d riding out to some distant place, thinking
always, as he rode, of Rachel and what he was to do.

His devotion for the country round Seddon, a devotion that had stirred
his heart since his first conscious sight of the outside world, nobly
now rewarded him. The land seemed to understand that he was suffering,
and drew closer to him and watched him with gentle and loving eyes, and
soothed his soul.

Before Christmas there came some sharp, frosty mornings; he would go out
very early and would see, first, the garden, the lawn crisp and white,
the grey jagged wall that divided his land from the sweeping Downs, the
grey house behind him so square and solid and comfortable. At the end of
the garden away from the road there was an old iron gate with stone
pillars, and upon these pillars sat old stone gryphons. These gryphons
had been there since long ago and he liked the friendliness of their
faces, the strength of their crouching bodies and the way that they
would look out so patiently, over a great expanse of fields and hedges,
until their gaze rested on the white chalk hollows in the rising hills
away behind Lewes.

Roddy, standing with the Downs so immediately behind him and this green
spread of land in front of him, was always conscious of happiness. Here
he was at home. He knew those fields, the streams that ran through them,
the farmers, the labourers, the horses and dogs that lived upon them. No
fear here that "one of those clever fellers" would wonder at his
stupidity, no sudden "letting you down" or "showing you up." Behind him
was his house, before him the land that he had always known; here he was
safe.

He had, too, beyond this, some unformulated recognition of a service and
a worship that here he was called on to pay. He had always declared that
he could understand those Johnnies who worshipped the sun and the earth.
"Damn it all--there's something to catch on to there."--He did not, in
his heart, believe in all this civilization, this preserving of the sick
and tending of the maimed and halt. "You've got to clear out if you're
broken up" was his opinion. "If you can't do your bit, can't see or
smell or anything, you're just in the way."--What he meant was that the
halt and maimed were simply insults to the vigour and vitality of his
fields and sky.

But indeed, what _would_ he have done during these days had he not had
his riding, farms to visit, shepherds and farmers for company? At first
Rachel had ridde