A dull red sun had just set amid purple storm-clouds behind the Sussex Downs. Nevertheless the twilight was falling softly beneath a wet west wind that had made the land full of colour and the sea full of shadow all day.

From the stubble-field where the “hoppers” were lighting their camp-fires, one could just see the sea through a dip in the land beneath the hill where the old farm stood among the ash-trees.

Against the privet hedge that hemmed the road, a girl leaned with her back to the marsh-land that spread westward from the hollow between the hills. The half-picked hop-gardens were to right of her, and, to left, the stubble-field where her comrades were laughing and chattering around the water-budge that had been drawn up in its midst. The girl’s head lay black upon the sunset, but she was not of a dark complexion—her hair was light brown, and her skin was only tanned from exposure, an exposure to which she had not, perhaps, always been used, for the shape that showed beneath her thin cotton dress was slenderer than that of most field-workers.

She stood there a moment watching the moving groups yonder, and then passed out through the gate on to the road. As she slammed it to behind her, a tall young woman came swinging up a path to the left, her black locks somewhat dishevelled and her bodice loose at the throat.

“Where are ye off to so glum, Jenny?” said she. “Come and ’ave a bit of a lark. ’Ere’s your beau a-comin’ across the field.”

The girl didn’t stop.

“’E ain’t no beau o’ mine, nor I don’t want him to be,” said she, and walked on quickly up the road.

“Oh, Lord no, o’ course not,” called out the other after her. “Ye don’t mind ’im lookin’ arter ye all the ’opping-time, though! But I’m sure I don’t want to take ’im from ye if ’e means business. ’E ain’t no beauty!”

The man lounging across the stubble-field stopped; he was still within ear-shot, as the girl knew. Jenny faced round on her.

“Ye’ll, please, not to say that again, Mary Ann Mitcham,” said she stiffly. “I’ve told ye Mr. Martin ain’t no beau o’ mine, and that’s all about it.” And she strode on again beside the hedge.

The other laughed as she swung herself over the gate and ran off across the field; and she laughed again when she met the man and he gave her no greeting, but passed her by with a sullen expression on his face. She was used to calling that expression on to folk’s faces, and rather enjoyed it than otherwise. She called it up again on the face of a slatternly woman who stood at the door of one of the straw huts further on with a fretful baby in her arms.

“Have ye seen Jenny anywheres, Mary Ann, my dear?” asked the woman. “I want ’er to come and ’old this child a bit for me.”

“So as you may step up to the ‘Public’ for your supper, eh, Mrs. Barnes,” laughed the girl as she ran. “Jenny’s always too good-natured, mindin’ yer squallin’ brats for ye. One’d think ye was ’er mother instead of only a neighbour. But she’s somethin’ better to do to-night: she’s a-courtin’.”

“Ye’re a rude minx, and I don’t believe it,” answered the woman tartly. “Why, Jenny never ’as no word to say for a man. And she’d nurse a child all day and think it a treat. Ye can’t give Jenny’s beau a name.”

“Can’t I then?” sneered the girl. “It’s Mr. Martin, that’s who her beau is!”

The woman uttered an exclamation and stepped outside.

“Ye’re dreamin’,” she said. “He’s got somethin’ else to think of than foolin’.”

“Ye can see ’em for yerself,” scoffed Mary Ann, pointing to the road where the heads of the man and the girl were to be seen slowly passing along above the privet hedge.

“Well, ’e ain’t much of a beau, then,” sneered the woman, “It’s disgustin’. A widower wi’ a child to keep.”

Mary Ann was hurrying on, but she turned back.

“What!” she shrieked. “Who says so?”

"I says so," answered the woman. “Why, this is his brat as I’ve got ’ere, so I ought to know it. ’E and his slip of a wife lived in my court up in London, and when the mother died he guv me the child to mind. But Lord, what ’e pays ain’t worth the bother.”

“I never!” exclaimed Mary Ann impressively. “Do Jenny know it?”

