That which disturbed him most was his realising that he always thought of her as a woman—­and also that she was a woman and no child.  ’Twas almost impossible to believe she was no older than was said, when one beheld her height and youthful splendour of body and bearing.  He knew no woman of twenty as tall as she and shaped with such strength and fineness.  Her head was set so on her long throat and her eyes so looked out from under her thick jet lashes, that in merely standing erect she seemed to command and somewhat disdain; but when she laughed, her red lips curling, her little strong teeth gleaming, and her eyes opening and flashing mirth, she was the archest, most boldly joyous creature a man had ever beheld.  Her morning’s work on the moors had made her look like young Nature’s self, her cheek was burnt rich-brown and crimson, her disordered hair twined in big rough rings about her forehead, her movements were as light, alert, and perfect as if she had been a deer or any wild thing of the woods or fields.  There was that about her that made Roxholm feel that she must exhale in breath and hair and garments the scent of gorse and heather and fern and summer rains.

As one man gazed at her so did the others, though they were his elders and saw her often, while he was but twenty-eight and had beheld her but once before.

Each man of the party took from his pouch a small but well-filled packet of food and a flask, and fell to upon their contents voraciously, talking as they worked their jaws and joking with Mistress Clo.  She also brought forth her own package, which held bread and meat, and a big russet apple, upon she set with a fine appetite.  ’Twas good even to see her eat, she did it with such healthy pleasure, as a young horse might have taken his oats or a young setter his supper after a day in the cover.

“Thou’rt not tired, Clo!” cries Eldershawe, laughing, as she fell upon her russet apple, biting into it crisply, and plainly with the pleasure of a hungry child.

“Not I, good Lord!” she answered.  “Could shoot over as many miles again.”

“When thou’rt fifty years old, wilt not be so limber and have such muscles,” said Sir Jeoffry.

“She hath not so long to wait,” said the third man, grinning.  “Wast not fourteen in November, Clo?  Wilt soon be a woman.”

She bit deep into her fruit and stared out over the moors below.

“Am not going to be a woman,” she said.  “I hate them.”

“They hate thee,” said Eldershawe, with a chuckle, “and will hate thee worse when thou wearest brocades and a farthingale.”

“I have watched them,” proceeded Mistress Clo.  “They cannot keep their mouths shut.  If they have a secret they must tell it, whether ’tis their own or another’s.  They clack, they tell lies, they cry and scream out if they are hurt; but they will hurt anything which cannot hurt them back.  They run and weep to each other when they are in love and a man slights them.  They have no spirit and no decency.”  She said it with such an earnest solemness that her companions shouted with laughter.