diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/66737-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/66737-0.txt | 12776 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 12776 deletions
diff --git a/old/66737-0.txt b/old/66737-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index eabd84f..0000000 --- a/old/66737-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12776 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Priscilla of the Good Intent, by -Halliwell Sutcliffe - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Priscilla of the Good Intent - A Romance of the Grey Fells - -Author: Halliwell Sutcliffe - -Release Date: November 14, 2021 [eBook #66737] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRISCILLA OF THE GOOD -INTENT *** - - - - - -PRISCILLA OF THE GOOD INTENT - - - - - PRISCILLA OF THE - GOOD INTENT - - A ROMANCE OF THE GREY FELLS - - - BY - HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE - Author of “Mistress Barbara,” “Benedick in Arcady,” etc. - - - BOSTON - LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY - 1909 - - - - - _Copyright, 1908_, - BY HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE. - - _Copyright, 1909_, - BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. - - _All rights reserved_ - - - Printers - S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A. - - - - -PRISCILLA - -OF - -THE GOOD INTENT - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -The blacksmith’s forge stood just this side of the village as you -entered it from Shepston, and David Blake, the smith, was blowing -lustily at his bellows, while the sweat dripped down his face. The cool -of a spring morning came through the doorway, against which leaned a -heavy, slouching lad. - -“Te-he, David the Smith! Sparks do go scrambling up chimney,” said -Billy the Fool, with a fat and empty laugh. - -They called him Billy the Fool, for old affection’s sake, with no sense -of reproach; for the old ways of thought had a fast hold on Garth -village, and a natural was held in a certain awe, as being something -midway between a prophet and a child. - -“Ay, sparks are scrambling up. ’Tis a way they have, Billy,” answered -the other cheerily. “What’s your news?” - -Again Billy laughed, but cunningly this time. “Grand news--all about -myself. Was up at sunrise, and been _doing naught_ ever since. I’m main -fond of doing naught, David. Seems to trickle down your body, does -idleness, like good ale.” - -The blacksmith loosed his hold on the bellows’ handles and turned -about, while he passed a hand across his forehead. - -“Is there nought ye like better than idleness?” he asked. “Think now, -Billy--just ponder over it.” - -“Well, now,” answered the other, after a silence, “there’s -playing--what ye might call playing at a right good game. Could ye -think of some likely pastime, David?” - -“Ay, could I. Blowing bellows is the grandest frolic ever I came -across.” - -Billy was wary, after his own fashion, and he looked at the blacksmith -hard, his child’s eyes--blue and unclouded by the storms of -life--showing big beneath their heavy brows of reddish-brown. - -“I doubt ’tis work, David,” he said dispassionately. - -“Nay, now! Would I ask _thee_ to work, lad? Fond o’ thee as I am, and -knowing labour’s harmful to thee?” - -“I shouldn’t like to be trapped into work. ’Twould scare me when I woke -o’ nights and thought of it.” - -“See ye, then, Billy”--blowing the bellows gently--“is it work to make -yon sparks go, blue and green and red, as fast as ever ye like to drive -’em? Play, I call it, and I’ve a mind, now I come to think on’t, just -to keep ye out o’ the game, and go on playing it myself.” - -Billy drew nearer, with an anxious look. “Ye wouldn’t do that, or -ye’d not be blacksmith David,” he said, with unerring knowledge of -the other’s kindliness. “Te-he! ’Tis just a bit o’ sporting--I hadn’t -thought of it i’ that light.” - -And soon he was blowing steadily; for the lad’s frame was a giant’s, -when he chose to use it, and no fatigue had ever greatly touched him. -From time to time, as the blacksmith paused to take a red-hot bar from -the furnace or to put a cold one in, he would nod cheerfully at Billy -the Fool and emphasize the frolicsome side of his employment. - -“Ye’ve an easy time, Billy,” he would say. “See me sweating here at -beating iron into horseshoe shape--and ye playing at chasing sparks all -up the chimley!” - -The sweat was pouring from Billy, too, by this time, but he did not -heed. Plump and soft his laugh came, as he forced the sparks more -swiftly from the coals. - -“Was born for playtimes, I, David,” he cried in great delight. “I’ve -heard tell of silver spoons, popped