“No,” answered the woman, “and, look ’ere, don’t ye go saying nothink about it neither. It’s little enough, but sich as it is I can’t afford to lose it, and he swore he’d take the brat away if ever I said i’ the place as it were his’n.”

Mary Ann laughed her resounding laugh.

“Don’t want no chaff, I suppose?” roared she. “I’ll think about it. If Jenny ain’t goin’ to ’ave ’im, there’s no call to tell. But Jenny’s my pal, and I’ll not promise.”

“If ye don’t I’ll scratch ye,” screamed the woman.

But Miss Mitcham had eluded her and escaped to the group beside the water-budge, where there was more fun.

Meanwhile the man, shuffling in the dust, had caught up Jenny on the road. He had a slow, weary sort of gait, and was evidently not of the soil any more than the rest. In their different ways they all had an air of city slums about them in spite of their tanned faces and hands torn by ragged bines and rough hop-poles.

“What are ye goin’ to buy for supper to-night?” said he, after they had tramped along a little way without a word. “The bacon ain’t p’tickler good in this ’ere village, are it?”

He had a slow speech, but not unmusical, and the expression of his face, though of the contemplative order, was frank and friendly, and suggested none of the discontent that his words might have implied.

“No,” answered she. “But I ain’t goin’ to buy no supper to-night. I’ll get a drink o’ milk from the farm presently. I ain’t ’ungry.”

“Ye can’t work if ye don’t eat,” said he, and then added shyly: “’Aven’t ye got no money?”

She flushed a quick red, and he hastened to say apologetically: “Girls are apt to send it all ’ome, I know.”

“I ain’t got no ’ome,” said she shortly, “nor yet any one as wants my money.”

“What,” said he, “’aven’t you got no father nor mother?”

“No,” she answered; “I ’aven’t, and I don’t know as you’ve any call to ask.”

“Beg pardon,” said the man, and then he began to whistle, and looked away awkwardly. “I filled a can o’ water for ye at the budge,” said he presently. “It’s by yer door.”

“Thank you,” said she. And then there was silence again.

They walked on thus another couple of hundred yards down the road, and then turned aside beyond the hop-fields up a steep and shady lane that was dark in the dusky light. Half way up there was a break in the trees on one side through which one could see the evening sky beyond the Scotch firs. Here Martin suddenly stopped and came close up to her.

“Miss,” said he, without any introduction, “I’ve noticed as ye’re short wi’ me to-night, and I’ve been thinkin’ as p’r’aps ye’ve cause.”

She looked at him now; she had eyes like a startled fawn’s—now brown, now grey.

“I ain’t been,” she said.

“Yes,” insisted he, “and ye’ve cause. I’ve been courtin’ ye all the ’oppin’, and we don’t get on—and folk talk and vex ye.”

He paused a moment, but she only hung her head.

“But we’ll make it right now, if so be as ye’re willin’,” said he. And still as she said nothing, he came closer, and tried to put his arm round her waist.

Then she sprang back, her eyes more than ever startled. She was slender, but she was strong, and she gave him such a thud in the chest as sent him reeling against the bank.

“Keep your distance, if you please,” panted she. “I don’t want none o’ that. Ye’ve been hearin’ tales o’ me, and ye’ve thought ... but—well, there ye’re mistaken.”

He picked up his cap, which had fallen off, and stood with it in his hand.

“I don’t know what ye mean,” he said, a trifle sullenly. “I ain’t ’eard no tales of ye. But I’m sorry I angered ye.”

“I ain’t angry,” said she, and she spoke impassively, her sudden fire quenched as it was born. “Only I don’t want no courtin’.”

“I don’t think ye understand me,” said he, more softly. “I mean honourable by ye. I want ye to stand up afore the parson wi’ me.”

She gave a start, but she did not look at him, nor did she utter a word. Behind her head in the gap of the trees the huge arms of the windmill made a black cross on the luminous sky where the reflections of the afterglow were fading into a steely blue.

