And he felt amazingly grateful to her.  His thoughts for the moment were full of chivalry.  Her life must be translated to higher terms and new values.  She should have the best that the world could offer, and he would win it for her.  Her trust was so pathetic and beautiful.  To be trusted by her made him feel a finer thing and more important to the cosmic scheme.

In itself this was a notable sensation and an addition of power, for nobody had ever trusted him until now.  And here was a radiant creature, the most beautiful in the world, who trusted him with herself.  His love brought a sense of splendour; her love brought a sense of strength.

He swung back to the house feeling in him such mastery as might bend the whole earth to his purposes, take Leviathan with a hook, and hang the constellations in new signs upon the void of heaven.

CHAPTER X

WORK

Sarah Northover and another young woman were tending the Spread Board.  To this came the ‘long line’ from the hackler—­those strides of amber hemp and lint-white flax that Mr. Baggs prepared in the hackler’s shop.  The Spread Board worked upon the long line as the Carder on the tow.  Over its endless leathern platform, or spreading carriage, the long fibre was drawn into the toothed gills of the machine and converted into sliver for the Drawing Frames.

With swift and rhythmic flinging apart of her arms over her head, Sarah separated the stricks into three and laid them overlapping on the carriage.  The ribbon thus created was never-ending and wound away into the torture chambers of wheels and teeth within, while from the rear of the Spreader trickled out the new-created sliver.  Great scales hung beside Sarah and from time to time she weighed fresh loads of long line and recorded the amount.

Her arms flashed upwards, the divided stricks came down to be laid in rotation on the running carriage, and ceaselessly she and her fellow worker chattered despite the din around them.

“My Aunt Nelly’s coming to see me this morning,” said Sarah.  “She’s driving over to talk to Mister Waldron about his apple orchard and have a look round.  Last year she bought the whole orchard for cider; and if she thinks well of it, she’ll do the same this year.”

“I wonder you stop here,” answered the other girl, “when you might go to your aunt and work in her public-house.  I’d a long sight sooner be there than here.”

“You wouldn’t if you was engaged to Mister Roberts,” answered Sarah.  “Of course seeing him every day makes all the difference.  And as to work, there’s nothing in it, for everybody’s got to work at ’The Seven Stars,’ I can tell you, and the work’s never done there.”

“It’s the company I should like,” declared the other.  “I’d give a lot to see new people every day.  In a public they come and go, before you’ve got time to be sick of the sight of ’em.  But here, you see the same people and hear the same voices every day of your blessed life; and sometimes it makes me feel right down wicked.”