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C# Game Programming
Cookbook for Unity 3D
C# Game Programming
Cookbook for Unity 3D
Second Edition

Jeff W. Murray
Second Edition published 2021
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

and by CRC Press

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

First Edition published by CRC Press 2014

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

The right of Jeff W. Murray to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him/ in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and
publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their
use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material
reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this
form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let
us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced,
transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.
For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www.copyright.co
m or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA
01923, 978-750-8400. For works that are not available on CCC please contact mpkbookspermissions
@tandf.co.uk

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

ISBN: 978-0-367-32170-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-32164-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-31713-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Minion
by SPi Global, India
This book is dedicated to my
amazing wife, Tori, and to
my boys, Ethan and William.
Boys, be nice to the cat and
the cat will be nice to you!
Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prerequisites

1. Making Games in a Modular Way

1.1 Important Programming Concepts

1.1.1 Manager and Controller Scripts Manager and Controller
Scripts
1.1.1.1 Managers
1.1.1.2 Controllers
1.1.1.3 Communication between
1.1.1.4 Public Static
1.1.1.5 Private Static
1.1.2 The Singleton
1.1.2.1 Using the Singleton in Unity
1.1.3 Inheritance
1.1.4 Coroutines
1.1.5 Namespaces
1.1.6 Finite State Machines (FSM)
1.2 Naming Conventions
1.3 Where to Now?
2. Making a 2D Infinite Runner Game

2.1 Anatomy of a Unity Project

2.2 Open Unity, Then the Example Project for This Chapter
2.2.1 A Few Notes on the Example Project
2.2.2 Sprites
2.2.3 Animation
2.3 Open the Main Game Scene
2.4 The Game Manager
2.5 Making Platforms to Run On
2.6 Building the Player, RunMan
2.6.1 Adding the RunMan Sprite
2.6.2 Adding Physics and Collisions to RunMan
2.6.3 Player Scripts
2.6.4 RunMan Sounds
2.6.5 Animating RunMan
2.6.6 Scoring
2.7 The Game Loop and the Game Manager
2.7.1 Game States
2.7.2 The Main Loop of RunMan_GameManager.cs
2.7.3 Setting Up the RunMan_Game Manager Component in t
he Editor
2.8 The Demise of RunMan
2.9 Adding the User Interface
2.9.1 Main Menu Setup

3. Building the Core Game Framework

3.1 Controllers and Managers

3.1.1 Managers
3.1.2 Controllers
3.2 Core Framework Scripts
3.2.1 BaseGameManager
3.2.2 ExtendedCustomMonoBehaviour
3.2.3 BaseCameraController

4. Player Structure
 4.1 A Player Controller
4.2 Dealing with Input
4.3 User Data
4.3.1 The UserData Class
4.3.2 The BaseUserManager Class
4.4 The BasePlayerStatsController Class
4.5 Managing Players

5. Recipes: Common Components

5.1 Introduction
5.2 AI
5.3 Camera
5.3.1 Third-Person Camera
5.3.2 Top-Down Camera
5.4 Game Control
5.4.1 GlobalRaceManager
5.4.2 RaceController
5.5 Input
5.5.1 Mouse Input
5.6 Level Loading
5.7 ScriptableObjects
5.7.1 ProfileScriptableObject
5.8 Spawning
5.8.1 A Spawner Component
5.8.2 Trigger Spawning
5.8.3 Timed Spawning
5.9 User Interface
5.9.1 CanvasManager
5.9.2 ScreenandAudioFader
5.9.3 MenuWithProfiles
5.10 Utility
5.10.1 AlignToGround
5.10.2 AutomaticDestroyObject
5.10.3 AutoSpinObject
5.10.4 FaceCamera
5.10.5 LookAtCamera
 5.10.6 PretendFriction
5.10.7 TimerClass
5.10.7.1 Modifying the Timer to Update Automatically.
5.10.8 WaypointsController
5.11 Weapons

6. Player Movement Controllers

6.1 Humanoid Character

6.2 Wheeled Vehicle
6.3 Wheel Alignment
6.4 2D Platform Character Controller

7. Weapon Systems

7.1 Building the Scripts

7.1.1 The BaseWeaponController Class
7.1.2 BaseWeaponScript
7.1.3 Switching between Weapons

8. Waypoints Manager

8.1 Waypoint System

9. Recipe: Sound and Audio

9.1 Audio Mixers and Mixing Audio in Unity

9.1.1 Mixing Audio
9.1.2 Exposing Mixer Properties to Modify Them with Scripts
9.1.3 Audio Effects
9.2 The BaseSoundManager Class
9.3 Adding Sound to Weapons

10. AI Manager

10.1 AI States
10.2 The BaseAIController Class – Base AI Control
10.3 Enemy Stats
 10.4 The AIBotController Class – Making an Enemy Bot Controller
10.5 The AISteeringController Class – An AI Steering Controller
10.6 Adding Weapon Control to the AI Controller
10.6.1 Attack States
10.6.2 Base Enemy Weapon Controller

11. Menus and User Interface

11.1 Canvas Manager Class/Canvas Management

11.2 The Main Menu
11.2.1 Designing the Main Menu
11.2.2 The BaseMainMenuManager Script
11.2.3 Combining BaseMainMenuManager to Use the Profile
Manager Script for Saving and Loading Audio Setting
s
11.3 In-Game User Interface

12. Saving and Loading Profiles

12.1 The Save Profile ScriptableObject

12.2 The BaseProfileManager Class

13. Loading Level Scenes

13.1 A Script for Loading Levels: LevelLoader.cs

13.2 Multiple Level Loading
13.3 Building a Multi-Scene Level Loader in Unity

14. Racing Game

14.1 Ingredients
14.2 Main Menu Scene Overview
14.3 Level Select Scene Overview
14.4 The Core Scene Overview
14.4.1 Game Manager – The RaceGameManager Class
14.4.2 Race Control – The GlobalRaceManager Class
14.4.3 Race Control – The RaceController Class
14.4.4 Race Control – RacePlayerController Class
 14.4.5 Audio
14.4.5.1 Vehicle Audio.
14.4.5.2 Incidental Sounds
14.4.6 User Interface

15. Blaster Game Example

15.1 Ingredients
15.2 Main Menu Scene Overview
15.3 The Core Scene Overview
15.3.1 The BlasterGameManager Class
15.3.2 The BlasterPlayer Class
15.3.3 Enemy Bots and the BlasterEnemyBot Class
15.3.4 Weapons and Projectiles
15.3.5 User Interface
15.4 Level Scenes
15.4.1 Spawning Enemies
Index
Acknowledgements

Thanks to all of my family, friends and everyone who has helped me with
my books, games and projects over the years: Brian Robbins, Chris Hanney,
Technicat, Molegato, NoiseCrime, Quantum Sheep, Mickael Laszlo, Juanita
Leatham, CoolPowers, Dave Brake, Sigurdur Gunnarsson, Kevin Godoy R.,
Lister, Wim Wouters, Edy (VehiclePhysics), IdeaFella, Liam Twose,
RafaEnd, Lynxie, Alistair Murphy, McFunkypants, Dani Moss, Malcolm
Evans, Vinh, Scott Wilson, Jon Keon, Dunky, Huck Z, Paradise Decay,
Kryten, Silverware Games, Pete Patterson, Dr. Not Oculus VR, Say
Mistage, Andy Hatch, Lydia, RT Warner, GermanRifter VR, Sylvain
Demers, Kenneth Seward Jr, Dancer (Space Dad), Steve Fulton, Paul
Bettner, Derek Scottishgeeks, Jonny Gorden, Edward Atkin, Ottawa Pete,
Sam W., Dylan Stout, Shane McCafferty, Will Goldstone, Sanborn VR,
Gary Riches, J. Dakota Powell, Mayonnaise Boy, Stephen Parkes, Ram
Kanda, Alex Bethke, Itzik Goldman, Joachim Ante, Robert Scoble, Tony
Walsh, Andreas ‘BOLL’ Aronsson, Cat, Darrel Plant, Mike Baker, Rimsy,
Cassie, Christopher Brown, Phil Nolan, Pixel Hat Studio, Marcus Valles,
Trev, Karyl, Tami Quiring, Nadeem Rasool, Dwayne Dibley, Liz and Pete
Smyth, Isaac and Aiden, David Helgason, VR Martin, James Gamble,
Vasanth Mohan, Simona Ioffe, Alexander Kondratskiy, Tim and Paul, The
Oliver Twins, Jeevan Aurol, Rick King, Aldis Sipolins, Ric Lumb, Craig
Taylor, Rob Hewson, Dani Moss, Jayenkai (JNK), Matthew Kirubakaran,
Elliot Mitchell, Ethan and William, Pablo Rojo, Paul Bettner, AdrellaDev,
Gordon Little, Ryan Evans, Sasha Boersma, Matt Browning at Perfect
Prototype, Hermit, Dirty Rectangles and the whole Ottawa game dev
community.
I would also like to sincerely thank Anya Hastwell, Thivya Vasudevan
and the team at SPI Global, the whole team at Routledge/CRC Press/AK
Peters, including Randi Cohen, Jessica Vega and Rick Adams, for making
this book a reality.
Thank you for buying this book and for wanting to do something as cool
as to make games. I wish I could tell you how awesome it feels to know that
someone else is reading this right now. I cannot wait to see your games and
I sincerely hope this book helps you in your game making adventures. Have
fun making games!
Introduction

The overall goal of this book is to provide a library of C# code with which
to jumpstart your projects and to help you with the overall structure of your
games. Many development cookbooks focus on only providing snippets of
code, but, here, we take a different approach. What you are holding in your
hands right now (or on your screen) is a cookbook for game development
that has a highly flexible core framework designed to speed up development
of just about any type of Unity project.
You might think of the framework as a base soup and the scripting
components as ingredients. We can mix and match script components and
we can share the same core scripts in many of them. The framework takes
care of the essentials and we add a little extra code to pull it all together the
way we want it to work.
The framework is optional, however – you can use a lot the components
individually. If you intend on using the components in this book for your
own games, the framework could either serve as a base to build your games
on or simply as a tutorial test bed for you to rip apart and see how it all
works. Perhaps you can develop a better framework or maybe you already
have a solid framework in place. If you do find a way to develop your own
framework, I say do it. The key to game development is to do what works
for you and your game projects – whatever it takes to cross the finish line.
I hope it helps you to make your games and tell your stories. I also hope
you remember to try to have fun doing it!
Prerequisites

You can get up and running with the required software for the grand total of
zero dollars. Everything you need can be downloaded free of charge with
no catches. All you need is:

Unity Personal or Unity Pro version

C# programming knowledge.

