Book Two The Woman - Chapter 23 How Gabbing Dick, the Pedler, Set a Hammer Going in My Head

Having finished my bars, with four strong brackets to hold them,
I put away my tools, and donned hat and coat.

It was yet early, and there was, besides, much work waiting to be
done, but I felt unwontedly tired and out of sorts, wherefore,
with my bars and brackets beneath my arm, I set out for the
Hollow.

From the hedges, on either side of me, came the sweet perfume of
the honeysuckle, and beyond the hedges the fields stood high with
ripening corn--a yellow, heavy-headed host, nodding and swaying
lazily. I stood awhile to listen to its whisper as the gentle
wind swept over it, and to look down the long green alleys of the
hop-gardens beyond; and at the end of one of these straight
arched vistas there shone a solitary, great star.

And presently, lifting my eyes to the sky, already deepening to
evening, and remembering how I had looked round me ere I faced
Black George, I breathed a sigh of thankfulness that I was yet
alive with strength to walk within a world so beautiful.

Now, as I stood thus, I heard a voice hailing me, and, glancing
about, espied one, some distance up the road, who sat beneath the
hedge, whom, upon approaching, I recognized as Gabbing Dick, the
Pedler.

He nodded and grinned as I came up, but in both there was a vague
unpleasantness, as also in the manner in which he eyed me slowly
up and down.