d.

"That's nice! I'm not afraid of illness, nor of grandfather, nor of his
God; but--I want to be free. If you want a thing badly, you're afraid
about it."

I thought of Zachary Pearse's words, "free as a man."

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she said.

I stammered: "What do you mean by freedom?"

"Do you know what I shall do to-night?" she answered. "Get out of my
window by the apple-tree, and go to the woods, and play!"

We were going down a steep lane, along the side of a wood, where there's
always a smell of sappy leaves, and the breath of the cows that come
close to the hedge to get the shade.

There was a cottage in the bottom, and a small boy sat outside playing
with a heap of dust.

"Hallo, Johnny!" said Pasiance. "Hold your leg out and show this man
your bad place!" The small boy undid a bandage round his bare and dirty
little leg, and proudly revealed a sore.

"Isn't it nasty?" cried Pasiance ruefully, tying up the bandage again;
"poor little feller! Johnny, see what I've brought you!" She produced
from her pocket a stick of chocolate, the semblance of a soldier made of
sealing-wax and worsted, and a crooked sixpence.

It was a new glimpse of her. All the way home she was telling me the
story of little Johnny's family; when she came to his mother's death, she
burst out: "A beastly shame, wasn't it, and they're so poor; it might
just as well have been somebody else. I like poor people, but I hate
rich ones--stuck-up beasts."

Mrs. Hopgood was looking over the gate, with her cap on one side, and one
of Pasiance's cats rubbing itself against her skirts. At the sight of us
she hugged herself.

"Where's grandfather?" asked Pasiance. The old lady shook her head.

"Is it a row?" Mrs. Hopgood wriggled, and wriggled, and out came:

"Did you get yure tay, my pretty? No? Well, that's a pity; yu'll be
falin' low-like."

Pasiance tossed her head, snatched up the cat, and ran indoors. I
remained staring at Mrs. Hopgood.

"Dear-dear," she clucked, "poor lamb. So to spake it's--" and she
blurted out suddenly, "chuckin' full of wra-ath, he is. Well, there!"

My courage failed that evening. I spent it at the coastguard station,
where they gave me bread and cheese and some awful cider. I passed the
kitchen as I came back. A fire was still burning there, and two figures,
misty in the darkness, flitted about with stealthy laughter like spirits
afraid of being detected in a carnal-m