This is not a book about learning how to program. You will need to know
some C# and there are several other books out there for that purpose, even
if I have tried to make the examples as simple as possible!
What this book doesn’t cover
This is not a book about learning to program from scratch. We assume that
the reader has some experience of the C# programming language. Know
that I am a self-taught programmer and I understand there may be better or
alternative ways to do things. Techniques and concepts offered in this book
are meant to provide foundation and ideation, not to be the final word on
any subject.
 Making Games in a
1 Modular Way

1.1 Important Programming Concepts

There are some things you will need to know to utilize this book fully. For a
lot of programmers, these concepts may be something you were taught in
school. As a self-taught coder who did not find out about a lot of these
things until long after I had been struggling on without them, I see this
section as a compilation of ‘things I wish I’d known earlier’!

1.1.1 Manager and Controller Scripts

Sometimes, even I get confused about the difference between a manager
and a controller script. There is no established protocol for this, and it varies
depending on who you ask. Like some readers of the first edition of this
book, I find it a little confusing and I will try to clear that up.

1.1.1.1 Managers
Managers deal with overall management, in a similar way to how a
Manager would work in a workplace situation.

1.1.1.2 Controllers
Controllers deal with systems that the managers need to do their jobs. For
example, in the racing game example game for this book, we have race
controller scripts and a global race manager script. The race controller
scripts are attached to the players and track their positions on the track,
waypoints, and other relevant player-specific race information. The global
race manager script talks to all the race controller scripts attached to the
players to determine who is winning and when the race starts or finishes.

1.1.1.3 Communication between Classes

An important part of our modular structure is how scripts are going to
communicate with each other. It is inevitable that we will need to access our
scripts from different areas of the game code, so you will need to know how
to do that in Unity.

1. Direct referencing scripts via variables set in the editor by the

Inspector window.

The easiest way to have script Components talk to each other (that is,
scripts attached to GameObjects in the Scene as Components) is to have
direct references, in the form of public variables within your code. They can
then be populated in the Inspector window of the Unity editor with a direct
link to another Component on another GameObject.

2. GameObject referencing using SendMessage.

SendMessage sends a message to a GameObject or Transform and calls a

function within any of its attached script Components. It only works one
way, so it is only useful when we do not need any kind of return result. For
example:

someGameObject.SendMessage(“DoSomething”);

Above, this would call the function DoSomething() on any of the script
Components attached to the GameObject referenced by someGameObject.

3. Static variables.
 The static variable type makes a variable accessible to other scripts
without a direct reference to the GameObject it is attached to. This is
particularly useful behavior where several different scripts may want to
manipulate a variable to do things like adding points to a score or set the
number of lives of a player, and so on.
An example declaration of a static variable might be:

public static GameManager aManager;

You can have private or public static variables:

1.1.1.4 Public Static

A public static variable exists everywhere and may be accessed by any
other script.
For example, imagine a player script which needs to tell the Game
Manager to increase the current score by one:

1. In our GameManager.cs Game Manager script, we set up a variable,

public static typed:

public static gameScore;

2. In any other script, we can now access this static variable and alter
the score as needed:

GameController.gameScore++;

1.1.1.5 Private Static

A private static variable is accessible only to any other instances of the
same type of class. Other types of class will not be able to access it.
 As an example, imagine all players need to have a unique number when
they are first spawned into the game. The player class declares a variable
named uniqueNum like this:

Private static int uniqueNum;

When a player script is first created, it uses the value of uniqueNum for
itself and increases uniqueNum by one:

myUniqueNum = uniqueNum;
uniqueNum++;

The value of uniqueNum will be shared across all player scripts. The next
player to be spawned will run the same start up function, getting
uniqueNum again – only this time it has been increased by one, thanks to
the player spawned earlier. This player again gets its own unique number
and increases the static variable ready for the next one.

1.1.2 The Singleton

A singleton is a commonly used method for allowing access to an instance
of a class, accessible to all other scripts. This pattern is ideal for code that
needs to communicate with the entire game, such as a Game Manager.

1.1.2.1 Using the Singleton in Unity

The most straightforward way to achieve singleton-like behavior is to use a
static variable and, when Unity calls the Awake() function, set the instance
variable to become a reference to the script instance it represents. The
keyword ‘this’ refers to the instance of the script it is a part of.
For example:
public class MyScript : Monobehaviour
{
private static MySingleton instance;
void Awake()
{
if (instance != null)
Destroy(this);
instance = this;
}
}

The singleton instance of our script can be accessed anywhere, by

practically any script, with the following syntax:

MySingleton.Instance.SomeFunctionInTheSingleton();

1.1.3 Inheritance
Inheritance is a complex concept, which calls for some explanation here
because of its key role within the scripts provided by this book. Have a read
through this section but don’t worry if you don’t pick up inheritance right
away. Once we get to the programming it will probably become clearer.
The bottom line is that inheritance is used in programming to describe a
method of providing template scripts that may be overridden, or added to,
by other scripts. As a metaphor, imagine a car. All cars have four wheels
and an engine. The types of wheels may vary from car to car, as will the
engine, so when we say ‘this is a car’ and try to describe how our car
behaves; we may also describe the engine and wheels.
These relationships may be shown in a hierarchical order:

Car–

–Wheels

–Engine

Now try to picture this as a C# script:

 Car class.

Wheels function

Engine function

If we were building a game with lots of cars in it, having to rewrite the car
class for each type of car would be silly. A far more efficient method might
be to write a base class and populate it with virtual functions. When we
need to create a car, rather than use this base class, we build a new class,
which inherits the base class. Because our new class is inherited, it is
optional whether we choose to override wheels or engine functions to make
them behave in ways specific to our new class. That is, we can build
‘default’ functions into the base class and if we only need to use a default
behavior for an engine, our new class doesn’t need to override the engine
function.
A base class might look something like this:

public class BaseCar : MonoBehaviour {

public virtual void Engine () {

Debug.Log(“Vroom”);
}

public virtual void Wheels () {

Debug.Log(“Four wheels”);
}
}

There are two key things to notice in the above script. One is the class
declaration itself and the fact that this class derives from MonoBehaviour.
MonoBehaviour is itself a class – the Unity documentation describes it as
“the base class every script derives from” – this MonoBehaviour class
contains many engine-specific functions and methods such as Start(),
Update(), FixedUpdate(), and more. If our script didn’t derive from
MonoBehaviour it would not inherit those functions and the engine
wouldn’t automatically call functions like Update() for us to be able to work
with. Another point to note is that MonoBehaviour is a class that is built
into the engine and not something we can access to edit or change.
The second point to note is that our functions are both declared as virtual
functions. Both are public, both are virtual. Making virtual functions means
that the behavior in our base class may be overridden by any scripts that
derive from it. The behavior we define in this base class could be thought of
as its default behavior. We will cover overriding in full a little further on in
this section.
Let’s take a look at what this script actually does: if we were to call the
Engine() function of our BaseCar class, it would write to the console
“Vroom.” If we called Wheels, the console would read “Four wheels.”
Now that we have our BaseCar class, we can use this as a template and
make new versions of it like this:

public class OctoCar : BaseCar {

public override void Wheels () {
Debug.Log(“Eight wheels”);
}
}

The first thing you may notice is that the OctoCar class derives from
BaseCar rather than MonoBehaviour. This means that OctoCar inherits
functions and methods belonging to our BaseCar script. As the functions
described by BaseCar were virtual, they may be overridden. For OctoCar,
we override Wheels with the line:

public override void Wheels () {

Let’s take a look at what this script actually does: In this case, if we were
to call the Engine() function on OctoCar, it would do the same as the
BaseCar class; it would write “Vroom” to the console. It would do this
because we have inherited the function but have not overridden it, which
means we keep that default behavior. In OctoCar, however, we have
overridden the Wheels() function. The BaseCar behavior of Wheels would
print “Four wheels” to the console but if we call Wheels() on OctoCar, the
overridden behavior will write “Eight wheels,” instead.
 Inheritance plays a huge part in how our core game framework is
structured. The idea is that we have basic object types and specific
elaborated versions of these objects inheriting the base methods, properties,
and functions. By building our games in this manner, the communication
between the different game components (such as game control scripts,
weapon scripts, projectile controllers, etc.) becomes universal without
having to write out the same function declarations over and over again for
different variations of script. For the core framework, our main goal is to
make it as flexible and extensible as possible and this would be a much
more difficult if we were unable to use inheritance.

