heron arose on
that side of the sky and flew on with his face towards the sun. He
had come dripping wet from some pool in the valleys, and as he flew
the edges and lining of his wings, his thighs, and his breast were
so caught by the bright sunbeams that he appeared as if formed of
burnished silver. Up in the zenith where he was seemed a free and
happy place, away from all contact with the earthly ball to which she
was pinioned; and she wished that she could arise uncrushed from its
surface and fly as he flew then.

But, being a mother, it was inevitable that she should soon cease to
ruminate upon her own condition. Had the track of her next thought
been marked by a streak in the air, like the path of a meteor,
it would have shown a direction contrary to the heron's, and have
descended to the eastward upon the roof of Clym's house.

VII

The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends

He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked
around. Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she
held a book in her hand she had not looked into it for some time.

"Well, indeed!" said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands. "How
soundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream, too: one I
shall never forget."

"I thought you had been dreaming," said she.

"Yes. It was about my mother. I dreamt that I took you to her house
to make up differences, and when we got there we couldn't get in,
though she kept on crying to us for help. However, dreams are dreams.
What o'clock is it, Eustacia?"

"Half-past two."

"So late, is it? I didn't mean to stay so long. By the time I have
had something to eat it will be after three."

"Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I would let you
sleep on till she returned."

Clym went to the window and looked out. Presently he said, musingly,
"Week after week passes, and yet mother does not come. I thought I
should have heard something from her long before this."

Misgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift course of
expression in Eustacia's dark eyes. She was face to face with a
monstrous difficulty, and she resolved to get free of it by
postponement.

"I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon," he continued, "and I think
I had better go alone." He picked up his leggings and gloves, threw
them down again, and added, "As dinner will be so late today I will
not go back to the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and