pointed his hand at her and made an animal noise, and the other laughed
with his mouth wide open. Neither said anything. Their minds were
evidently engaged in processes beneath those which find expression in
language. She stiffened herself to face them, though she felt frightened
that these two boys, whom she had known all her life, with whom she had
ridden on the hay-wains in summer and caught stickle-backs in the marsh
dykes, should change to these speechless beings with red leering masks
who meant her ill.

For the first time she felt herself too young for her destiny. "I am
only nineteen," she cried silently. Tears might have disgraced her but
that the child moved in her as if it had looked out at the frightening
figures through her eyes, and she suddenly hated Harry for leaving her
and his son unprotected from such brutes as people seemed to be, and was
vivified by the hatred. She made to walk past the boys back towards
Yaverland's End, but as she moved they sent up shrill wordless calls to
their fellows who were still in the fields, which were immediately
answered. She realised that any minute the woods would be full of lads
whom the sight of her would change to obscene creatures, and that being
consolidated in this undisturbed place they would say and do things that
would hurt her so much that they would hurt her child. There was nothing
for it but to leave the cover of the wood and cross the waste space and
walk down Roothing High Street and go back to Yaverland's End by the
lane. Her mood of forgiving love for the village, which the cricket-ball
had interrupted, had been so real that she felt as if a pact had been
established between it and her, and she was quite sure that she would be
safe from the boys there. If they were tiresome and followed her, no
doubt somebody like Mrs. Hobbs, who kept the general stores, would take
her in and let her rest till it was dark, and then see her home. She
turned round and walked out of the wood, and because she could not, in
her heavy-footed state, trample through the undergrowth, she had to
follow the path that led her to within a yard or two of George Postgate.
She could see from the workings of his large face that he was forming
some plan of action. And sure enough, when she passed him, he cried out
"Dirty Marion!" and twitched the sun-bonnet from her head. The sudden
movement made her start violently, for though she had not known what
fear was until she conceived, she no