Clara Hopgood

They left the tree and went back to the Marshalls, and then down the

hill to Mrs Caffyn and Clara. Clara was much better for her rest,

and early in the evening the whole party returned to Letherhead,

Clara and Mrs Caffyn going on to Great Oakhurst. Madge kept close to

her sister till they separated, and the two men walked together. On

Whitmonday morning the Letherhead people came over to Great Oakhurst.

They had to go back to London in the afternoon, but Mrs Caffyn and

Clara were to stay till Tuesday, as they stood a better chance of

securing places by the coach on that day. Mrs Caffyn had as much to

show them as if the village had been the Tower of London. The wonder

of wonders, however, was a big house, where she was well known, and

its hot-houses. Madge wanted to speak to Clara, but it was difficult

to find a private opportunity. When they were in the garden,

however, she managed to take Clara unobserved down one of the twisted

paths, under pretence of admiring an ancient mulberry tree.

'Clara,' she said, 'I want a word with you. Baruch Cohen loves me.'

'Do you love him?' 'Yes.'

'Without a shadow of a doubt?'

'Without a shadow of a doubt.'

Clara put her arm round her sister, kissed her tenderly and said, 'Then I am perfectly happy.'

'Did you suspect it?'

'I knew it.'

Mrs Caffyn called them; it was time to be moving, and soon afterwards

those who had to go to London that afternoon left for Letherhead.

Clara stood at the gate for a long time watching them along the

straight, white road. They came to the top of the hill; she could

just discern them against the sky; they passed over the ridge and she

went indoors. In the evening a friend called to see Mrs Caffyn, and

Clara went to the stone bridge which she had visited on Saturday.

The water on the upper side of the bridge was dammed up and fell over

the little sluice gates under the arches into a clear and deep basin

about forty or fifty feet in diameter. The river, for some reason of

its own, had bitten into the western bank, and had scooped out a

great piece of it into an island. The main current went round the

island with a shallow, swift ripple, instead of going through the

pool, as it might have done, for there was a clear channel for it.

The centre and the region under the island were deep and still, but

at the farther end, where the river in passing called to the pool, it

broke into waves as it answered the appeal, and added its own

contribution to the stream, which went away down to the mill and

onwards to the big Thames. On the island were aspens and alders.

The floods had loosened the roots of the largest tree, and it hung

over heavily in the direction in which it had yielded to the rush of

the torrent, but it still held its grip, and the sap had not forsaken

a single branch. Every one was as dense with foliage as if there had

been no struggle for life, and the leaves sang their sweet song, just

perceptible for a moment every now and then in the variations of the

louder music below them. It is curious that the sound of a weir is

never uniform, but is perpetually changing in the ear even of a

person who stands close by it. One of the arches of the bridge was

dry, and Clara went down into it, stood at the edge and watched that

wonderful sight--the plunge of a smooth, pure stream into the great

cup which it has hollowed out for itself. Down it went, with a

dancing, foamy fringe playing round it just where it met the surface;

a dozen yards away it rose again, bubbling and exultant.