PASTORALS AND PEONIES At dinner time the father announced to us the exciting fact that Leslie had asked if a few 
 
of his guests might picnic that afternoon in the Strelley hayfields. The closes were so 
 
beautiful, with the under all its sheltering trees, running into the pond that was 
 
set with two green islets. Moreover, the squire's lady had written a book filling these 
 
meadows and the mill precincts with pot-pourri romance. The wedding guests at Highclose 
 
were anxious to picnic in so choice a spot.
 
The father, who delighted in a gay , beamed at us from over the table. George asked 
 
who were coming.
 
"Oh, not many—about half a dozen—mostly ladies down for the wedding."
 
George at first swore warmly; then he began to appreciate the affair as a joke.
 
Mrs. Saxton hoped they wouldn't want her to provide them pots, for she hadn't two cups that 
 
matched, nor had any of her spoons the least to silver. The children were hugely 
 
excited, and wanted a holiday from school, which Emily at once vetoed firmly, thereby 
 
causing family dissension.
 
As we went round the field in the afternoon turning the hay, we were thinking apart, and 
 
did not talk. Every now and then—and at every corner—we stopped to look down towards the 
 
wood, to see if they were coming.
 
"Here they are!" George exclaimed suddenly, having spied the movement of white in the dark 
 
wood. We stood still and watched. Two girls, and white, a man with two girls, 
 
pale green and white, and a man with a girl last.
 
"Can you tell who they are?" I asked.
 
"That's Marie Tempest, that first girl in white, and that's him and Lettie at the back, I 
 
don't know any more."
 
He stood still until they had gone out of sight behind the banks down by the 
 
, then he stuck his fork in the ground, saying:
 
"You can easily finish—if you like. I'll go and out that bottom corner."
 
He glanced at me to see what I was thinking of him. I was thinking that he was afraid to 
 
meet her, and I was smiling to myself. Perhaps he felt ashamed, for he went silently away 
 
to the machine, where he belted his riding breeches tightly round his waist, and the 
 
on his . I heard the clanging of the scythe stone as he the 
 
blade. Then he strode off to mow the far bottom corner, where the ground was , and 
 
the machine might not go, to bring down the lush green grass and the tall meadow sweet.
 
I went to the pond to meet the newcomers. I bowed to Louie Denys, a tall, girl of 
 
the type, elaborately gowned in heliotrope ; I bowed to Agnes D'Arcy, an 
 
, intelligent girl with magnificent auburn hair—she wore no hat and carried a 
 
sunshade; I bowed to Hilda Seconde, a , petite girl, and delicately 
 
pretty; I bowed to Maria and to Lettie, and I shook hands with Leslie and with his friend, 
 
Freddy Cresswell. The latter was to be best man, a broad shouldered, pale-faced fellow, 
 
with beautiful soft hair like red wheat, and laughing eyes, and a whimsical, drawling 
 
manner of speech, like a man who has suffered enough to bring him to manhood and maturity, 
 
but who in spite of all a boy, irresponsible, lovable—a trifle pathetic. As the 
 
day was very hot, both men were in , and wore collars, yet it was evident 
 
that they had dressed with care. I tried to pull my trousers into 
 
shape within my belt, and I felt the inferiority cast upon the father, big and fine as he 
 
was in his way, for his shoulders were rounded with work, and his trousers were much 
 
distorted.
 
"What can we do?" said Marie; "you know we don't want to hinder, we want to help you. It 
 
was so good of you to let us come."
 
The father laughed his fine indulgence, saying to them—they loved him for the mellow, 
 
laughing of his voice:
 
"Come on, then—I see there's a bit of turning-over to do, as Cyril's left. Come and pick 
 
your forks."
 
From among a sheaf of hayforks he chose the lightest for them, and they began anywhere, 
 
just tipping at the swaths. He showed them carefully—Marie and the charming little Hilda—
 
just how to do it, but they found the right way the hardest way, so they worked in their 
 
own fashion, and laughed with him when he made playful jokes at them. He was a 
 
great lover of girls, and they blossomed from timidity under his influence.
 
"Ain' it flippin' 'ot?" drawled Cresswell, who had just taken his M. A. degree in classics: 
 
"This bloomin' stuff's dry enough—come an' on it."
 
He gathered a cushion of hay, which Louie Denys carefully appropriated, arranging first her 
 
beautiful dress, that fitted close to her shape, without any belt or interruption, and then 
 
laying her arms, that were netted to the shoulder in open lace, at rest. Lettie, 
 
who was also in a closefitting white dress which showed her shape down to the , sat 
 
where Leslie had prepared for her, and Miss D'Arcy reluctantly accepted my pile.
 
Cresswell twisted his clean-cut mouth in a little smile, saying:
 
"Lord, a giddy little pastoral—fit for old Theocritus, ain't it, Miss Denys?"
 
"Why do you talk to me about those classic people—I daren't even say their names. What 
 
would he say about us?"
 
