h grounds.

A group of peasants was coming along the yellow, lonely road, talking
and laughing. The bare-footed women stepped with great active strides,
bearing themselves with energy. They carried heavy baskets from the
market town, but were not conscious of their weight. The carded-wool
petticoats, dyed a robust red, brought a patch of vividness to the
landscape. The white "bauneens" and soft black hats of the men afforded
a contrast. The Rector's eyes gazed upon the group with a schooled
detachment. It was the look of a man who stood outside of their lives,
who did not expect to be recognised, and who did not feel called upon to
seem conscious of these peasant folk. The eyes of the peasants were
unmoved, uninterested, as they were lifted to the dark figure that stood
at the rusty iron gate leading into the enclosed church grounds. He
gave them no salutation. Their conversation voluble, noisy, dropped for
a moment, half through embarrassment, half through a feeling that
something alive stood by the wayside. A vagueness in expression on both
sides was the outward signal that two conservative forces had met for a
moment and refused to compromise.

One young girl, whose figure and movements would have kindled the eye of
an artist, looked up and appeared as if she would smile. The Rector was
conscious of her vivid face, framed in a fringe of black hair, of a
mischievousness in her beauty, some careless abandon in the swing of her
limbs. But something in the level dark brows of the Rector, something
that was dour, forbade her smile. It died in a little flush of
confusion. The peasants passed and the Rector gave them time to make
some headway before he resumed his walk to the Rectory.

He looked up at the range of hills, great in their extent, mighty in
their rhythm, beautiful in the play of light and mist upon them. But to
the mind of the Rector they expressed something foreign, they were part
of a place that was condemned and lost. He began to think of the young
girl who, in her innocence, had half-smiled at him. Why did she not
smile? Was she afraid? Of what was she afraid? What evil thing had come
between her and that impulse of youth? Some consciousness--of what? The
Rector sighed. He had, he was afraid, knowledge of what it was. And that
knowledge set his thoughts racing over their accustomed course. He ran
over the long tradition of his grievances--grievances that had submerged
him in a life that had not even a pla