1.1.4 Coroutines
Unity lets you run a function known as a coroutine, outside of the regular
built in functions like Update, FixedUpdate, LateUpdate, and so on. A
coroutine is self-contained code that will just go off and do its own thing
once you have told it to run. As it is running on its own, you can do some
cool stuff like pause it for a set amount of time and then have it start again,
and coroutines are ideally suited to time-based actions like fade effects or
animations.
Here is an example of a coroutine (this example code comes from the
Unity engine documentation):

IEnumerator Fade() {
for (float ft = 1f; ft > = 0; ft -= 0.1f)
{
Color c = renderer.material.color;
c.a = ft;
renderer.material.color = c;
yield return null;
}
}

This code loops the value of ft from 1 to 0 and sets the alpha value of a
color on a material to that value. This will fade out whatever renderer this
script is attached to, fading more as the alpha channel gets closer to 0.
Notice the strange line:
 yield return null;

Do not be alarmed by this odd code above! All it does is tell the engine
that, at this point, the coroutine is ready to end this update and go on to the
next one. You need this in your code, but don’t worry too much about why
at this stage. I will go into some more detail below, but for now let us
continue by looking at how you would start this coroutine running:

StartCoroutine("Fade");

StartCoroutine() takes the name of the coroutine as a string. Once called

to start, the coroutine will do its thing and you do not need to do anything
else. It will either run until we tell it to stop, or it will run until the object is
destroyed.
A key thing to note here is that the function is declared as type
IEnumerator. At first, I found this confusing, but it turns out that Unity
coroutines use C#’s built in system for iterator blocks. IEnumerator (Iterator
Enumerator) was intended to be a method for iterating through collections
of objects. Coroutines instead use IEnumerator to iterate through your
coroutine code, starting or stopping it between updates.
Another key point is that statement:

yield return null;

You can think of IEnumerator like a cursor making its way through your
code. When the cursor hits a yield statement, that tells the engine that this
update is done and to move the cursor on to the next block.
Another thing you can do with coroutines is to pause the code inline for a
certain amount of time, like this:

yield return new WaitForSeconds(1.0f);

Using WaitForSeconds(), you can quite literally pause the coroutine

script execution inline. For example:
 IEnumerator DebugStuff()
{
Debug.Log("Start.");
yield return new WaitForSeconds(1.0f);
Debug.Log("Now, it’s one second later!");

Earlier in this section, I mentioned that the yield statement is used to tell
Unity the current update is done and to move on to the next. In the code
above, rather than just telling Unity to move on to the next bit of code, it
tells Unity to wait for the specified number of seconds first.

1.1.5 Namespaces
Namespaces compartmentalize chunks of code away from each other. You
can think of a namespace as a box to put your own scripts in, so that they
can stay separated from other code or code libraries. This helps to prevent
possible overlaps between code libraries (APIs and so on) and your own
code, such as duplicate function names or variables.
To use namespaces, you wrap the entire class in a namespace declaration
like this:

namespace MyNamespace
{
public class MyClass() : Monobehaviour
{
}

When you want to refer to the code from another class, you need to be
either wrapped in the same namespace or to have the using keyword at the
top of the script, like:

using MyNamespace;
1.1.6 Finite State Machines (FSM)
A finite state machine is a commonly used system for tracking states. In
video games, they are used to track game states. Example states might be
GameLoaded, GameStarting, LevelStarting, and so on. The term finite state
machine sounds a lot more complicated than it usually is. The actual code
often takes the form of a long case statement that will execute code or call
functions based on the current game state. For example:

Switch(currentGameState)
{
Case GameStates.GameLoaded:
GameLoaded();
Break;
Case GameStates.GameStarting:
GameStart();
Break;

Having code in each case statement can get unruly. To counter this, I like
to split all of the code out into individual functions. This keeps the code
tidy, easier to manage, and easier to debug when things do not go to plan.

1.2 Naming Conventions

Naming conventions vary from programmer to programmer and even
between companies. Some games companies have strict guidelines on how
code is constructed and how to name variables, where they can and cannot
be used, and so on, which is mostly in place to make it easier for other
programmers to be able to understand the code and pick it up when they
might need to. You may not need to take it that far, but I do feel that some
organization of your naming helps. In this book, I follow a very loose set of
rules for naming variables – just enough to make it easier for me to know
quickly what type of variable I am looking at or what its purpose might be.
Those are:
Object references (Transforms, Components, GameObjects, and so forth)
are prefixed by an underscore (_) symbol. For example, a variable to hold a
reference to a Transform might be named _TR. A variable used to talk to a
Game Manager might be named _GameManager.
Most of the objects in this book (players, enemies, and more) derive from
the ExtendedMonoBehaviour class, which contains a few variables that are
used more commonly than others:

_RB Used to reference a Rigidbody attached to this object.

_RB2D For a 2D Rigidbody reference.

_TR The Transform of the object.

_GO The GameObject.

Where scripts need to be initialized before they can be used, in this book
we always use a Boolean variable named didInit which gets set to true after
initialization. You can use didInit to make sure initialization has completed.
Many programmers frown on the idea of declaring temporary variables,
but I like to have _tempVEC and _tempTR variables available for whenever
I need to refer to a quick Vector3 or another Transform inline. Having these
variables already declared is just a little quicker than having to declare a
new Vector3 each time, or to make a new Transform variable.

1.3 Where to Now?

Think about how your objects work together in the game world and how
their scripts need to communicate with each other. I find it helps to make
flow diagrams or to use mind-mapping software to work things out
beforehand. A little planning early on can reduce a whole lot of code
revisions later. That said, it is perfectly O.K. for your structure to grow and
evolve as you develop it further. The framework shown in this book went
through many iterations before reaching its final form.
Try to break up your scripts into smaller components to help debugging
and flexibility. Also try to design for re-useability; hard-coding references
to other scripts reduces the portability of the script and increases the amount
of work you will need to do in the future when you want to carry it over
into another project.
 Making a 2D Infinite
2 Runner Game

This chapter is different from the rest of the book and a dramatic diversion
from what you may have seen in its first edition. Elsewhere in the text, I
focus mainly on the code behind the games. This chapter offers up a step by
step tutorial to using the framework to make a 2D infinite runner game. The
goal of this chapter is to demonstrate two things: 1) How quickly you can
turn around a game when you have a framework in place that takes care of a
lot of the repetitive tasks. 2) The basics of how this books framework fits
together to give you some background knowledge before we get down into
nitty gritty of the framework code in Chapter 3.
This infinite runner (Figure 2.1) has a character that can move left, right,
and jump. Platforms are spawned off-screen and moved to the left to create
the illusion of movement.
I have already set up animations and imported the required graphics into
the example project to get things going quickly. As the focus of this book is
more toward code, project structure, and programming, I want to avoid
using up too many pages on making graphics or on Unity editor-specifics.
The Unity documentation features plenty of content on this.
Players jump and move to stay on the platforms if possible, with the
score incremented at timed intervals. If the player falls off the bottom of the
screen, the game ends.
To accomplish this, we will need:

1. The C# Game Programming Cookbook (GPC) framework, which is

included as part of this book as a download from Github at https://gi
thub.com/psychicparrot/CSharpUnityCookbookExampleFiles
 2. A platformer character capable of running left, right, and jumping

3. Platforms (auto moving to the left) and a method to spawn platforms

off screen

Figure 2.1 In the Infinite Runner example game, players jump and run to try to stay on
the platforms for as long as possible.

4. A Game Manager script to keep track of game state and deal with
scoring and so forth

5. Sounds for jumping and the game ending

6. An animated character

With just the framework and assets, by the end of this chapter, we will
have a working game.

2.1 Anatomy of a Unity Project

Unity projects are made up of lots and lots of files. A game is made up of
Scenes full of GameObjects. GameObjects are all the objects that make up a
game. GameObjects may take the form of anything from an empty
placeholder to a fully animated 3d model. Every GameObject has
something called a Transform, which holds information on the rotation,
position, and scale of the GameObject.
 Scenes are essentially just files that hold information about which objects
to load at runtime. They can contain GameObjects, or they can contain
Prefabs. Prefabs are essentially files containing information about one or
more GameObjects to load as though they are combined. By using Prefabs,
you can reduce the time it takes to build multiple Scenes by combining
multiple GameObjects into one, single, Prefab. Think of Prefabs as
templates you make yourself by arranging GameObjects in the Scene and
then creating Prefabs from them as templates to load and use elsewhere.
When you drag a Prefab into a Unity Scene, it will appear as one or more
GameObjects – replicating the original structure you created when you
made the original Prefab. Since game projects are made up of many files, a
lot of your time in Unity will be spent manipulating files, turning them into
GameObjects, and Prefabs and then organizing and laying them out in
Scenes. In the next section, we look at how Unity helps you to do this and
how the editor is structured for exactly these kinds of tasks.

2.2 Open Unity, Then the Example Project fo

r This Chapter
Open Unity. At the splash screen, choose to open an existing project and
browse to the folder named Chapter2_UnComplete_ProjectFiles, which
contains the example project for this chapter. Open the project. If you have
any trouble along the way, or you just want to try out the completed game,
you can find the complete example as a part of the other example project
found in the folder named All_Completed_ProjectFiles.
Figure 2.2 The Unity editor as seen in a 2 by 3 layout.

To keep everything in line with the information in this section, you

should change the editor layout. In the top right of the editor, find the
Layout dropdown button. Click on it and choose 2 by 3. After a short delay,
the editor should arrange its panels into the default 2 by 3 layout.
Now that we have the editor laid out in similar ways, let’s look through
each panel to make sure we are using the same terminology. Check out Figu
re 2.2 – outlined below are the different sections shown in the figure, what
those sections are and what they are for:

A. Scene
The Scene panel is your drag and drop visual window into a Unity
Scene. You can manipulate GameObjects directly inside the
currently loaded Scene.

