the Night Watch

the Night Watch
The Nut Gatherers
The Painter's Honeymoon
the polish rider
Clare, feeling then that he had been too hasty, and that he was, moreover, to blame for leaving her standing in an inn-passage, did what he usually did in such cases, gave the man five shillings to plaster the blow; and thus they parted, bidding each other a pacific good-night. As soon as Clare had taken the reins from the ostler, and the young couple had driven off, the two men went in the other direction. ¡¡¡¡`And was it a mistake?' said the second one. ¡¡¡¡`Not a bit of it. But I didn't want to hurt the gentleman's feelings - not I.' ¡¡¡¡In the meantime the lovers were driving onward. ¡¡¡¡`Could we put off our wedding till a little later?' Tess asked in a dry dull voice. `I mean if we wished?' ¡¡¡¡`No, my love. Calm yourself. Do you mean that the fellow may have time to summon me for assault?' he asked good-humouredly. ¡¡¡¡`No - I only meant - if it should have to be put off.' ¡¡¡¡What she meant was not very clear, and he directed her to dismiss such fancies from her mind, which she obediently did as well as she could. But she was grave, very grave, all the way home; till she thought, `We shall go away, a very long distance, hundreds of miles from these parts, and such as this can never happen again, and no ghost of the past reach there.' ¡¡¡¡They parted tenderly that night on the landing, and Clare ascended to his attic. Tess sat up getting on with some little requisites, lest the few remaining days should not afford sufficient time. While she sat she heard a noise in Angel's room overhead, a sound of thumping and struggling. Everybody else in the house was asleep, and in her anxiety lest Clare should be ill she ran up and knocked at his door, and asked him what was the matter.