The ghastly treachery of this final speculation, coming to him on the very morrow of the “yellow bracken,” only made him shake his head, as if freeing himself from a thicket of brambles, and stride forward with more reckless resolution than ever.

Long afterwards he could recall every slightest sensation that he had as he crossed that empty portion of the fair-field. One of these sensations was a vivid awareness of the sardonic grimacing of that man in the churchyard. The perversity of his father seemed physically to weigh upon him. He had the feeling that he was himself reproducing some precise piece of paternal misdoing. He felt shamelessly like him! He felt as though his arms were swinging as his arms used to⁠ ⁠… his legs striding the very stride of his legs!

He had now left the last tent far behind, and was approaching the low thickset hedge that separated the castle-field from the castle-lane.