But when they came to the fields he said to the boys, "Now, then,
which is the stoutest walker? Him as gets to th' home-gate first shall
be the first to go with me to Binton Coppice on the donkey. But Tommy
must have the start up to the next stile, because he's the smallest."
Adam had never behaved so much like a determined lover before. As soon
as the boys had both set off, he looked down at Hetty and said, "Won't
you hang on my arm, Hetty?" in a pleading tone, as if he had already
asked her and she had refused. Hetty looked up at him smilingly and put
her round arm through his in a moment. It was nothing to her, putting
her arm through Adam's, but she knew he cared a great deal about having
her arm through his, and she wished him to care. Her heart beat no
faster, and she looked at the half-bare hedgerows and the ploughed field
with the same sense of oppressive dulness as before. But Adam scarcely
felt that he was walking. He thought Hetty must know that he was
pressing her arm a little--a very little. Words rushed to his lips that
he dared not utter--that he had made up his mind not to utter yet--and
so he was silent for the length of that field. The calm patience
with which he had once waited for Hetty's love, content only with her
presence and the thought of the future, had forsaken him since that
terrible shock nearly three months ago.
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