B. Game
The Game panel shows a preview of the game. When you press
Play, the editor runs the game inside the Game panel as if it were
running in a standalone build. There are also a few extra features,
 such as Gizmos, that the Game preview offers to help you build out
and debug your games.

C. Project
The Project panel is very similar to a file browser, in that it lists out
all the files that go up to make your project. You can click and drag
them, right click, and access a menu, use shortcuts, and delete them
– almost all the regular functionality of a Windows Explorer
window right inside the editor.

D. Hierarchy
The Hierarchy works in a similar way to the Project panel, only
instead of being an interface to manipulate project files, it’s there to
manipulate GameObjects inside the current Scene.

Figure 2.3 The Transform tools.

Figure 2.4 The playback tools.

E. Inspector
Whenever you have a GameObject selected in the Scene panel, or
highlighted in the Hierarchy, the Inspector window shows you
editable properties of the GameObject and any Components
attached to it. Whatever you can’t do with the Scene panel, you can
probably do here instead.

Another point of interest in the main Unity editor are along the toolbar
across the top of the editor, below the menus.
Other documents randomly have
different content
 “We shall see. We shall see,” he muttered hastily; “I am an old
man.”
 CHAPTER VI—MOTHS

A
week had worked wonders with Grandmother Cardover. She
had fallen a victim to Vi’s charm and, in that strange way that
old folks have, had warmed her age at the fire of Vi’s youth.
There was an unmistakable change in her; the somberness of her
dress was lightened here and there with a dash of colored ribbons.
As long as I could remember, the only ornaments she had permitted
herself were of black jet, as befitted her widowed state. But now the
woman’s instinct for self-decoration had come to life. Vi’s exquisite
femininity had made her remember that she herself was a woman.
She had rummaged through her jewelry and found a large gold-set
cameo brooch, which she wore at her throat, and some rings, and a
long gold chain, which she now wore about her neck, from which
her watch was suspended.
Vi’s vivid physical beauty and intense joy in life had broadened the
horizons of everyone in the house, and set them dreaming. Ruthita,
coming down from London, had at once become infatuated. From
day to day she had prolonged Vi’s visit, now with one excuse, now
another. They had brought Dorrie down to stay with Vi at the shop—
little Bee’s Knee as my Grannie called her, because she was so tiny
and a bee’s knee was the smallest thing she could think of with
which to compare her. It was many years since a child’s prattle had
been heard about that quiet house. Vi’s comradeship with her little
daughter finished the persuading of my grandmother that she was
safe and good. All virtuous women believe in the virtue of a woman
who is fond of children.
They were sitting down to lunch in the keeping-room when I
entered.
“Why, if it isn’t Dante!”
 The greeting I received was in welcome contrast to the cold,
guarded reserve of the past seven days. A place was made for me at
table between my grandmother and Ruthita. It was a gay little party
that waited, watching me curiously across the dishes and plates, to
hear my news. Just then I preferred the cosiness of my
grandmother’s shop to the chilly dignity of Woadley Hall. Outside the
sunshine slanted across the courtyard, leaving one half in shadow,
the other golden white. The maid, coming in and out from the
kitchen in her rustling print-dress, with her smiling country face, was
a pleasanter sight than the butler at Woadley. From the shop came
the smell of tar and rope and new-made bread. Everything was so
frank and kindly, and unashamed of itself. Here in the keeping-room
of the ship-chandler’s shop we were humanly intimate—“coxy-loxy”
as my grandmother would have expressed it.
I told a sorrowful tale at first, which seemed to foreshadow a
sorrowful ending. I spoke of the stiff formality of my reception, the
garnished gentility which had marked my intercourse with Sir
Charles, the withheld confidence—the fact that my mother’s name
was scarcely mentioned. Ruthita’s hand sought mine beneath the
table; I could feel the fingers tremble.
“This morning,” I said, “he called me into his study. He told me
that I must leave within the hour and that our friendship could go no
further.”
“The old rascal!” exclaimed Grandmother Cardover, bringing down
her knife and fork on her plate with a clatter. “What was he a-doin’,
gettin’ you there to Woadley? He must ’a’ known what we all
expected.”
I tilted back my chair, putting on an expression of long-suffering
melancholy. “He wanted to see what I was like, I suppose. His chief
reason was that he wanted to make a new will.”
Babel broke loose. Why hadn’t I told them earlier? Why had I
harrowed up their feelings for nothing? What were the particulars? I
was cruel to have kept them in suspense.
Grandmother Cardover was hysterical with joy. She wanted to run
out into the streets and tell everybody. She began with the maid in
the kitchen, and would have gone on to the men in the bake-house
if I hadn’t stopped her by appealing to her curiosity, saying there
was more to tell. As for Ruthita, she just put her arms about me and
laid her head on my shoulder, crying for sheer gladness. Little Bee’s
Knee looked on open-mouthed, shocked that grownups should
behave so foolishly. Vi gazed at me with a far-away stare in her
eyes, picturing the might-have-beens, and I gazed back at her
across the gulf that widened between us.
Discretion was thrown to the wind. When Vi gathered Dorrie to
her and began to excuse herself, she was told that she must stay
and make one of the family. Then the story was told again with the
new perspective.
With shame and self-reproach I look back and perceive how
carelessly I accepted all Ruthita’s admiration. My new good fortune
promised nothing for her; yet she could rejoice in it. In her shy girl’s
world, had I known it, I figured as something between a faery-prince
and a hero. Through me she looked out into a more generous world
of glamour than any she had personally experienced. Poor little
Ruthita, with her mouse-like timidity! She had lived all her days in a
walled-in garden, treading the dull monotonous round of self-
sacrificing duties. No one ever credited her with a career of her own.
No one stopped to think that she might have dreams and a will of
her own. They told her what to do and let their gratitude be taken
for granted. She humored my father when he was discouraged, did
the housekeeping, and took shelter behind the superior social grace
of the Snow Lady. We all loved her, but we made the mistake of not
telling her—we supposed she knew. All the strong things that men
and women do together, all love’s comedy and tragedy, were so
much hearsay to her.
 That afternoon and evening she sat beside me holding my hand
with frank affection, making me feel that in loving Vi I was stealing
something that belonged to her. More than that, I was feeling for
this woman, who had been nothing to me a few weeks ago, a
quality of kindness and consideration that I had always withheld
from the child-friend who had tiptoed her way up to womanhood
beside me.
After tea we mounted to the drawing-room, which was over the
shop and faced the street. It was usually occupied only on Sundays
and feast-days, or when a visiting Methodist minister had been
apportioned to my grandmother for entertainment. Faded engravings
of sacred subjects and simpering females elaborately framed, hung
upon the walls. On the mantelshelf stood some quaint specimens of
Ransby china—red-roofed cottages with grapes ripening above the
porch, and a lover coming up the path while his lady watched him
from the window. The chairs were upholstered in woolwork on
canvas, which my grandmother had done in her youth. In one corner
stood a heavy rosewood piano on which all the family portraits were
arranged. In this room comfort was sacrificed to appearance—the
furniture was sedate rather than genial. Nothing was haphazard or
awry. The mats and antimacassars never budged an inch from their
places. No smell of beer, or cheese, or baking bread vulgarized the
sacred respectability of its atmosphere.
Here, as we sat together talking, the light began to fade. Heavy
footsteps of sailors in their sea-boots, passing down the street from
the harbor to the cottages, only emphasized the quiet. We watched
the sky grow pink behind the masts of shipping, then green, then
gray. Cordage and rigging were etched distinctly against the gloom
of the oncoming night. At the top of the street a light sprang up,
then another, then another. The lamp-lighter with his long pole and
ladder passed by. Now with the heavy tread of men’s feet the tip-a-
tap of girls’ footsteps began to mingle. Sometimes a snatch of
laughter would reach us; then, as if afraid of the sound it made, it
died abruptly away. While we talked in subdued voices, it seemed to
me that all the sailor-lovers with their lassies had conspired to steal
by the house that night. I fell to wondering what it felt like to slip
your arm about the waist of a woman you loved, feel her warmth
and trust and nearness, feel her head droop back against your
shoulder, see her face flash up in the starlight and know that, while
your lips were trembling against hers, she was abandoning herself
soul and body to you in the summer dusk.
Dorrie had crept into her mother’s lap. Her soft breathing told that
she was sleeping. One small hand, with fingers crumpled, rested
against her mother’s throat. Someone had called to see
Grandmother Cardover, so Vi, Ruthita, and I were left alone together.
Sitting back in our chairs out of reach of the street-lamp, we could
not see the expression on one another’s faces.
“I would give all the world to be you, Mrs. Carpenter,” Ruthita
whispered.
“To be me! Why? I sometimes get very tired of it.”
“If I were you I should have Dorrie. It must be very sweet to be a
mother. Why is it that she always calls you Vi and never mother?”
“She picked that up from her father. I never corrected her because
—well, because somehow I like it. It makes me seem younger.”
“You don’t need to seem young,” I interrupted.
“How old do you think I am?”
“About the same age as myself and Ruthita.”
She laughed. “That couldn’t be; Dorrie is eight.”
“Then I give up guessing.”
“I’m twenty-seven. I was little more than a child, you see, when I
married.”
 “Mother married early,” said Ruthita, “and my papa was only
twenty at the time. She says that early marriages turn out happiest.”
Vi made no answer. The silence grew awkward. We could almost
hear one another’s thoughts trying to hide. Why had she explained
in that tone of half-apology, “I was little more than a child; you see,
