There were rows of swedes, legions of
dairymen, maidens to milk the lowing cows that grazed soberly upon the
rich pasture, farmers speaking rough words of an uncouth dialect, and
gentlefolk careless of a milkmaid's honour. But nowhere, as far as
the eye could reach, was there a sign of the sheep that Bo had that
morning set forth to tend for her parents. Bo had a flexuous and
finely-drawn figure not unreminiscent of many a vanished knight
and dame, her remote progenitors, whose dust now mouldered in many
churchyards. There was about her an amplitude of curve which, joined
to a certain luxuriance of moulding, betrayed her sex even to a
careless observer. And when she spoke, it was often with a fetishistic
utterance in a monotheistic falsetto which almost had the effect of
startling her relations into temporary propriety.
CHAPTER IV.
Thus she sat for some time in the suspended attitude of an amiable
tiger-cat at pause on the edge of a spring. A rustle behind her caused
her to turn her head, and she saw a strange procession advancing over
the parched fields where--[Two pages of field-scenery omitted.--ED.]
One by one they toiled along, a far-stretching line of women sharply
defined against the sky. All were young, and most of them haughty and
full of feminine waywardness. Here and there a coronet sparkled on
some noble brow where predestined suffering had set its stamp.
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