Free Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

running.
    Down by the hidden stream, so piled over with dried branches that she only noticed it on her second glance, was a little lean-to made of rusty corrugated iron. It stood in a blackened patch of ground, where white ashes were gently spraying under the wind.
    As she looked, round the corner of the hut came a head covered to the shoulders with thick grey curls like a cavalier’s, and a dirty sturdy old man came out. He stared back at her, and presently called:
    ‘’Ullo, ducks,’ nodding in a satisfied way. His voice was low, hoarse and cautious, as though he were about to tell a secret, and he wore a coat and trousers of sacking, neatly sewn with little flat pads of dirty newspaper. On his feet were huge broken boots carefully tied together with string.
    Viola began to move away. She thought that he was mad. She knew who he was: The Hermit. Occasionally there was a paragraph about him in the Chesterbourne Record , but she had not known that he lived in this little wood; she was rather sorry he did.
    ‘Don’t you be afraid o’ me,’ he called, louder. ‘I know ’oo you are all right. Young Mrs Wither up The Eagles. Ain’t that right?’
    She nodded, reassured. His eyes were very small and their brightness made her think of an animal’s, but they were sane.
    ‘Knew you was,’ said the Hermit, whose conspirator voice and the wild logic of whose dress contrasted curiously with his gossiping tone. ‘Knew your Late by sight, too. Fat, weren’t ’e?’
    This was true; and, like most true remarks, rude. She said nothing.
    ‘You ever ’eard o’ me?’ he went on. ‘Up The Eagles, I mean?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘What, not from old Shak-per-swaw?’
    ‘Old who ?’ She moved a little nearer down the slope forgetting her mistrust in curiosity.
    ‘Old Shak-per-Swaw. Your Late’s dad. All for Number One, see. Shak-per-Swaw.’
    She only saw that he meant Mr Wither.
    ‘’E knows me well enough, old Shak-per-Swaw does. Always on about me to the Council ’e is, wanting to ’ave me turned out. But bleshyer, they don’ take no notice of ’im. I don’t do no ’arm, and Mr Spring puts in a word for me now and again, so I’m all right. Like to come inside?’
    He jerked his head at the frowsy hut.
    She shook her head, smiling.
    ‘Ain’t much doin’ up The Eagles, is there?’ he asked suddenly, with such a violent wink that she thought it was a spasm of his eye.
    She shook her head again, still smiling.
    She had never been taught by her father that people must be kept in their places and that because A has enough to eat and enough to wear, B, who has not, must be respectful to him. She had not seriously caught the infection of snobbery from Miss Cattyman and her aunts, who had it chronically. Her father would have called the Hermit ‘A wonderful old bit of Shakespearian character, Viola, ripe and rare’; and though she did not like his wink, it did not occur to her to think him over-familiar.
    However, she felt an ashamed loyalty to Teddy and his relatives, so she answered with more reserve than was natural to her:
    ‘It’s a bit lonely.’
    ‘Ah. Not thinking o’ getting married again?’
    ‘No,’ laughing.
    ‘Not cold in bed o’ nights?’ and this time it was clear that the wink was not a spasm.
    But at that she really did move on, saying ‘Good afternoon’ in a prim voice and blushing.
    ‘Goo’-bye, ducks!’ called the Hermit, staring yearningly after her; then louder, ‘In a bit of a ’urry this afternoon, ain’t yer?’
    She hurried on, taking no notice though he called after her several times, and climbed the gentle slope until she found another path which led her to the road. The trees here were beeches, shooting up into the fairy blue of the sky and making a murmuring green cavern with their leaves. Here she was near Victor Spring’s house; the red and white turrets gleamed through the fence of quick-growing conifers which he had had planted to screen his residence, and