"Let me go. Let me go!" said Susan (for her lover's arm was round
her waist). "I must go to him if he's fretting. I promised mother I
would!" She pulled herself away, and went in search of the boy. She
sought in byre and barn, through the orchard, where indeed in this
leafless winter-time there was no great concealment; up into the room
where the wool was usually stored in the later summer, and at last
she found him, sitting at bay, like some hunted creature, up behind
the wood-stack.

"What are ye gone for, lad, and me seeking you everywhere?" asked
she, breathless.

"I did not know you would seek me. I've been away many a time, and
no one has cared to seek me," said he, crying afresh.

"Nonsense," replied Susan, "don't be so foolish, ye little good-for-
nought." But she crept up to him in the hole he had made underneath
the great, brown sheafs of wood, and squeezed herself down by him.
"What for should folk seek after you, when you get away from them
whenever you can?" asked she.

"They don't want me to stay. Nobody wants me. If I go with father,
he says I hinder more than I help. You used to like to have me with
you. But now, you've taken up with Michael, and you'd rather I was
away; and I can just bide away; but I cannot stand Michael jeering at
me. He's got you to love him and that might serve him."

"But I love you, too, dearly, lad!" said she, putting her arm round
his neck.