The sky, as he watched it above that privet-hedge, was still of the same filmy greyness as when he had sat, some five or six hours ago, under the sycamore at Poll’s Camp; but the gathered volume of masculine personalities, as it surrounded him now⁠—for Miss Bess was the only woman on the scene, and her femininity seemed to have no more weight in it than petticoats on a clothesline⁠—seemed fast building up about him a sort of battlemented watchtower, from the isolation and protection of which his days began to fall into a measured, reasonable order, such as he had not known for many a long week.

That chestnut-coloured polished bowl was still within his vision on the smooth turf; but at this moment, in place of giving him a sense of random helplessness, it gave him a sense of reassured control. In this pleasant retreat, with the fumes of the Dorchester ale mounting into his head, he began to feel his hand firm and unbewildered once more upon his life’s rudder.