Book 5 - Chapter 1 - Page 2

lengthen the
daily walk which was her one indulgence; but this day and the
following she was so busy with work which must be finished that she
never went beyond the gate, and satisfied her need of the open air by
sitting out of doors. One of her frequent walks, when she was not
obliged to go to St. Ogg's, was to a spot that lay beyond what was
called the "Hill,"--an insignificant rise of ground crowned by trees,
lying along the side of the road which ran by the gates of Dorlcote
Mill. Insignificant I call it, because in height it was hardly more
than a bank; but there may come moments when Nature makes a mere bank
a means toward a fateful result; and that is why I ask you to imagine
this high bank crowned with trees, making an uneven wall for some
quarter of a mile along the left side of Dorlcote Mill and the
pleasant fields behind it, bounded by the murmuring Ripple. Just where
this line of bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road turned off
and led to the other side of the rise, where it was broken into very
capricious hollows and mounds by the working of an exhausted
stone-quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
clothed with brambles and trees, and here and there by a stretch of
grass which a few sheep kept close-nibbled. In her childish days
Maggie held this place, called the Red Deeps, in very great awe, and
needed all her confidence in Tom's bravery to reconcile her to an
excursion thither,--visions of robbers and fierce animals haunting
every hollow. But now it had the charm for her which any broken
ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest
habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit on a
grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant
from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like
tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing
the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly
blue of the wild hyacinths. In this June time, too, the dog-roses were
in their glory, and that was an additional reason why Maggie should
direct her walk to the Red Deeps, rather than to any other spot, on
the first day she was free to wander at her will,--a pleasure she
loved so well, that sometimes, in her ardors of renunciation, she
thought she ought to deny herself the frequent indulgence in it.

You may see her now, as she walks down the favorite turning and enters
the Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs, her tall
figure and old lavender gown visible through an hereditary black silk
shawl of some wide-meshed net-like material; and now she is sure of
being unseen she takes off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One
would certainly suppose her to be