of a fire that is gone out.’

His words were like straws, showing the current of his thoughts.

Just then in the west the cloud masses in the horizon, being moved by the winds, rent asunder, exposing the land to the yellow blaze of the setting sun.  The distant hills stood out against the glow in richer blue, and far and near the fields took brighter hues—­warm brown of earth ready to yield the next harvest, yellow of stubble lands at rest, bright green of slopes that fed the moving cows.  There were luminous shadows, too, that gathered instantly in the copses, as if they were the forms of dryads who could sport unseen in the murk daylight, but must fly under each shrub for refuge in the sudden sunshine.  Close at his feet lay the patch of cabbages—­purple cabbages they were, throwing back from each glossy leaf and stalk infinite gradations of crimson light.  Parts of the leaves were not glossy but were covered with opaque bloom of tender blue, and here and there a leaf had been broken, disclosing scarlet veins.  They were very beautiful—­Skelton stood looking down into their depth of colour.

It had been difficult for him to conjecture a possible cause for the phantom he had thought he saw a week before, but one theory which had floated in his mind had been that from these cabbages, which had lain a trifle too long in sun and moisture; gases might have arisen which had disturbed his senses.  It was true that his theory did not account for other instances of the same optical delusion to which the talk of the ploughman had seemed to point, but Skelton could not bring himself to attach much importance to his words.  He meditated on them now as he stood.

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A Dozen Ways Of Love from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.