Then the race-horses were always
going to or coming from the downs. Sometimes they came in so covered with
white mud that part of their toilette was accomplished in the yard; and
from her kitchen window she could see the beautiful creature haltered to
the hook fixed in the high wall, and the little boy in his shirtsleeves
and hitched-up trousers, not a bit afraid, but shouting and quieting him
into submission with the stick when he kicked and bit, tickled by the
washing brush passing under the belly. Then the wrestling, sparring,
ball-playing of the lads when their work was done, the pale, pathetic
figure of the Demon watching them. He was about to start for Portslade and
back, wrapped, as he would put it, in a red-hot scorcher of an overcoat.
Esther often longed for a romp with these boys; she was now prime
favourite with them. Once they caught her in the hay yard, and fine sport
it was in the warm hay throwing each other over. Sometimes her wayward
temper would get the better of her, but her momentary rage vanished at the
sound of laughter. And after their tussling they would walk a little while
pensively, until perhaps one, with an adroit trip, would send the other
rolling over on the grass, and then, with wild cries, they would run down
the drove-way. Then there was the day when the Wool-gatherer told her he
was in love, and what fun they had had, and how well she had led him into
belief that she was jealous! She had taken a rope as if she were going to
hang herself, and having fastened it to a branch, she had knelt down as if
she were saying her prayers.
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