“I don’t want to git married,” said she at last, without lifting her eyes.

He looked at her in doubt. Then he said as though with a sudden thought:

“It’s you that’s ’eard tales o’ me, I’m thinkin’! But I’m comin’ to that. I’ve been wed afore, and I’ve a brat—a boy. But I ’oped ye wouldn’t let that stand in my way.”

She had looked up for a moment, but had as quickly looked away again, and, after waiting a little, he went on:

“You said just now you’d no ’ome. It ain’t comfortable for a young maid to ’ave no ’ome, and I’d work to give ye as good a one as most.”

“I don’t want no ’ome,” said she at last, sullenly.

He sighed a little. “It’s the brat ye’re afeard on,” murmured he sadly, shaking his head.

“No it ain’t then,” cried she quickly, almost fiercely. “I could love a brat well enough.” She stopped short, and if he could have distinguished her face in the dark he would have seen it flush hot and red. But he could not, and she moved away from him—moved away, but came back again. “There,” she said half surlily, “ye’ve got to know, and I’d as lief tell ye myself. I’ve ’ad a brat o’ my own,” and she looked away quickly.

For a moment he did not answer, then he seized her wrist roughly. “What, you’re married then?” he muttered. “Well, ’pon my word, I think ye might ha’ told a man when ye see’d as ’e were sweet on ye.”

She snatched her hand away. “I’m not married,” she cried roughly.

There was silence, but as he did not speak, she had to go on.

“I think ye might make shift to see,” said she angrily. “O’ course a girl don’t want to go a-talkin’ of it.” She caught her breath, but added quickly in the same tone as before: “For ye could ha’ knowed I shouldn’t be such a cheat as not to tell—when ye was goin’ to be’ave honourable to me.”

He stood there full half a minute, gazing at her as one dazed. Then he muttered: “How was I to guess?” and dropped his eyes.

He could hear her breathing hard, but she said no more, and after a while he asked suddenly:

“Where is ’e? ’Ave ’e deserted ye—the sc——”

She interrupted him. “’E’s dead,” she said quickly. And then she added, half whimpering: “’E said ’e would ha’ wed me, and p’r’aps ’e would. Anyways it’s too late now.”

“And the brat?” asked he in a dull voice.

She moved her head restlessly, looking out to the rosy west. Then dropping her voice to a whisper, she murmured softly:

“It’s dead too.”

He was awed involuntarily and answered nothing. He did not even dare look at her face, but he could see by the rise and fall of her shoulders that she was crying.

“Them as know I bore ’im,” she continued presently in an excited way, “they say as I ought to thank my stars ’e’s dead and buried and can’t tell no tales. That’s all they knows about it. They didn’t never lose a child, them folk didn’t! What if ’e ’ad ha’ told tales o’ my shame? I’d ha’ put up with that, and willing, so as I’d ’ad ’im to work for.”

She choked down a sob, and wiped her eyes with the hem of her skirt.

“I’m sorry for ye, I’m sure,” said he drearily.

“Oh, ’e were a pretty babe, Mr. Martin,” continued she, forgetful for the moment of all but the memories that this seeming touch of sympathy had awakened, and she turned to him with sweet and simple confidence. “Just the prettiest ye ever seed! He might ha’ been a lady’s, so white he were! I done all I could to save ’im, but it weren’t a bit o’ use. And I ’eld ’im in my arms hours and hours arter ’e was dead—’cos I couldn’t believe it, ye see. But I couldn’t put my breath into ’im, though I’d ha’ done it if I could—Lord, I’d ha’ done it willin’!” She drew in her breath with a quick gasp, and added hoarsely: “It do seem ’ard, don’t it?”

“Yes, it do seem precious ’ard,” he repeated, but without looking at her, and his voice as he said it was hard as iron.

In a moment her whole attitude changed. She drew herself up, as though turned to stone, and looked at him quickly. The light was growing so dim in the lane that she could not see his face. But there was no need; the voice told plainly enough what the face was like, and immediately her tears were quenched, and the softness in her shrank away, as from a cruel gaze.

