bout her that
made Roxholm feel that she must exhale in breath and hair and garments
the scent of gorse and heather and fern and summer rains.

As one man gazed at her so did the others, though they were his elders
and saw her often, while he was but twenty-eight and had beheld her but
once before.

Each man of the party took from his pouch a small but well-filled
packet of food and a flask, and fell to upon their contents
voraciously, talking as they worked their jaws and joking with Mistress
Clo. She also brought forth her own package, which held bread and meat,
and a big russet apple, upon she set with a fine appetite. 'Twas good
even to see her eat, she did it with such healthy pleasure, as a young
horse might have taken his oats or a young setter his supper after a
day in the cover.

"_Thou_'rt not tired, Clo!" cries Eldershawe, laughing, as she fell
upon her russet apple, biting into it crisply, and plainly with the
pleasure of a hungry child.

"Not I, good Lord!" she answered. "Could shoot over as many miles
again."

"When thou'rt fifty years old, wilt not be so limber and have such
muscles," said Sir Jeoffry.

"She hath not so long to wait," said the third man, grinning. "Wast not
fourteen in November, Clo? Wilt soon be a woman."

She bit deep into her fruit and stared out over the moors below.

"Am not going to be a woman," she said. "I hate them."

"They hate thee," said Eldershawe, with a chuckle, "and will hate thee
worse when thou wearest brocades and a farthingale."

"I have watched them," proceeded Mistress Clo. "They cannot keep their
mouths shut. If they have a secret they must tell it, whether 'tis
their own or another's. They clack, they tell lies, they cry and scream
out if they are hurt; but they will hurt anything which cannot hurt
them back. They run and weep to each other when they are in love and a
man slights them. They have no spirit and no decency." She said it with
such an earnest solemness that her companions shouted with laughter.

"She sits in her breeches--the unruliest baggage in Gloucestershire,"
cried Eldershawe, "and complains that fine ladies are not decent. What
would they say if they heard thee?"

"They may hear me when they will," said Mistress Clo, springing to her
feet with a light jump and sending the last of her apple whizzing into
space with a boyish throw. "'Tis I who am the modest woman--for all my
breeches and manners. I do not see indecency where there is