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 pale green; moss-like little fir-trees, like
plush, like malachite stars, like nothing on earth except moss.