“It stank of toadstools,” Neckland said. “Or rotten pond water.”
More munching.
“It may be something to do with the pond,” Gregory said. “Some sort of freak of evaporation.”
Neckland snorted. From his position at the top of the table, . the farmer halted his shovelling operations to point a fork at Gregory.
“You may well be right there. Because I tell you what, that there dew only come down on our land and property. A yard the other side of the gate, the road was dry. Bone dry it was.”
“Right you are there, master,” Neckland agreed. “And while the West Field was dripping with the stuff, I saw for myself that the bracken over the hedge weren't wet at all. Ah, it's a rum go!”
“Say what you like, we ent ever had dew like it,” Grubby said. He appeared to be summing up the feeling of the company.
The strange dew did not fall again. As a topic of conversa– tion, it was limited, and even on the farm, where there was little new to talk about, it was forgotten in a few days. The Feb– ruary passed, being neither much worse nor much better than most Februaries, and ended in heavy rainstorms. March came, letting in a chilly spring over the land. The animals on the farm began to bring forth their young.
They brought them forth in amazing numbers, as if to over– turn all the farmer's beliefs in the unproductiveness of his land.
“I never seen anything like it!” Grendon said to Gregory. Nor had Gregory seen the taciturn farmer so excited. He took the young man by the arm and marched him into the barn.
There lay Trix, the nannie goat. Against her flank huddled three little brown and white kids, while a fourth stood nearby, wobbling on its spindly legs. “Four on 'em! Have you ever heard of a goat throwing off four kids? You better write to the papers in London about this. Gregory! But just you come down to the pig sties.”
The squealing from the sties was louder than usual. As they marched down the path towards them, Gregory looked up at the great elms, their outlines dusted in green, and thought he detected something sinister in the noises, something hysterical that was perhaps matched by an element in Grendon's own bearing.
The Grendon pigs were mixed breeds, with a preponderance of Large Blacks. They usually gave litters of something like ten piglets. Now there was not a litter without fourteen in it; and one enormous black sow had eighteen small pigs swarming about her. The noise was tremendous and, standing looking down on this swarming life, Gregory told himself that he was foolish to imagine anything uncanny in it; he knew so little about farm life. After he had eaten with Grendon and the men Mrs. Grendon and Nancy had driven to town in the trap– Gregory went by himself to look about the farm, still with a deep and (he told himself) unreasoning sense of disturbance inside him.
A pale sunshine filled the afternoon. It could not penetrate far down into the water of the pond. But as Gregory stood by the horse trough staring at the expanse of water, he saw that it teemed with young tadpoles and frogs. He went closer. What he had regarded as a sheet of rather stagnant water was alive with small swimming things. As he looked, a great beetle surged out of the depths and seized a tadpole. The tadpoles were also providing food for two ducks that, with their young, were swimming by the reeds on the far side of the pond. And how many young did the ducks have? An armada of chicks was there, parading in and out of the rushes.
For a minute, he stood uncertainly, then began to walk slowly back the way he had come. Crossing the yard, Gregory went over to the stable and saddled Daisy. He swung himself up and rode away without bidding goodbye to anyone.
Riding into Cottersall, he went straight to the market place. He saw the Grendon trap, with Nancy's little pony, Hetty, between the shafts, standing outside the grocer's shop. Mrs. Grendon and Nancy were just coming out. Jumping to the ground, Gregory led Daisy over to them and bid them good day.
“We are going to call on my friend Mrs. Edwards and her daughters,” Mrs. Grendon said.
“If you would be so kind, Mrs. Grendon, I would be very obliged if I might speak privately with Nancy. My landlady, Mrs. Fenn, has a little downstairs parlor at the back of the shop, and I know she would let us speak there. It would be quite respectable.”
“Drat respectable! Let people think what they will, I say.” All the same, she stood for some time in meditation. Nancy remained by her mother with her eyes on the ground. Gregory looked at her and seemed to see her anew. Under her blue coat, fur-trimmed, she wore her orange-and-brown squared gingham dress; she had a bonnet on her head. Her complexion was pure and blemishless, her skin as firm and delicate as a plum, and her dark eyes were hidden under long lashes. Her lips were steady, pale, and clearly defined, with appealing tucks at each corner. He felt almost like a thief, stealing a sight of her beauty while she was not regarding him.
“I'm going on to Mrs. Edwards,” Marjorie Grendon declared at last. “I don't care what you two do so long as you behavebut I shall, mind, if you aren't with me in a half-hour, Nancy, do you hear?”
“Yes, Mother.”
The baker's shop was in the next street. Gregory and Nancy walked there in silence. Gregory shut Daisy in the stable and they went together into the parlor through the back door. At this time of day, Mr. Fenn was resting upstairs and his wife looking after the shop, so the little room was empty.
Nancy sat upright in a chair and said, “Well, Gregory, what's all this about? Fancy dragging me off from my mother like that in the middle of town!”
“Nancy, don't be cross. I had to see you.”
She pouted. “You come out to the old farm often enough and don't show any particular wish to see me there.”
“That's nonsense. I always come to see youlately in particular. Besides, you're more interested in Bert Neckland, aren't you?”
“Bert Neckland, indeed! Why should I be interested in him? Not that it's any of your business if I am.”
“It is my business, Nancy. I love you, Nancy!”
He had not meant to blurt it out in quite that fashion, but now it was out, it was out, and he pressed home bis disadvantage by crossing the room, kneeling at her feet, and taking her hands in his. “Nancy, darling Nancy, say that you like me just a little. Encourage me somewhat.”
“You are a very fine gentleman, Gregory, and I feel very kind towards you, to be sure, but . . .”
“But?”
She gave him the benefit of her downcast eyes again.
“Your station in life is very different from mine, and besideswell, you don't do anything.”
He was shocked into silence. With the natural egotism of youth, he had not seriously thought that she could have any firm objection to him; but in her words he suddenly saw the truth of his position, at least as it was revealed to her.
“Nancy1well, it's true I do not seem to you to be working at present. But I do a lot of reading and studying here, and I write to several important people in the world. And all the time I am coming to a great decision about what my career will be. I do assure you I am no loafer, if that's what you think.”
"No. I don't think that. But Bert says you often spend a convivial evening in that there 'Wayfarer.' "
“Oh, he does, does he? And what business is it of his if I door of yours, come to that? What damned cheek!”
She stood up. “If you have nothing left to say but a lot of swearing, I'll be off to join my mother, if you don't mind.”
“Oh, by Jove, I'm making a mess of this!” He caught her wrist. “Listen, my sweet thing. I ask you only this, that you try and look on me favorably. And also that you let me say a word about the farm. Some strange things are happening there, and I seriously don't like to think of you being there at night. All these young things being born, all these little pigsit's uncanny!”