harbouring such thoughts. From the first she had asked for no help of
mine. I had forced it on her, or circumstances had forced me to help her
in helping myself, as when I cut our way from Marry-me-quick's cottage.
The more I was with her, the better I began to understand Brocton's
madness. It was the madness of the mere brute in him to be sure, and a man
should kick the brute in him into its kennel, though he cannot at times
help hearing it whine. Her majestic beauty had dazzled him as a flame
dazzles a moth, but at this stage, at any rate, it was not her beauty that
made me her thrall. That I could have withstood. Because she was so
beautiful, so stately, so compelling, she made no appeal to me. What I
mean is, that I did not fall in love with her at first sight, simply
because the mere stupidity of such a thing kept me from doing it.
Glow-worms do not fall in love with stars or thistles with sycamores. She
was something to be worshipped, served at any cost, saved at any
sacrifice, but not loved. No, that was for some lucky one of her own class
and state, not for a simple squireling like me. Her comradeship, her
graciousness, her sweet equalizing of our positions, were, I felt, just
the simple, natural adornments of the commanding modesty which was her
spiritual garment.

Manlike, however, I had an evil streak in me, and thence, later, came
madness. In any company I must be top dog. I had been head of the school,
not because of any special cleverness, but because I would burst rather
than be second to anybody in anything. I had fought and fought, at all
hazards, until not a boy in school or town dare come near me. So now,
since my Lord Brocton--and many a lord beside, I doubted not--had failed,
I must needs step in and say, "I will please her, whether she like it or
not." And so, plain countryman as I was, I had done my work ungrudgingly
but not, I feared, too modestly, and since I could not speak court-like, I
had been over-masterful, and given her mood for mood, and turned no cheek