when I married.” Why didn’t she say something now? Was it because
an early marriage had proved for her disastrous? Then, if it had,
what moral obligation separated us? Who was this husband who
could dispense with her for a year, and yet had the power to stretch
out his arm across the Atlantic and thrust me aside?
She leant forward. The light from the street-lamp kindled her face
and smoldered in her hair. She had the wistful, rapt expression of a
young girl, ignorant as yet of the bitter-sweet of love, who dreams of
an ideal lover. I felt then that her soul was virgin; it had never been
a man’s possession. It was almost mine.
Ruthita’s remark about the happiness of early marriages was
forgotten, when Vi returned to the subject. “They may be
sometimes,” she said, speaking doubtfully.
She caught my eye resting on her. Conscious that her qualification
had divulged a secret, she hurried into an implied defense of her
husband.
“I had a letter from Mr. Carpenter this morning. He’s lonely. He
says he can’t bear to be without me any longer. He wants me to
return home at once. He’s not seen Dorrie for nearly a year. He’s
afraid she’ll forget him entirely. If I don’t go to him, he says he’ll
come and fetch me. It’s been horrid of me to stay away so long.
When we left, we only intended to be gone for three months.
Somehow the time lengthened. I wanted to see so much. He’s been
too easy with me. He’s been awfully kind. He always has been kind.
He treats me like a spoilt child.”
She had been speaking so eagerly and hurriedly that she had not
heard the creaking of the stairs. Through the darkness I could see
my grandmother standing in the doorway. Vi turned to Ruthita with a
pretense of gaiety, “No wonder you English don’t understand us.
Don’t you think that American husbands are very patient?”
“I’m sure I do,” said Ruthita. “What makes them so different from
English husbands?”
“They love their wives.”
It was impossible to tell from the bantering tone in Vi’s voice,
whether she spoke the last words in cynicism or sincerity.
Grandmother Cardover took her literally. Her national pride was
touched. She believed that an aspersion had been cast on the
affection of all married Englishmen. She advanced into the room
with suspicions aroused, bristling with morality. “If that’s what they
call love in America,” she snorted, “then it’s glad I am that I was
born in Ransby. ‘They shall be one flesh’—that’s what the Holy Book
says about marriage. And ’ow can you be one flesh if you stay away
from one another a twelvemonth at a time? Why, when my Will’am
was alive, I never slept a night away from ’im, from the day we was
married to the day he died.”
The darkness about her seemed to quiver with indignation. I could
see her gray curls bobbing, and hear the keys hanging from her
waist jangle, as she trembled. Ruthita cowered close to me, shocked
and frightened. Dorrie woke and began to whimper to be taken to
bed. We all waited for a natural expression of anger from Vi.
She set Dorrie on to her feet very gently, whispering to her
mothering words, telling her not to cry. Drawing herself up, she
faced into the darkness. When she spoke there was a sweet, low
pleading in her voice.
“Mrs. Cardover, you took me too seriously. I’m sorry. You
misunderstood me. I believe all that you have said—a wife ought to
be her husband’s companion. There have been reasons for my long
absence, which I cannot explain; if I did, you might not understand
them. But I want you always to believe well of me. I have never had
such kindness from any woman as you have given me.”
I heard my Grannie sniffle. Vi must have heard her. She left Dorrie
and, running across the room, put her arms about her. I heard them
blaming themselves, and taking everything back, the way women do
when they ask forgiveness. I lifted Dorrie into my arms, and Ruthita
and I tiptoed from the room.
Presently they came down to us. Grandmother Cardover was
smiling comically, as though she was rather pleased at what had
happened. Vi said that she must be going. Ruthita and I volunteered
to accompany her back to her lodgings. So the storm in the tea-cup
ended, leaving me with new materials for conjecture and reflection.
On the way up the High Street we chatted volubly, trying to
overlay what had occurred with a new impression. We talked against
time and without sincerity. When we had reached the black flint
house and the door had shut, Ruthita snuggled close to me with a
relieved little sigh. Ever since my return from Woadley she had been
waiting for this moment of privacy. With a sweet sisterly air of
proprietorship she slipped her arm through mine. We turned down a
score and struck out across the denes to the north beach, where we
could be quiet. A wet wind from the sea pattered about our faces,
giving Ruthita an excuse to cling yet more closely.
You would not have called Ruthita beautiful in those days. She
lacked the fire that goes with beauty. She was too humble in her
self-esteem, too self-effacing. But one who had looked closely would
have discerned something more lasting than mere physical beauty—
the loveliness of a pure spirit looking out from her quiet eyes. She
was one of those domestic saints, unaware of their own goodness,
that one sometimes finds in middle-class families; women who are
never heard of, who live only through their influence on their
menfolk’s lives.
 Her features were small, but perfect. Her figure slight, and
buoyant in its carriage. Her complexion white, but ready to suffuse
with color at the least sign of appreciation. Her glory was in her hair,
which was black and abundant as night. From a child I had always
thought that her feet and hands were most beautiful in their fragile
tininess. I never told her any of these flattering observations, which
would have meant so much if put into words. Brothers don’t—and I
was as good as her brother.
“Don’t you think,” said Ruthita, “that there’s something awfully
queer about Mrs. Carpenter’s marriage? I’ve been with her nearly a
week now, and I’ve never heard her mention her husband until to-
night.”
“And Dorrie doesn’t speak of him either.”
“No, I’ve noticed that.”
Then Ruthita surprised me. “Do you know, Dante, I think to marry
the wrong man must be purgatory.”
I was amused at the note of seriousness in her voice.
“Ruthie, to hear you speak one’d suppose you’d been in love.
Have you ever thought that you’ll have to marry some day?”
“Of course I have.”
“What’ll he have to be like?”
She held her tongue. My jauntiness had made her shy. “Come,
Ruthie,” I said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I hate to own that you’re
grown up. I didn’t think you’d given a thought to marriage. Tell me,
what’ll he have to be like?”
I halted, swinging her round so she had to look up in my face. She
wore a hunted look of cornered perplexity.
“I’ve never spoken of these things even to mother,” she said.
“They all treat me as though I were still a child.”
 I wondered what was her trouble. The searchlight swept her. I
saw the eagerness for confession on her trembling mouth.
The fire which her beauty had always lacked leapt up. I was
amazed at the transformation. She looked reckless. The mask of
maidenly tranquillity had slipped aside; I saw all the longing of her
unnoticed womanhood focused for an instant in her eyes. The
search-light traveled out to sea again. I repeated, “What must he be
like?”
She reached up to me, so that her lips almost touched mine. “I
think he must be like you,” she whispered.
Of all answers that was the last I had expected. I had thought
myself on the brink of some great discovery—that she, too, had
some secret lover. I slipped my arm about her and we strolled on
through the darkness in silence. Ahead the harbor-lights, reflected
across the water, drew nearer. We climbed the beach and the sea-
wall, and made our way across the denes to the town.
“You’re all wrong,” I said. “Some day, when you do fall in love,
you’ll get a better standard.”
We entered the lamp-lit town. For the rest of the evening we did
not say much. I was thinking how easy it is for two people to live
always together and yet never to understand each other. Who would
have guessed that little Ruthita had this hunger to be loved?
While we were seated at breakfast next morning, someone walked
across the shop and tapped on the door of the keeping-room. Before
any of us could spring up, Lawyer Seagirt entered.
“Keep your seats. Keep your seats,” he said cheerily. “I’m sure
you’ll excuse this early call when you hear what I’ve come about.”
With his back to the empty fireplace, he straddled the hearthrug,
bowing first to my grandmother, then to Ruthita. Then he settled his
gaze on me, with the beaming benevolence of a bachelor uncle. He
cleared his throat.
 “Ahem! Ahem! Mr. Cardover, I congratulate you. After you left
yesterday, Sir Charles spoke of you with considerable feeling. He
expressed sentiments concerning you which from him meant much—
much more than if uttered by any other man. For many years he has
honored me with his confidence, yet on no occasion do I remember
him to have displayed so much emotion. Of course all this is strictly
between ourselves and must go no further.”
Like three mandarins we nodded.
“It is my pleasant duty to have to inform you, Mr. Cardover, that
Sir Charles has been pleased to make you an allowance. It will be
paid quarterly on the first day of January, April, July, and October,
and will be delivered to you through my hands.”
Again he halted. Grandmother Cardover, losing patience, forgot
her manners. “God bless my soul,” she exclaimed, “how the man
maunders! How much?”
“Madam,” said Lawyer Seagirt, “the amount is four hundred
pounds per annum.”
The good man had never found himself so popular. He was made
to sit down to table with us, despite his protests that he had
breakfasted already. The money might have been coming out of his
own pocket for all the fuss we made of him. Every now and then the
fact of my prosperity would strike Grandmother Cardover afresh.
Throwing up her hands she would exclaim, “Four ’undred pounds,
and he’s got two ’undred already from his fellowship! It’s more than
I’ve ever earned in any year with all my wear and tear. Just you wait
till his pa ’ears about it!”
That morning I took Ruthita to Norwich. She was puzzled when I
told her to get ready to come. All the way over in the train she kept
trying to guess my purpose. The truth was I had contrasted her with
Vi. Vi was not only exquisite in herself, but as expensively exquisite
as fine clothes could make her. Ruthita, on the other hand, had the
appearance of making the most genteel impression at the minimum
expenditure of money. My father’s means were narrow, and she was
not his daughter; therefore the Snow Lady insisted on making most
of her own and Ruthita’s dresses. Rigid economies had been
exercised; stuffs had been turned, and dyed, and made over again.
