more blood in my big
toe than Nedda in all her body! A lot of use you'll be, with your heart
mooning up in London!" And crouched together on the end of her bed,
gazing fixedly up at him through her hair, she had chanted mockingly:
"Here we go gathering wool and stars--wool and stars--wool and stars!"

He had not deigned to answer, but had gone out, furious with her,
striding over the dark fields, scrambling his way through the hedges
toward the high loom of the hills. Up on the short grass in the cooler
air, with nothing between him and those swarming stars, he lost his rage.
It never lasted long--hers was more enduring. With the innate lordliness
of a brother he already put it down to jealousy. Sheila was hurt that he
should want any one but her; as if his love for Nedda would make any
difference to their resolution to get justice for Tryst and the Gaunts,
and show those landed tyrants once for all that they could not ride
roughshod.

Nedda! with her dark eyes, so quick and clear, so loving when they looked
at him! Nedda, soft and innocent, the touch of whose lips had turned his
heart to something strange within him, and wakened such feelings of
chivalry! Nedda! To see whom for half a minute he felt he would walk a
hundred miles.

This boy's education had been administered solely by his mother till he
was fourteen, and she had brought him up on mathematics, French, and
heroism. His extensive reading of history had been focussed on the
personality of heroes, chiefly knights errant, and revolutionaries. He
had carried the worship of them to the Agricultural College, where he had
spent four years; and a rather rough time there had not succeeded in
knocking romance out of him. He had found that you could not have such
beliefs comfortably without fighting for them, and though he ended his
career with the reputation of a rebel and a champion of the weak, he had
had to earn it. To this day he still fed himself on stories of
rebellions and fine deeds. The figures of Spartacus, Montrose, Hofer,
Garibaldi, Hampden, and John Nicholson, were more real to him than the
people among whom he lived, though he had learned never to
mention--especially not to the matter-of-fact Sheila--his encompassing
cloud of heroes; but, when he was alone, he pranced a bit with them, and
promised himself that he too would reach the stars. So you may sometimes
see a little, grave boy walking through a field, unwatched as he
believes, sud