CHAPTER X

While Nedda sat, long past midnight, writing her heart out in her little, white, lilac-curtained room of the old house above the Spaniard’s Road, Derek, of whom she wrote, was walking along the Malvern hills, hurrying upward in the darkness.  The stars were his companions; though he was no poet, having rather the fervid temper of the born swordsman, that expresses itself in physical ecstasies.  He had come straight out from a stormy midnight talk with Sheila.  What was he doing—­had been the burden of her cry—­falling in love just at this moment when they wanted all their wits and all their time and strength for this struggle with the Mallorings?  It was foolish, it was weak; and with a sweet, soft sort of girl who could be no use.  Hotly he had answered:  What business was it of hers?  As if one fell in love when one wished!  She didn’t know—­her blood didn’t run fast enough!  Sheila had retorted, “I’ve more blood in my big toe than Nedda in all her body!  A lot of use you’ll be, with your heart mooning up in London!” And crouched together on the end of her bed, gazing fixedly up at him through her hair, she had chanted mockingly:  “Here we go gathering wool and stars—­wool and stars—­wool and stars!”

He had not deigned to answer, but had gone out, furious with her, striding over the dark fields, scrambling his way through the hedges toward the high loom of the hills.  Up on the short grass in the cooler air, with nothing between him and those swarming stars, he lost his rage.  It never lasted long—­hers was more enduring.  With the innate lordliness of a brother he already put it down to jealousy.  Sheila was hurt that he should want any one but her; as if his love for Nedda would make any difference to their resolution to get justice for Tryst and the Gaunts, and show those landed tyrants once for all that they could not ride roughshod.

Nedda! with her dark eyes, so quick and clear, so loving when they looked at him!  Nedda, soft and innocent, the touch of whose lips had turned his heart to something strange within him, and wakened such feelings of chivalry!  Nedda!  To see whom for half a minute he felt he would walk a hundred miles.

This boy’s education had been administered solely by his mother till he was fourteen, and she had brought him up on mathematics, French, and heroism.  His extensive reading of history had been focussed on the personality of heroes, chiefly knights errant, and revolutionaries.  He had carried the worship of them to the Agricultural College, where he had spent four years; and a rather rough time there had not succeeded in knocking romance out of him.  He had found that you could not have such beliefs comfortably without fighting for them, and though he ended his career with the reputation of a rebel and a champion of the weak, he had had to earn it.  To this day he still fed himself on stories of rebellions