I’m standing up by the time the other horses and the other travelers come into view, at last. I do not waste my farewell waves on them. I don’t suppose they’re looking at the village hills. Their heads are down. They do not have the benefit of weighty hats to hang their bodies from. And they’re more laden than the masters. The wounded groom is the first to pass. He sets the pace for all the rest, and it is slow and torturous. He tries his best to sit upright, but every step is juddering. He lifts a bottle to his lips. I’m sure it will be Master Kent’s strongest cut-throat ale, or even better — quicker, that’s to say — some stupefying barley blaze. A few mouthfuls of that every now and then should dull the pain; too many and he’ll topple from his saddle. Two loaded horses follow, though I’m glad to see that little Lizzie Carr is sat on one of them, secured among the luggage like a market goose, a fancy goose in a green cloth wrap. I hope she makes it to a cozy place before our apples bring these horses to their knees. The widow Gosse and Anne Rogers walk at her side, tethered to the panniers with rope. And then the sidemen follow on, again dressed like foot soldiers in matching breeches, jerkins and brimless caps. They are not happy to be walking, I am sure, not happy to have lost their usual mounts to their master’s cousin and the devil’s girl. One of them steps forward every few paces to switch the horses’ flanks. I do not see it now, during this short stretch, but I’m sure he’ll switch the women’s flanks as well. Another carries a long stave. He’s stolen it from us. I recognize its cut. It’s too heavy for a walking stick. I do not want to think what it’s intended for.

My master is too far ahead to know what’s going on behind his back among his charges. Am I to be the only one to witness and know it all, the only one to wonder what this mounted pageant represents? Is that why I’ve been left behind? To watch this spectacle? It’s like a costumed enactment at a fair, a mummers’ show. I used to love them as a boy. I’d want to be the first to name the parts and identify the players from their garb. Today, I’m seeing Privilege, in its high hat. Then comes Suffering: the Guilty and the Innocent, including beasts. Then Malice follows, wielding its great stick. And, afterward, invisibly, Despair is riding its lame horse.

The lane is empty once again. This hilltop is a friendless place, and capped in cloud. I’ve brought the end-of-summer sorrows on myself. They spread their great black wings and cast their peckish shadows over me. The sun’s still shining in the valley but its warmth’s no longer reaching me. It is the middle of the afternoon, late harvesttime. I should be as dry and ripe as barleycorn. Instead, I feel as chilly as a worm. I feel no prouder than a worm. I am almost tempted to run down the hill to that now empty way and join the pageant as it heads off for a town. I’m panicking, not only for myself, but also for the prisoners, and the departed villagers, every one, and for Mr. Quill as well. I have to fight the nightmares. I can’t imagine living here for the coming seasons without someone to love or like, or any neighbor to share my troubles with. I can imagine living there, where they will be, above those smelling, busy, crowd-warmed streets, with Kitty Gosse as my hands-on-belly second wife. I can imagine bringing Lizzie Carr into our rooms and taking care of her. I’d be as loving as her uncle John, until the day that uncle John himself arrives. I can imagine being Master Kent’s town man again, like in those lively days when he was still a bachelor. The prospect is not frightening. It wouldn’t take me long to catch up with that mummers’ show. I could tag on at the end and follow Despair and his dejected mount as … Shame, perhaps. As Servitude. I’d put up with their switches and their staves, so long as I could be with them and not beset by cloud.

Instead, I hold my nerve and let them go forward without me, without the afterthought of Servitude or the extra burden of my Shame. I hurry along the cattle path and down the far side of the hill, into the sunshine again. Here, in warmer light, I dare to slow my step. I want to bide my time and make the most of what remains of this upsetting day. I am not ready to face the choices I must make or even guess what they might be. I do not want to see the manor house or any of the cottages. I do not want to face the pillory. My eyes are not entirely dry just yet. My mood is tumbling again. I’m suffering what Cecily used to call my wilts. But it is a mood that will pass, in my experience, with every step I take into the open and deserted fields. These poisonous and leaden squalls are familiar to me, as bewildering in their coming as they are swift in their going, though lately the wilts have become more frequent. Cecily’s parting is to blame. Without her love, I am an empty pod. I’m mourning her in tiny episodes, and will do, I suppose, until the mourning is complete. That day will never come, I think — and hope. There’s solace in the thought that I will never finish missing her. And I suppose there’s solace in the certainty that I will never finish missing here. I know I will not, cannot, must not, stay.

So I let the grieving have its way, as I escape from Clover Hill. I can allow myself to wallow like a village pig in the mud of my self-pity for a few more steps. I’m prone to that. I’m prone to feeling sorry for myself and feeling all the better for the indulgence. I allow my sadness to run its course, before I raise my head and, forging through a blizzard of thistledown which is falling up from the ground and supported by a breeze too soft for me to feel, I will myself to recognize what country folk are born to recognize, the amity in everything. Our fields are medicine. All days prove good to those that love the open air.

I pass our crest of great shade oaks, their first acorns and their summer leaf-fall cracking underfoot, and reach our flatter and more open ground, hardworking land, as flinty, thin and grizzled as a laborer. Here are pippinjays to keep me silent company. The four or five I see this afternoon are too busy defacing pears and crabs to speak or even notice me. And there are finches in the quicksets as I walk. For the time being, at least, they’re not short of anything to eat. They have the pick and peck of filberts, berries, hips and seeds. The hedges are heavy laden and grinning red with spoils, as if some puck has laid his magic wand upon their branches and ordered them to gem. This is the age of mushrooms too. It’s a mistake to think that, just because the barley’s in, the land has lost its openhandedness. Each weed and tree enjoys a harvest of its own.

Yet every plant and creature also knows that summer’s in retreat. The wayside dandelions have whitened slightly in the last few days. They’re growing pale with age. The year is leaving us. As are the swallows. A dozen or so are already vit-vitting overhead, preparing for their chinless journeys south. They always feel the chilling and the thinning of the air before we do, and understand when it is time to leave. I should not mind their parting. They’ve taken all the summer flies they can. They’ve kept our cattle company enough. They need to look elsewhere. Somewhere better, I suppose. For all its warmth, the sunlight is slanting lower than it was a day ago. What sky is blue is more thinly so this afternoon. The woodland canopies, viewed from this sloping field, are sere or just a little pinched with rust, the first signs of the approaching slumber of the trees. Come, maids and sons of summer, get ready for the winter ice. Your day is shortening. The air is nipping at your cheek; the cold is tugging at your wrist. The glinting spider’s thread will turn in a little while to glinting frost. It’s time for you to fill your pies with fruit, because quite soon the winds will strip the livings from the trees and thunder through the orchards to give the plums and apples there a rough and ready pruning, and you will have to wait indoors throughout the season of suspense while weather roars and bends outside. The dead leaves fly. They’re cropped and gathered to the rich barn of the earth.