Above the gray ramparts the very east
was sultry. In the orchard under the low plum-trees it was as airless
as in a tent.
Rowcliffe didn't want to stay out too long in the orchard. He knew
that the window of the Vicar's study raked it. So he asked Mary if she
would come with him for a stroll. (His only criticism of Mary was that
she didn't walk enough.)
Mary thought, "My nice frock will be ruined if the rain comes." But
she went.
"Shall it be the moor or the fields?" he said.
Mary thought again, and said, "The fields."
He was glad she hadn't said "The moor."
They strolled past the village and turned into the pasture that lay
between the high road and the beck. The narrow paths led up a slope
from field to field through the gaps in the stone walls. The fields
turned with the turning of the dale and with that turning of the road
that Rowcliffe knew, under Karva. Instinctively, with a hand on her
arm he steered her, away from the high road and its turning, toward
the beck, so that they had their backs to the thunder storm as it came
up over Karva and the High Moor.
It was when they were down in the bottom that it burst.
There was shelter on the further side of the last field. They ran to
it, climbed, and crouched together under the stone wall.
Rowcliffe took off the light overcoat he wore and tried to put it
on her. But Mary wouldn't let him. She looked at his clothes, at the
round dinner jacket with its silk collar and at the beautiful evening
trousers with their braided seams.
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