The afterglow was almost spent in the west, leaving only a warmer tone upon the marsh and a more metallic light upon the stream that crossed it; the moon, having risen out of the sea, was just level with the eastern down, and the pine-stems upon its ridge crossed the white disc darkly. Solitary figures coming from the mill on the hill’s crest, strayed across the brown slope beneath them, and a group of men and women returning to the camp sang snatches of song as they lounged along the road in the hollow.

Jenny shook herself as she heard them.

“Good-night,” she said curtly. “I expec’ ye ain’t got nothing more to say.”

“No, I don’t know as I ’ave,” murmured he slowly.

But almost before the words were out of his mouth, Jenny was far below him on the steep lane, running as though for her life. He stood there, still with his cap in his hand; there was a lump in his throat, and he swore a quiet oath to himself as he watched her flit through the twilight.

The fires of the “foreigners,” that had burnt so gaily in the hollow, had all fallen to embers; the moon rode across an inky blue sky where the afterglow had so late been warm; the camp was dead silent.

Martin rose from the straw within his hut and came out into the night, for he was restless and could not sleep. He stood outside trying to take comfort in a pipe, and looking up at the eastern sky where the windmill still made the huge black cross on the blue. The stars were coming out, but the moon’s light was fitful and the marsh-land beyond the hop-fields was gloomy save where the stream was touched now and then into the brightness of a glistening snake. A little dyke divided the stubble-field from the meadow beyond it, where a white horse strayed in the dusk. Martin thought he heard the wailing of an infant, and then the dull crooning of a woman’s singing come from among the willows, and then he saw a girl’s figure pacing up and down with a little bundle in her arms. Presently the girl crossed over to the last hut in the camp, which he knew to be Jenny’s, deposited the bundle within, came out again, and, stretching her tired arms above her head, stood leaning a moment against the straw.

He felt his heart stir; what did it mean? And he crossed the field at once that he might know.

Yet he was not sure that he wanted to speak to her, and it struck him that the sound of his footsteps crushing the stubble would arouse her. But she stood neither seeing nor hearing, with her eyes fixed on the sombre marsh-land yonder till a woman’s voice sounded in thick accents calling down the field.

“Jenny,” it said, “Jenny, girl, where ’ve ye got to?”

Then she started, and placed herself quickly before the door of the hut, and he as quickly withdrew behind it.

The woman shuffled over the stubble, catching her feet in it, and reeling slightly as she walked.

“Give me the child,” said she indistinctly when she got close to the girl. “I dursen’t let ye ’ave it no longer.”

Martin started now, for he saw that the woman was Mrs. Barnes.

“Dursen’t,” repeated Jenny savagely! “Ain’t I fitter to mind a child than you? Yes—though you be his mother! A nice state ye’re in to-night to mind a sick brat!”

“I ain’t in no state at all,” grumbled the woman feebly. “Give me the child, I tell ye.”

“No, I sha’n’t,” answered Jenny, “so there! I’ve ’ad job enough wi’ the poor mite, and he’s sleepin’ peaceful now. I ain’t a-goin’ to let you throw him back in convulsions; no, not if ye was twenty times ’is mother! Ye ain’t fit to ’ave ’im to-night, I tell ye. I’ll bring ’im in the mornin’!”

“Oh, Lord, twenty times ’is mother,” echoed Mrs. Barnes, beginning to laugh foolishly and as quickly changing the laugh to a whimper!

“Get ye’ gone, do,” said the girl, “ye’ll wake ’im again! I tell ye, ye shall ’ave yer child in the mornin’.”

She went within, and the woman, unable to cope with any resistance, shambled feebly off again, laughing and crying as she went.

