Women in Love

Going home from school in the afternoon, the Brangwen girls descended

the hill between the picturesque cottages of Willey Green till they

came to the railway crossing. There they found the gate shut, because

the colliery train was rumbling nearer. They could hear the small

locomotive panting hoarsely as it advanced with caution between the

embankments. The one-legged man in the little signal-hut by the road

stared out from his security, like a crab from a snail-shell.

Whilst the two girls waited, Gerald Crich trotted up on a red Arab

mare. He rode well and softly, pleased with the delicate quivering of

the creature between his knees. And he was very picturesque, at least

in Gudrun's eyes, sitting soft and close on the slender red mare, whose

long tail flowed on the air. He saluted the two girls, and drew up at

the crossing to wait for the gate, looking down the railway for the

approaching train. In spite of her ironic smile at his picturesqueness,

Gudrun liked to look at him. He was well-set and easy, his face with

its warm tan showed up his whitish, coarse moustache, and his blue eyes

were full of sharp light as he watched the distance.

The locomotive chuffed slowly between the banks, hidden. The mare did

not like it. She began to wince away, as if hurt by the unknown noise.

But Gerald pulled her back and held her head to the gate. The sharp

blasts of the chuffing engine broke with more and more force on her.

The repeated sharp blows of unknown, terrifying noise struck through

her till she was rocking with terror. She recoiled like a spring let

go. But a glistening, half-smiling look came into Gerald's face. He

brought her back again, inevitably.

The noise was released, the little locomotive with her clanking steel

connecting-rod emerged on the highroad, clanking sharply. The mare

rebounded like a drop of water from hot iron. Ursula and Gudrun pressed

back into the hedge, in fear. But Gerald was heavy on the mare, and

forced her back. It seemed as if he sank into her magnetically, and

could thrust her back against herself.

'The fool!' cried Ursula loudly. 'Why doesn't he ride away till it's

gone by?' Gudrun was looking at him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But he

sat glistening and obstinate, forcing the wheeling mare, which spun and

swerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of the grasp of his

will, nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded through

her, as the trucks thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, one after the

other, one pursuing the other, over the rails of the crossing.