most always--I mean
whither daily I repair to read and to be away from them."

"Only show me where it is. Thrice a day I will come and stop--"

"Nay, Master Ridd, I would never show thee--never, because of
peril--only that so happens it thou hast found the way already."

And she smiled with a light that made me care to cry out for no other
way, except to her dear heart. But only to myself I cried for anything
at all, having enough of man in me to be bashful with young maidens. So
I touched her white hand softly when she gave it to me, and (fancying
that she had sighed) was touched at heart about it, and resolved to
yield her all my goods, although my mother was living; and then grew
angry with myself (for a mile or more of walking) to think she would
condescend so; and then, for the rest of the homeward road, was mad with
every man in the world who would dare to think of having her.

[Illustration: 136.jpg Tailpiece]

CHAPTER XVII

JOHN IS BEWITCHED

[Illustration: 137.jpg Illustrated Capital]

To forget one's luck of life, to forget the cark of care and withering
of young fingers; not to feel, or not be moved by, all the change of
thought and heart, from large young heat to the sinewy lines and dry
bones of old age--this is what I have to do ere ever I can make you
know (even as a dream is known) how I loved my Lorna. I myself can never
know; never can conceive, or treat it as a thing of reason, never can
behold myself dwelling in the midst of it, and think that this was I;
neither can I wander far from perpetual thought of it. Perhaps I have
two farrows of pigs ready for the chapman; perhaps I have ten stones
of wool waiting for the factor. It is all the same. I look at both, and
what I say to myself is this: "Which would Lorna choose of them?" Of
course, I am a fool for this; any man may call me so, and I will not
quarrel with him, unless he guess my secret. Of course, I fetch my wit,
if it be worth the fetching, back again to business. But there my heart
is and must be; and all who like to try can cheat me, except upon parish
matters.

That week I could do little more than dream and dream and rove about,
seeking by perpetual change to find the way back to myself. I cared
not for the people round me, neither took delight in victuals; but made
believe to eat and drink and blushed at any questions. And being called
the master now, head-farmer, and chief yeoman, it irked me much that any
one should take