Now that I could afford it, I was determined to see what fine
feathers could do for this shy little sister.
When the gowns came home, even Ruthita was surprised at the
prettiness that filmy muslins and French laces accentuated in her.
“My word, Ruthie, you’re a dainty little armful. You won’t have to
wait long for that lover now,” I told her, when she came down into
the keeping-room to show herself to me.
She pouted and made a face at me like a child. “I don’t want
lovers,” she laughed. “I only want my big brother.”
When she had gone upstairs my grandmother turned to me. “You
can go too far with her, Dannie.” She only called me Dannie when
she was saying something serious or a little wounding. “You can go
too far with her, Dannie. I should advise you to be careful.”
“What are you driving at?” I asked bluntly.
“Just this, that however you may pretend to one another, she isn’t
your sister and you aren’t her brother. Any day you may wake
something up in her that you didn’t mean to.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” I replied. “At heart she’s only a child.”
“All I can say is you’re going the right way to work to make her a
woman,” my grandmother said shortly.
That afternoon I persuaded Ruthita to put on all her finery and
come for a walk on the esplanade. I wanted her to lose her timidity
and to discover for herself that she was as good as anybody. I felt a
boyish pride in walking beside her; she was my creation—I had
dressed her.
 We had passed the pier and entered the long trim walk, lined with
sculptured Neptunes, which runs along the seafront from Ransby to
Pakewold, when a figure which had a morbid interest for me came in
sight. It was that of a buxom broad-hipped woman, handsome in
her own bold fashion, leading by the hand an over-dressed, half-
witted child. As she drew nearer, the rouge on her face became
discernible. She strolled with a swagger through the fashionable
crowd, eyeing the men with sly effrontery. She was known in Ransby
by the nickname of “Lady Halloway.” She was the bathing-machine
man’s daughter, and had been the victim of one of my cousin’s
earliest amorous adventures. It was commonly believed that he was
the father of her child.
Since the news had got abroad that I had supplanted Halloway in
my grandfather’s favor, she had glowered at me, with undisguised
hostility, whenever we met.
As we passed, Ruthita’s parasol just touched her. It was the
woman’s fault, for she had crowded us purposely. I raised my hat,
muttering an apology, and was on the point of moving forward,
when she wrenched the parasol from Ruthita’s hand and flung it to
the ground. Ruthita stared at her too surprised to say a word. The
woman herself, for the moment, was too infuriated to express
herself. All the bitterness of a deserted mistress, the pent-up
resentment against years of contempt and the false pride with which
she had brazened out her shame among her fellow-townsmen, came
to the surface and found an excuse for utterance. People nearest to
us halted in their promenade and, gathering round, began to form
the nucleus of an audience. An audience for her oratory was what
“Lady Halloway” most desired. Her lips were drawn back from her
teeth and her hands were clenched; anger re-created her into
something almost magnificent and wholly brutal. When she spoke,
she addressed herself to Ruthita, but her eyes were fixed on mine in
vixenish defiance. The over-dressed, top-heavy oddity at her side
steadied himself by clinging to her skirts, gazing from one to the
other of us with a vacant, wondering expression.
 I picked up Ruthita’s parasol and handed it back to her, whispering
that she should go on. The woman heard me.
“Yes, go on, my fine lady,” she sneered in savage sarcasm. “Go on.
You’re too good ter be zeen a-talkin’ wi’ the likes o’ me. Yer know
wot I am. I’m a woman wot’s fallen. I ain’t too bad, ’owsomever, for
Mr. Cardover to diddle me out o’ my property. He’s a grand man, Mr.
Cardover, wi’ ’is high airs and proud ways. And where do ’e get them
from, I ax. From old Cardover’s bake-’ouse around the corner ter be
sure, and from ’is mawther, wot ran orf wi’ ’is father and ’ad the
good luck ter get married.”
I interrupted her. “I’m very sorry for you,” I said, “but you’ve got
to stop this at once. You don’t know what you’re saying, neither
does anyone else. Please let us pass.”
She stepped in front of us with her plump arms held up in fighting
attitude, blocking our path.
“Zorry for me. Zorry for me,” she laughed, still addressing Ruthita.
“I doan’t want ’is zorrow. Your man’s a thief, my gal, and it’s the
likes o’ him wot despises me—me as should be Lady Halloway if I ’ad
me rights, me as should be livin’ at Woadley ’All as zoon as Sir
Charles be dead and gorn. ’E says ’e’s zorry for me, wi’ the lawful
heir, the child ’e ’as robbed, a-standin’ in ’is sight. The imperdence of
’im!”
She gave the idiot’s hand a vicious jerk, swinging him in front of
her, so that the lawful heir began to holloa. Someone who had newly
joined the crowd, inquired what was up.
“Wot’s up, you axed. This gentleman, as ’e calls ’isself, told ’is gal
to barge inter me. That’s wot’s up, and I won’t stand it. ’E’s robbed
my kid, wot was heir, o’ wot belongs ter ’im. And ’e’s robbed my
’usband, for ’e’s as good as my ’usband in the sight o’ almighty
Gawd. ’E treats me like a dorg and tells ’is gal to barge inter me, and
’e thinks I’ll stand it.”
 While she had been exploding I had tried to back away from her,
but she followed. Now a policeman’s helmet showed above the
heads of the spectators. Just then the bathing-machine man strolled
up from the beach out of curiosity. Seeing his daughter the center of
disturbance, he fought his way to the front and seized her by the
wrists with a threatening gesture. “Yer fool, Lottie,” he panted,
“when are yer goin’ ter be done a-disgracin’ o’ me?”
For a moment she was cowed. But as he dragged her away to the
bathing-machines, she tore one hand free and shook her fist at me.
“’E’s comin’ down to-morrer,” she shouted. “I’ve writ and told ’ im
wot you’ve been a-doin’ at Woadley.”
Ruthita was trembling all over with disgust and excitement. I took
her back to the shop. When I was alone with my grandmother I
asked her what kind of a woman Lottie was.
“As nice and kind a little girl as there was in Ransby,” she
answered, “until that rascal, Lord Halloway, ruined her.”
Next day I had a chance of judging for myself the worth of Lord
Halloway. In the afternoon, just as I was going out, I was told that
he was waiting to see me in the shop. I went to meet him prepared
for trouble. I found a tall, aristocratic man of about thirty-five, filling
up the doorway, looking out into the street with his legs wide apart.
He was swinging his cane and whistling softly. The impression one
got from his back-view was that he was extremely athletic. When he
turned round I saw that he was magnificently proportioned,
handsome, high complexioned, and graceful to the point of
affectation. When he smiled and held out his hand, his manner was
so winning that every prejudice was for the moment swamped. He
had the instinctive art of charm.
“Awfully sorry to have to meet you like this for the first time,” he
said. “We’re second-cousins, aren’t we? Strange how we’ve managed
to miss one another, and being members of the same college and
all.”
 He had removed his hat, and was leaning against the door-jamb,
with his legs crossed. I watched him narrowly while he was talking. I
had expected to see a cultured degenerate—the worst type of
bounder. Instead of being exhausted and nervous with a spurious
energy, he was almost military in his upright carriage. He had a
daredevil air of careless command, which was so much a part of his
breeding that it was impossible to resent it. A man would have
summed up his vices and virtues leniently by saying that he was a
gay dog. A good woman might well have fallen in love with him, and
excused the attraction that his wickedness had for her by saying that
she was trying to convert him. The only sign of weakness I could
detect was a light inconsequent laugh, strangely out of keeping with
the virility of his height and breadth; it was like the vain and
meaningless giggle of a silly woman.
I asked him if he would not come inside. He shook his head,
saying that this was not a social visit, but that he had come to
apologize. Then he faced me with an openness of countenance
which impressed me as manly, but which might have been due to
shamelessness.
“I want to tell you how sorry I am for the beastly row you had
yesterday. Lottie’s not a bad sort, but she gets fancies and they run
away with her. I’ve talked with her, and I can promise you it won’t
happen again. She’s been writing me angry letters for the past week,
ever since you made it up with Sir Charles. I was afraid something
like this would happen, so I thought I’d just run down. I wish I’d
managed to get here earlier.”
He stopped suddenly, gazing toward the keeping-room door.
Ruthita came out and crossed the shop. She had on one of her new
dresses and was on her way to tea with Vi.
He followed her with his eyes till she was gone. There was nothing
insulting in the gallantry with which he admired her; he seemed
rather surprised—that was all. For a minute he continued conversing
with me in an absent-minded manner, then he wished me good-by,
hoping that we might meet again in Oxford. I walked out on to the
pavement and watched him down the street. Then I hurriedly
fetched my hat and followed.
It might have been accidental and I may have been over-
suspicious, but his path lay in the same direction as Ruthita’s; he
never walked so quickly as to overtake her or so slowly as not to
keep her well in sight. When she entered the old flint house, he
hesitated, as though the purpose of his errand was gone; then,
seeing me out of the tail of his eye, he turned leisurely to the left
down a score. Next day I heard that he had departed from Ransby.
I could not rid myself for many days of the impression this
incident had created. Like a Hogarth canvas, it typified for me the
ugly nemesis of illicit passion in all its grotesque nakedness. There
was horror in connecting such a man as Halloway with such a
woman as Lottie. The horror was emphasized by the child. Yet Lottie
had once been “as nice and kind a little girl as there was in Ransby,”
until he destroyed her. Doubtless at the time, their sinning had
seemed sweet and excusable—much the same as the love of any
lover for any lass. Only the result had proved its bitterness.
This thought made me go with a tightened rein. When impulse
tempted me to give way, the memory of that woman with her half-
witted child, brazening out her shame before a crowd of pleasure-
seekers on the sunlit esplanade, sprang into my mind and turned me
back like the flame of a sword.
 CHAPTER VII—THE GARDEN OF
TEMPTATION