Martin stepped forward out of the shadow, shaking his fist at her. Inside the hut he could see Jenny on her knees beside a bundle of shawls, on which she had laid the little one,—Jenny, tenderly arranging ragged coverings more closely round a tiny body. Yes—Jenny on her knees beside his own child, stroking it softly, singing pretty ditties to it in an undertone, cherishing it with every sweet sound that bubbles to a mother’s lips: her own was gone, but she had learnt the trick of child-love that slumbers in every woman’s breast, and this strange and lonely babe was soothing her sore heart.

Martin stood watching her, motionless, not daring to breathe. But there was something in his throat that troubled him, and he lifted his hand to his eyes, and in so doing rustled the straw of the hut against which he stood.

She started.

“Who’s that?” she cried, jumping up.

Then he advanced slowly into the opening.

“It’s me,” he said humbly.

She motioned to him to go further off, and then she followed him outside until they both stood in the full moonlight. She was trembling.

“Ye ’adn’t no call to come round ’ere at this time o’ night,” said she in her old defiant tone—but her voice was low, for, stirred as she was, she still remembered the sleeping babe.

“Nor I didn’t mean to,” said he, nowise offended and still apologetic. “But I see’d ye hushin’ the brat, and I wondered what was up.”

“It’s Mrs. Barnes’s brat,” said she, a trifle coldly. “It’s sick, and I’m mindin’ it for ’er. She ain’t fit to ’ave a child of ’er own.” She said it almost roughly, and then lapsed into silence.

Martin sighed, and stood considering.

“It ain’t Mrs. Barnes’s brat,” said he at last.

She looked at him quickly.

“It ain’t Mrs. Barnes’s?” repeated she, puzzled. “Why, o’ course it is! I fetched it to-night.” Then a quick suspicion of his possible suspicion crossing her mind she said, in a voice in which shame and anger strangely wrestled: “Who’s do you think it is?”

But he had no glimmering of her thought, and said in the same humble tone as before:

“Well, ye see, I know who’s ’tis—’cos it’s mine.”

She turned sharply, staring at him open-mouthed.

“Well, I never!” she ejaculated.

“Yes,” said he in the same awkward way, “that ’ere’s my boy that I told ye of. Mrs. Barnes ’as ’ad the mindin’ of ’im—and I never knowed till now what sort o’ mindin’ it was—but that ’ere’s my boy.”

“Who’d ha’ thought ’e was such a little ’un?” murmured Jenny dreamily—“just as big as mine were.”

“Yes, ’e ain’t very old yet,” allowed the man, “only a year come Lord Mayor’s Day, and his mother died as ’e were born. She was but sickly, and ’e ain’t much. Not but what ’e might ha’ been better, but, Lord, a man don’t know ’ow a child have got to be minded, bless ye.”

The old defiance that had flashed back into Jenny’s face a minute ago had faded away again, and she was pale in the wan light.

“O’ course not,” she said commiseratingly, and yet with a quiet air of superiority.

“Ah, you know,” said he, with honest admiration. “But, there, I don’t suppose ye’d give a thought to such a thing as mindin’ of ’im?” he murmured sheepishly. He had lifted his eyes to her, but he drew them away again—while he waited.

“I’ve got my living to work for,” said she. “I shouldn’t ’ave time.”

Then he took heart of grace—he came close to her.

“But if there was some one to work for you,” said he. “If we was wed, so to speak?”

She didn’t move, but her eyes grew startled, and then just a touch of hardness came back into her face.

“Ye didn’t say that up yonder,” said she.

“No,” he said, “I’ll allow I was startled a bit at first. But ... well, I know as you’re a good woman somehow ... and I love ye, Jenny—there! So if you can forget, well, so can I.”

She stood, with her lips parted, gazing straight out across the field—but a film of tears gathered slowly across her eyes.

Neither spoke, and the minutes sped by as in a dream, while the stars rained down their tenderness.

But as she stood there with that sweet seriousness of thought on her simple face, the babe, missing its lullaby, sent forth a piteous wail from within.

Then she sprang to its side, and snatching it to her breast and bending o’er it a face, tender as the moonlight that bathed her, she whispered softly:

“I’ll think on it.”