Nevertheless, I Had Discovered That They Were Not Grateful But
Considered That An Injustice Had Been Done To Them, And It Rankled In
Their Hearts.
I remembered all this while the golfers were streaming by, and wondered
if this poor woman did not, like
Her fellow-villagers, cherish a secret
bitterness against those who had deprived them of the use of the dunes
where for generations they had been accustomed to walk or sit or lie on
the loose yellow sands among the barren grasses, and had also cut off
their direct way to the sea where they went daily in search of bits of
firewood and whatever else the waves threw up which would be a help to
them in their poor lives.
If it be so, I thought, some change will surely come into those
unchanging eyes at the sight of all these merry, happy golfers on their
way to their hotel and their cars and luxurious homes. But though I
watched her face closely there was no change, no faintest trace of ill-
feeling or feeling of any kind; only that same shadow which had been
there was there still, and her fixed eyes were like those of a captive
bird or animal, that gaze at us, yet seem not to see us but to look
through and beyond us. And it was the same when they had all gone by
and we finished our talk and I put money in her hand; she thanked me
without a smile, in the same quiet even tone of voice in which she had
replied to my question about the samphire.
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