I
t was the late afternoon of a September day. We had had tea
early at the black flint house, Vi, Ruthita, Dorrie, and I. After tea
a walk had been proposed; but Dorrie had said she was “tho
tired” and Ruthita had volunteered to stay with her.
For two months Vi and I had never allowed ourselves the chance
of being alone together; yet every day we had met. To her I was
“Mr. Cardover”; to me she was “Mrs. Carpenter.” Even my
grandmother had ceased to suspect that any liking deeper than
friendship existed between us. She loved to have young people
about her, and therefore encouraged Vi and Dorrie. She thought that
we were perfectly safe now that we had Ruthita. Through the last
two months we four had been inseparable, rambling about, lazy and
contented. Our conversations had all been general, Vi and I had
never trusted ourselves to talk of things personal. If, when walking
in the country, Ruthita and Dorrie had run on ahead to gather wild
flowers, we had made haste to follow them, so betraying to each
other the tantalizing fear we had one of another. We were vigilant in
postponing the crisis of our danger, but neither of us had the
strength to bring the danger to an end by leaving Ransby, lest our
separation should be forever.
If our tongues were silent, there were other ways of
communicating. Did I take her hand to help her over a stile, it
trembled. Did I lift her wraps and lean over her in placing them
about her shoulders, I could see the faint rise of her color. Her eyes
spoke, mocked, laughed, dared, and pleaded, when no other eyes
were watching.
 Since the one occasion that has been related, Vi had not
mentioned her husband. Whether he was still urging her to return,
or had extended her respite, or was on his way to fetch her, I had no
means of guessing. I lived in a secret delirium of exalted happiness
and torturing foreboding. Each day as it ended was tragic with
farewell. The hour was coming when I must return to Oxford and
when she must return to America. Soon we should have nothing but
memories. However well we might disguise our motives for dawdling
in Ransby, it could not be long before their hollowness would be
detected. Already Sir Charles had ceased to serve me as an excuse;
I had not seen him since my departure from Woadley.
The very suavity of our interchanged courtesies and unsatisfying
pretense of frank friendship gave edge to my yearning.
I had come at last to the breaking-point. I did not know it. I still
told myself that we were both too honorable to step aside: that we
had too much to lose by it; that I loved her too dearly to let her be
anything to me unless she could be my wife. The casuistry of this
attitude was patent.
As my hunger increased I grew more daring. No thoughts that
were not of her could find room in my mind. I had lost my interest in
books—they were mere reports on the thing I was enduring. Nature
was only my experience made external on a lower physical plane. My
imagination swept me on to depths and heights which once would
have terrified. I grew accustomed to picturing myself as the hero of
situations which I had formerly studied with puzzled amazement in
other men’s lives.
The face of Lottie, encountered daily in the gray streets of Ransby,
which had at first restrained me by reminding me of sin’s ultimate
ugliness, ceased to warn me.
When Ruthita made the suggestion that we should go for our walk
alone together, I had expected a prompt refusal from Vi. She rose
from the disordered tea-table and walked over to the window,
turning her back on us. I could see by the poise of her head that she
was gazing down the gardens, across the denes to the wreck, where
everything important had taken place. I could guess the memories
that were in her mind.
From where I sat I could see her head, framed in the window
against the slate-colored expanse of water, the curved edge of the
horizon, and the orange-tinted sky.
Creeping across the panes under full sail came a fleet of fishing
smacks, losing themselves one by one as they advanced into the
tangled amber of her hair. I counted them, telling myself that she
would speak when the foremost had re-appeared on the other side.
Then it occurred to me that she was waiting for me to urge her.
“Mrs. Carpenter,” I said casually, “won’t you come? It’s going to be
a jolly evening. We can go by way of St. Margaret’s Church to the
Broads and watch the sunset.”
Without moving her body, she commenced to drum with her
fingers on the panes.
“That would take time,” she procrastinated. “We couldn’t get back
before eight. Who’d put Dorrie Darling to bed?”
“Don’t worry,” Ruthita broke in with eagerness. “I’d love to do it.
Dorrie and I’ll take care of one another and play on the sands till
bedtime.”
“Yeth, do go,” lisped Dorrie. “I want Ruthita all to mythelf.”
These two who had stood between us, for whose sakes we had
striven to do right, were pushing wide the door that led into the
freedom of temptation.
A shiver ran through her. She turned. The battle against desire in
her face was ended.
“I will come,” she said slowly.
 Left in the room by myself while they went upstairs to dress, I did
not think; I abandoned myself to sensations. I could hear their
footsteps go back and forth above my head. The running ones were
Dorrie’s. The light, quick ones were Ruthita’s. The deliberate ones,
postponing and anticipating forbidden pleasures—they were Vi’s. The
sound of her footsteps, so stealthy and determined, combined with
the long gray sight of the German Ocean, sent my mind back to
Guinevere’s description of her sinning, which covered all our joint
emotions:

“As if one should

Slip slowly down some path worn smooth and even,
Down to a cool sea on a summer day;
Yet still in slipping there was some small leaven
Of stretched hands catching small stones by the way
Until one surely reached the sea at last,
And felt strange new joy as the worn head lay
Back, with the hair like sea-weed; yea, all past
Sweat of the forehead, dryness of the lips
Washed utterly out by the dear waves o’ercast,
In a lone sea, far off from any ships!”

She entered. She was alone. The others were not yet ready. I
could not speak to her. “Come,” she whispered hoarsely. Her voice
had the distressed note of hurry.
 We hastened up the High Street like fugitives. Windows of the
stern red houses were eyes. They knew all about us. They had
watched my mother before me; by experience they had become
wise. At the top of the town we turned to the left, going inland
towards the hill on which the tower of St. Margaret’s rose gray
against the sky, beyond which lay the open country. We did not walk
near together, but with a foot between us. Now we slackened our
pace and I observed her out of the corners of my eyes. She was
dressed in white, all billowy and blowy, with a wrap of white lace
thrown over her shoulders, and a broad white hat from which
drooped a blue ostrich feather. Whatever had been her intention,
she looked bridal. The slim slope of her shoulders was unmatronly.
Her long neck curved forward, giving her an attitude of listening
demureness. Her mass of hair and large hat scarcely permitted me
to see her face.
We came to St. Margaret’s and passed. Was it a sense of the
religious restraints that it represented, that made us hurry our
footsteps? We turned off into a maze of shadowy lanes. We were
happier now that we were safe from observation. We could no
longer fancy that we saw our own embarrassment reflected as
suspicion in strangers’ eyes. We drew together. My hand brushed
hers. She did not start away. I let my fingers close on it.
The golden glow of evening was in the tree-tops. The first breath
of autumn had scorched their leaves to scarlet and russet. Behind
their branches long scarves of cloud hung pink and green and blood-
red. Far away, on either side, the yellow standing wheat rustled.
Nearer, where it had been cut, the soil showed brown beneath the
close-cropped stubble. Honeysuckle, climbing through the hedges,
threw out its fragrance. Evening birds were calling. Distantly we
could hear the swish of scythes and the cries of harvesters to their
horses. Hidden from the field-workers, we stole between the hedges
with the radiant peace of the sunset-on our faces. As yet we had
said nothing.
 She drew her hand free from mine and halted. Scrambling up the
bank, she pulled down a spray of black-berries. I held the branch
while she plucked them. We dawdled up the dusty lane, eating them
from her hand.
“Vi,” I said softly, “we have tried to be only friends. What next?”
I was smiling. She knew that I did not hint at parting. She smiled
back into my eyes; then looked away sharply. I put my arm about
her and drew her to me. Without a struggle, she lifted up to me her
mouth, all stained with blackberries like any school-girl’s. I kissed
her; a long contented sigh escaped her. “We have fought against it,”
she whispered.
“Yes, dearest, we have fought against it.”
A rabbit popped out into the road; seeing us, it doubled and
scuttled back into the hedge. The smoke of a cottage drifted up in
spirals. We approached it, walking sedate and separate. A young
mother, seated on the threshold, was suckling her child. A man, who
talked to her while he worked, was trimming a rose-bed. They
glanced up at us with a friendly understanding smile, as much as to
say, “We were as you are now last September.”
When a corner of the lane had hidden us, I again placed my arm
about her. “Tell me, what have you to lose by it?”
“Lose by it?”
“Yes. I know so little of your life. What is he like?”
“My husband?”
She flushed as she named him. I nodded.
“He is kind.”
“You always say that.”
 “I say it because it is all that there is to say. He is a good man, but
——”
“And in spite of that but you married him.”
“No, I was married to him. He was over forty, and I was only
eighteen at the time. He was in love with me. My father was a
banker; he lent my father money to tide him over a crisis. Then they
told me I must marry him. I was only a child.”
“And you never loved him? Say you never loved him!”
She raised her head from my shoulder and looked me in the face
with her fearless eyes. “I never loved him. I have been a sort of
daughter to him. I scarcely knew what marriage meant until—until it
was all over. Then for a time I hated him; I felt myself degraded.
Dorrie came. I fought against her coming. Then I grew reconciled. I
tried to be true to him because he was her father. He made me
respect him, because he was so patient. Dante, when I think of him,
I become ashamed of what we are doing.”
Her nostrils quivered, betraying her suppressed emotion. She had
spoken with effort.
“Why did you leave him? Did you intend to go back to him?”
She became painfully confused.
“Why do you put so many questions?” she cried. “Don’t you trust
me?”
“Vi, I trust you so much that for you I’m going to alter all my life.
I’m so glad that you too are willing to be daring.”
“Then why do you question me?”
“Because I want to be more sure that he has no moral right to
you.”
 “I left him,” she said, “because I could no longer refuse him. He
was breaking down my resistance with his terrible kindness. If he
had only been unjust and had given me some excuse for anger, I
could have endured it. But day after day went by with its comfort,
and its heartache, and its outward smoothness. And day after day
he was looking older and more patient, and making me feel sorrier
for him. He got to calling me ‘My child.’ People said how beautiful we
were together. I couldn’t bear to stay and watch him humbling
himself and breaking his heart about me. So I asked him to let me
go traveling with Dorrie. He let me go, thinking that absence and a
change of scene might teach me how to love him.”
She hid her face against me. It was burning.
“He thinks you are coming back again?”
“He thinks so in every letter he writes. I thought so too when I
went away.”
“Vi, you never wear a wedding ring. Why is that if you meant to
return to him?”
“I wanted to be young just for a little while. They made me a
woman when I was only a child.”
“And that was why you taught Dorrie to call you Vi?” The pity of it
got me by the throat. I kissed her eyes as she leant against me.
“Poor girl, then let us forget it.” She struggled feebly, making a half-
hearted effort to tear herself away. “But we can’t forget it,” she
whispered. “We can’t, however we try. There’s Dorrie. He loves her
terribly. He would give me anything, except Dorrie.”
“And we both love Dorrie,” I said; “we could never do anything
that would spoil her life—that would make her ashamed of us one
day. You’re trembling like a leaf, Vi. You mustn’t look afraid of me.”
Gradually she nestled closer in my embrace. It was not me that
she had feared, but consequences. We became sparing in our
words; words stated things too boldly.
 Coming to the end of the lane, we sauntered out on to a broad
white road. It wound across long flat marshes where the wind from
the sea is never quiet. The marshes are intersected with dikes and
ditches, dotted with windbreaks for the cattle, and bridged here and
there with planks. One can see for miles. There is nothing to break
the distance save square Norman towers of embowered churches in
solitary hamlets and oddly barrel-shaped windmills with sails turning,
for all the world like stout giants, gesticulating and pummeling the
sky. Here the orchestra of nature is always practising; its strings,
except when a storm is brewing, are muted. From afar comes the
constant bass of the sea, striking the land in deep arpeggios.
Drawing nearer is the soprano humming of the wind or the staccato
cry of some startled bird. Then comes a multitude of intermittent
soloists,—frogs croaking, reeds rustling, cattle lowing, the rumbling
wheels of a wagon. They clamor in subdued ecstasy, now singly and
now together. Through all their song runs the murmuring
accompaniment of water lapping.
In gleaming curves across this green wilderness flow fresh-water
lagoons and rivers which are known as the Broads. Dotted with
water-lilies, barriered with bulrushes, they reflect the sky’s vast
emptiness. Brimming their channels they slip over into the meadows,
flashing like quicksilver through ashen sedges.
The sun had vanished. The lip of the horizon was scarlet. The dust
of twilight was drifting down. In this primitive spaciousness and
freedom one’s thoughts expanded.
“Vi,” I whispered, “we’re two sensible persons. Of what have we to
be afraid? Only ourselves.”
“There’s the future.”
“The future doesn’t belong to us. We have the present. All our
lives we’ve wanted to be happy. Don’t let’s spoil our happiness now
that we have it. Just for to-night we’ll forget you’re married. We’ll be
lovers together—as alone as if no one else was in the world.”
 “And afterwards?”
“Afterwards I’ll wait for you. Afterwards can take care of itself.”
The misshapen shadow of sin which had followed and stood
between us, holding us at arm’s length, awkward and embarrassed,
was banished. If this was sin, then wrongdoing was lovely.
We began to talk of how everything had happened—how, out of
the great nothingness of the unknown, we had been flung together.
How easy it would have been for us to have lived out our lives in
ignorance of one another and therefore free from this temptation.
We justified ourselves in the belief that our meeting had been fated.
It could not have been avoided. We were pawns on a chess-board,
manipulated by the hand of an unseen player. We had tried to
escape one another and had been forced together against our wills.
The outcome of the game did not come within the ruling of our
decision.
The theory brought re-assurance. It excused us. We were not
responsible. Then my mind fled back to my mother. She and my
father had had these same thoughts as they had wandered side by
side through these same fields and hedges. Why had I been brought
back to the country of their courting to pass through their ordeal?
Night was coming down, covering up landmarks. Darkness lent
our actions modesty; they lost something of their sharpened
meaning because we could not see ourselves acting. We lived
unforgettable moments. Passing over narrow plank-bridges from
meadow to meadow, we seemed to be traveling out of harsh reality
into a world which was dream-created.
She carried her hat in her hand. A soft wind played in her hair and
loosened it in places. Her filmy white dress was all a-flutter. Mists
began to rise from the marshlands, making us vague to one another.
Traveling out of the east swam the harvest moon, nearing its
fullness.
 “Vi,” I whispered, taking both her hands in mine, “you don’t know
yourself—you’re splendid.”
She laughed up into my eyes with elfin daring and abandon.
“You’re the kind of woman for whom a man would willingly die.”
“I ought to know that,” she mocked me, “for one tried.”
“If this were five hundred years ago, do you know what I’d do to-
night?”
“It isn’t five hundred years ago—that makes all the difference.
But, if it were, what would you do?”
“I’d ride off with you.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t.”
“I should. I shouldn’t care what happened a week later. They
might kill me like a robber. It wouldn’t matter—a week alone with
you would have been worth it.”
“But you wouldn’t,” she insisted; “you wouldn’t ride off with me.”
“Shouldn’t I? And why?”
She freed her hands from mine and placed her arms about my
neck. The laughter had gone from her face.
“Dear Dante, you wouldn’t do it, because you are you.” The
burning thoughts I had had died down. We wandered on in silence.
Ahead of us a flickering light sprang up. Out of curiosity we went
towards it. We found ourselves treading a rutted field-path which led
back in the direction of the main road. Out of the mist grew up a
clump of marsh-poplars. The light became taller and redder. We saw
that it was the beginning of a camp-fire. Over the flames hung a
stooping figure.
“Good-evening.”
 The figure turned. It was that of a shriveled mummy of a woman
—gray-haired, fantastic, bent, with face seamed and lined from
exposure. A yellow shawl covered her head and shoulders. She held
a burning twig in her hand, with which she was lighting her pipe.
“Good-evening, mother. Good luck to you.”
“Nowt o’ luck th’ day, lad,” she grumbled. “All the folks is in the
fields at th’ ’arvest.”
We seated ourselves at the blaze. She went back into the
darkness. We heard the snapping of branches. She returned out of
the clump of poplars with a companion; each of them was carrying a
bundle of dead wood for fuel. Her companion was a younger woman
of about thirty. She nodded to us with a proud air of gipsy defiance
and sat herself down on the far side of the fire, holding her face
away from the light of the flames. The one glimpse I had had of her
had shown me that she was handsome.
“There’s bin nowt o’ luck th’ day,” the older woman continued.
“They hain’t got their wage for th’ ’arvest yet and they be too
cumbered wi’ work for fortune-tellin’.”
“Do you tell fortunes?” asked Vi.
“Do I tell fortunes!” the crone repeated scornfully. “I should think I
did tell fortunes. Every kind o’ folk comes ter me wot wants ter read
the future. Farmers whose sheep is dyin’. Wimmem as wants childen
and hasn’t got ’em. Gals as is goin’ ter have childen and oughtn’t ter
have ’em. Wives whose ’usbands don’t love ’em. Lovers as want ter
get married, but shouldn’t. Lovers as should get married, but don’t
want ter. They all comes to their grannie. I’ve seen a lot o’ human
natur’ in my day, I ’ave.”
“And what do you tell them?” asked Vi.
“I tell ’em wot’s preparin’ for or agen ’em. I read th’ stars and I
warn ’em.”
 “Can they escape by taking your advice?”
“That’s more’n I can say. Thar was Joe Moyer, wot was hanged at
Norwich for murthering ’is sweetheart. I telt ’im ’is fortune a year
ago come St. Valentine’s Day. ‘Joe,’ says I, ‘your ’and ’ll be red
before the poppies blow agen and you neck ’ll be bruk before th’
wheat is ripe. Leave off a-goin’ wi’ ’er,’ says I. And the lassie a-
standin’ thar by ’is side, she laughs at her grannie. But it all come
true, wot I telt ’im.”
“Could you read the stars for me?” asked Vi.
Her voice was so thin and eager that it pierced me like a knife. I
quivered with fearful anticipation. All our future might depend on
what this hag by the roadside might say. I did not want to hear her.
She might release terror from the ghost-chamber of conscience.
However much we scoffed at her words, they would influence our
actions and haunt our minds. Who could say, perhaps Joe Moyer
would never have murdered his sweetheart and would not have
been hanged at Norwich, if she hadn’t suggested his crime.
“Vi,” I said sternly, “you don’t believe in fortune-telling. We must
be going; it’s getting late.”
“Hee-hee-hee!” the gipsy tittered, “if she don’t believe in fortune-
tellin’, we knows who do. Come, don’t be afeard, me dearie. Cross
me ’and wi siller and I’ll read the stars for ’ee.”
Vi crossed her palm with a shilling. The gipsy flung fresh twigs on
the fire, that she might study the lines in Vi’s hands more clearly. As
the flames shot up, they illumined the other woman. Her features
were strongly Romany, dark and fierce and shy. Somewhere I had
seen them; their memory was pleasant. She regarded me fixedly, as
though in a trance, across the fire. She too was trying to remember.
Then, rising noiselessly, she stole like a panther into the poplars
away from the circle of light. From out there in the darkness I felt
that her eyes were still watching.
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