repenting soul, for Thy mercy's sake. Amen."




CHAPTER VIII


Next day Anne arose to be at once aware of the heavy task before her. As
she set her house in order she would stop abstractedly and sit down to
think what was best to be done. Then she would work feverishly as if
_that_, at any rate, was a thing that could be accomplished.

It was a wet day, chilly and rueful. There were not even clouds in the
sky to vary the steady grey, and the heaven itself seemed to have
slipped from its height and to be close upon the earth. Trees, grass,
hedges were drenched, and remained motionless with leaves drooping under
an added weight. The ditches were noisy, but beyond the occasional
rattle of a cart there was no other sound than the rain, a sound so
unvaried that it presently became as a silence, and one imagined that
the world had ceased to have a voice. Anne opened the door many times
and looked out to see always the same grey sheet before her. The gutter
on the shippon splashing its overflow on the flags of the yard, the hens
crowding dejectedly within the open door of the henhouse, and the water
lying green between the cobble-stones of the path. Nothing could be done
in the garden. The sodden flowers would not be fit for to-morrow's
market. The pony had cast its shoe and must be shod before next day.

"This is more important than the pony," Anne said to herself, putting on
her market-cloak and drawing on with difficulty her elastic-sided boots.