and clammy and silent, even from the shuffling of the collieries, for the
pits were working short time, and today they were stopped altogether. The
end of all things!
In the wood all was utterly inert and motionless, only great drops fell
from the bare boughs, with a hollow little crash. For the rest, among the
old trees was depth within depth of grey, hopeless inertia, silence,
nothingness.
Connie walked dimly on. From the old wood came an ancient melancholy,
somehow soothing to her, better than the harsh insentience of the outer
world. She liked the inwardness of the remnant of forest, the unspeaking
reticence of the old trees. They seemed a very power of silence, and yet a
vital presence. They, too, were waiting: obstinately, stoically waiting, and
giving off a potency of silence. Perhaps they were only waiting for the end;
to be cut down, cleared away, the end of the forest, for them the end of all
things. But perhaps their strong and aristocratic silence, the silence of
strong trees, meant something else.
As she came out of the wood on the north side, the keeper's cottage, a
rather dark, brown stone cottage, with gables and a handsome chimney, looked
uninhabited, it was so silent and alone. But a thread of smoke rose from the
chimney, and the little railed-in garden in the front of the house was dug
and kept very tidy. The door was shut.
Now she was here she felt a little shy of the man, with his curious
far-seeing eyes. She did not like bringing him orders, and felt like going
away again. She knocked softly, no one came. She knocked again, but still
not loudly. There was no answer. She peeped through the window, and saw the
dark little room, with its almost sinister privacy, not wanting to be
invaded.
She stood and listened, and it seemed to her she heard sounds from the
back of the cottage. Having failed to make herself heard, her mettle was
roused, she would not be defeated.
So she went round the side of the house. At the back of the cottage the
land rose steeply, so the back yard was sunken, and enclosed by a low stone
wall. She turned the corner of the house and stopped. In the little yard two
paces beyond her, the man was washing himself, utterly unaware. He was naked
to the hips, his velveteen breeches slipping down over his slender loins.
And his white slim back was curved over a big bowl of soapy water, in which
he ducked his head, shaking his head with a queer, quick little motion,
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