Sometimes a straying
fawn poked in a tender nose, and after drinking delicately stole away,
as if it knew itself a trespasser.
To undress and plunge headlong into the dark sapphire water was a
rapturous thing. He swam swiftly and slowly by turns, he floated,
looking upward at heaven's blue, listening to birds' song and inhaling
all the fragrance of the early day. Strength grew in him and life pulsed
as the water lapped his limbs. He found himself thinking with pleasure
of a long walk he intended to take to see a farmer he must talk to about
his hop gardens; he found himself thinking with pleasure of other things
as simple and common to everyday life--such things as he ordinarily
faced merely because he must, since he could not afford an experienced
bailiff. He was his own bailiff, his own steward, merely, he had often
thought, an unsuccessful farmer of half-starved lands. But this morning
neither he nor they seemed so starved, and--for no reason--there was a
future of some sort.
He emerged from his pool glowing, the turf feeling like velvet beneath
his feet, a fine light in his eyes.
"Yes," he said, throwing out his arms in a lordly stretch of physical
well-being, "it might be a magnificent thing--mere strong living.
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