He laughed, his blue eyes:
 
"He'd make old Daphnis there,"—pointing to Leslie—"sing a match with me, Damoetas—
 
contesting the merits of our various sheperdesses—begin Daphnis, sing up for Amaryllis, I 
 
mean Nais, damn 'em, they were for ever getting mixed up with their nymphs."
 
"I say, Mr. Cresswell, your language! Consider whom you're damning," said Miss Denys, 
 
leaning over and tapping his head with her silk glove.
 
"You say any giddy thing in a pastoral," he replied, taking the edge of her skirt, and 
 
lying back on it, looking up at her as she leaned over him. "Strike up, Daphnis, something 
 
about honey or white cheese—or else the early apples that'll be ripe in a week's time."
 
"I'm sure the apples you showed me are ever so little and green," interrupted Miss Denys; 
 
"they will never be ripe in a week—ugh, sour!"
 
He smiled up at her in his whimsical way:
 
"Hear that, Tempest—'Ugh, sour!'—not much! Oh, love us, haven't you got a start yet?—
 
isn't there aught to sing about, you blunt-faced kid?"
 
"I'll hear you first—I'm no judge of honey and cheese."
 
"An' darn little apples—takes a woman to judge them; don't it, Miss Denys?"
 
"I don't know," she said, stroking his soft hair from his forehead with her hand whereon 
 
rings were sparkling.
 
"'My love is not white, my hair is not yellow, like honey dropping through the sunlight—my 
 
love is brown, and sweet, and ready for the lips of love.' Go on, Tempest—strike up, old 
 
cowherd. Who's that his pipe?—oh, that fellow sharpening his scythe! It's enough to 
 
make your backache to look at him working—go an' stop him, somebody."
 
"Yes, let us go and fetch him," said Miss D'Arcy. "I'm sure he doesn't know what a happy 
 
pastoral state he's in—let us go and fetch him."
 
"They don't like hindering at their work, Agnes—besides, where ignorance is bliss——" 
 
said Lettie, afraid lest she might bring him. The other hesitated, then with her eyes she 
 
invited me to go with her.
 
"Oh, dear," she laughed, with a little mowe, "Freddy is such an , and Louie Denys is 
 
like a at . I wanted to laugh, yet I felt just a tiny bit cross. Don't you feel 
 
great when you go like that? Father Timey sort of feeling? Shall we go and look! 
 
We'll say we want those foxgloves he'll be cutting down directly—and those bell flowers. I 
 
suppose you needn't go on with your labours——"
 
He did not know we were approaching till I called him, then he started slightly as he saw 
 
the tall, proud girl.
 
"Mr. Saxton—Miss D'Arcy," I said, and he shook hands with her. Immediately his manner 
 
became , for he had seen his hand big and coarse and with the snaith 
 
clasping the lady's hand.
 
"We thought you looked so fine," she said to him, "and men are so embarrassing when they 
 
make love to somebody else—aren't they? Save us those foxgloves, will you—they are 
 
splendid—like soldiers up against the hedge—don't cut them down—and those 
 
campanulas—bell-flowers, ah, yes! They are spinning idylls up there. I don't care for 
 
idylls, do you? Oh, you don't know what a classical pastoral person you are—but there, I 
 
don't suppose you suffer from love——" she laughed, "—one doesn't see the silly 
 
little god fluttering about in our hayfields, does one? Do you find much time to sport with 
 
Amaryllis in the shade?—I'm sure it's a shame they Phyllis from the fields——"
 
He laughed and went on with his work. She smiled a little, too, thinking she had made a 
 
great impression. She put out her hand with a dramatic gesture, and looked at me, when the 
 
scythe through the meadow-sweet.
 
"! isn't it fine!" she exclaimed, "a kind of fate—I think it's fine!"
 
We wandered about picking flowers and talking until teatime. A manservant came with the 
 
tea-basket, and the girls spread the cloth under a great tree. Lettie took the 
 
little silver kettle, and went to fill it at the small spring which into a stone 
 
trough all pretty with cranesbill and stellaria hanging over, while long blades of grass 
 
waved in the water. George, who had finished his work, and wanted to go home to tea, walked 
 
across to the spring where Lettie sat playing with the water, getting little cupfuls to put 
 
into the kettle, watching the quick skating of the water , and the large faint spots 
 
of their shadows on the mud at the bottom of the trough.
 
She glanced round on hearing him coming, and smiled : they were mutually afraid of 
 
meeting each other again.
 
"It is about teatime," he said.
 
"Yes—it will be ready in a moment—this is not to make the tea with—it's only to keep a 
 
little supply of hot water."
 
"Oh," he said, "I'll go on home—I'd rather."
 
"No," she replied, "you can't because we are all having tea together: I had some fruits put 
 
up, because I know you don't trifle with tea—and your father's coming."
 
"But," he replied , "I can't have my tea with all those folks&mdas............