Chapter 42

CHAPTER XLII.

The next morning Grace was at the window early. She felt
determined to see him somehow that day, and prepared his breakfast
eagerly. Eight o'clock struck, and she had remembered that he had
not come to arouse her by a knocking, as usual, her own anxiety
having caused her to stir.

The breakfast was set in its place without. But he did not arrive
to take it; and she waited on. Nine o'clock arrived, and the
breakfast was cold; and still there was no Giles. A thrush, that
had been repeating itself a good deal on an opposite bush for some
time, came and took a morsel from the plate and bolted it, waited,
looked around, and took another. At ten o'clock she drew in the
tray, and sat down to her own solitary meal. He must have been
called away on business early, the rain having cleared off.

Yet she would have liked to assure herself, by thoroughly
exploring the precincts of the hut, that he was nowhere in its
vicinity; but as the day was comparatively fine, the dread lest
some stray passenger or woodman should encounter her in such a
reconnoitre paralyzed her wish. The solitude was further
accentuated to-day by the stopping of the clock for want of
winding, and the fall into the chimney-corner of flakes of soot
loosened by the rains. At noon she heard a slight rustling
outside the window, and found that it was caused by an eft which
had crept out of the leaves to bask in the last sun-rays that
would be worth having till the following May.

She continually peeped out through the lattice, but could see
little. In front lay the brown leaves of last year, and upon them
some yellowish-green ones of this season that had been prematurely
blown down by the gale. Above stretched an old beech, with vast
armpits, and great pocket-holes in its sides where branches had
been amputated in past times; a black slug was trying to climb it.
Dead boughs were scattered about like ichthyosauri in a museum,
and beyond them were perishing woodbine stems resembling old
ropes.

From the other window all she could see were more trees, jacketed
with lichen and stockinged with moss. At their roots were
stemless yellow fungi like lemons and apricots, and tall fungi
with more stem than stool. Next were more trees close together,
wrestling for existence, their branches disfigured with wounds
resulting from their mutual rubbings and blows. It was the
struggle between these neighbors that she had heard in the night.
Beneath them were the rotting stumps of those of the group that
had been vanquished long ago, rising from their mossy setting like
decayed teeth from green gums. Farther on were other tufts of
moss in islands divided by the shed leaves--variety upon variety,
dark green and