unbeknownst-like into babbies’ -cradles. _I_ war a babby o’ that make, I reckon, for sure ’tis I’m -always playing, when I’m not always idling in between times.” - -“Ye were lucky fro’ birth,” David answered, driving the hole for the -last nail. “Some folk is, while other-some must work.” - -“Why _do_ ye work, David?” asked the other, with entire simplicity. - -“Oh, just a fancy, lad. Seems as I have to, somehow. There were no -silver spoons dropped into _my_ cradle. Hive o’ bees swarmed there, I -fancy, for I’ve had a few in my bonnet ever since.” - -There was another silence, while Billy the Fool, working hard at the -bellows, looked long and meditatively at David Blake. - -“I wouldn’t like to hurt ye, David,” he said at last, “but I reckon -ye’re just a bit daft-witted like. Why don’t ye play or idle all your -time, same as I do?” - -David threw the finished horseshoe on the heap at his left hand, and -was about to answer when a shadow came between the reeking smithy and -the fresh and open sunshine beyond the door. - -“Oh, ’tis ye, Priscilla?” he said, looking up. “Ye’ve got the -spring-look in your face.” - -As she stood half in, half out of the smithy door, Priscilla was -radiant in her young and pliant beauty. To David Blake’s fancy--rough, -kindly, not far wide of the mark at any time--she “made the day -new-washed and happier”; yet it was Billy who next found his tongue. - -“Te-he! Ye look as if life was playtime for ye, too,” said he, still -blowing at his bellows, but looking at her slily over his shoulder. - -“Maybe,” she laughed--and the kind, wise music of the thrush was in her -laughter. “’Tis very true, Billy. Life’s playtime for me.” - -David Blake looked at her, and liked her a little the better; for he -knew that Priscilla worked hard, worked long and with a blithe face, -each day of her life. To the blacksmith it seemed, in between doing odd -jobs that brought him in a livelihood, that his prime work in life was -to love Priscilla ever and ever a little more--and each day to find -himself more tongue-tied in her presence. - -Again it was Billy who took up the talk, though Blake would think -to-morrow of twenty things he might have said, and curse himself in a -quiet way for having failed to say them. - -“I’m always playing, as a man might say, myself,” chuckled the Fool. -“Playing at bellows-blowing now. See the lile sparks go up, Miss -Priscilla--’tis I that send them, right enough.” - -“Why, yes,” she said, nodding pleasantly at his wide and gaping face. -“We’re playing, Billy, you and I. Only the blacksmith works.” - -“He’s a bit of a fool, by that token,” hazarded Billy. - -The blacksmith, when he laughed at all, laughed from his lungs outward. -“Always guessed it, Priscilla,” said he, making his anvil ring. -“Billy’s a child, but old in wisdom. Bit of a fool I’ll be to the end, -I reckon.” - -“I’m playing, David,” said Billy, while the blacksmith halted in his -work to steal a glance at Priscilla. “Get ye on with your work o’ -making horseshoes, if I’m playing the tune to ye.” - -Again David laughed. “Keeps me at it, Priscilla,” he said. “Never met a -taskmaster so hard to drive a man as Billy.” - -“We want ye at Good Intent,” said Priscilla, laughing too--and her -laughter was a pleasant thing to hear, reminding David again of -throstles when the spring comes in. - -“You can ease your hold of the bellows, Billy,” said David, with an -alacrity that was patent to the girl, modest and proud as she was. -“When I am called to Good Intent Farm--well, I go, most times, and -ne’er ask what’s wanted, and leave smithy-work behind.” - -“Robbing me o’ my playtime,” panted Billy the Fool, as he mopped his -forehead. - -He looked up at David, and his blue eyes were wistful as a dog’s asking -for commands. - -“Ye’ll be idle now,” said the blacksmith. “Play first, laddie, and -idleness after.” - -“Ay, you’re right,--you’re always right, saving odd times, when you’re -a Fool Billy like myself. Miss Priscilla has a trick o’ making ye -daft-witted, I’ve noticed.” - -The village natural, with his huge body and his big, child’s eyes, had -a way of finding out his neighbours’ secrets, and had no shame at all -in telling folk what each wanted to hide from the other. Priscilla -turned her face away, and David reddened like a lovesick lad. - -“Keep the forge-fire going quietly,” said the blacksmith. “That’s -idleness for ye--just to lie dreaming this side of it, and time and -time to put the fuel on.” - -“Ay, that’s idleness,” said Billy, as he stretched himself--again like -a shaggy, trusty dog--along the smithy floor. “Get ye to work, David, -and leave me to my play-work.” - -They went out into the springtime, David and Priscilla, and the breeze -was cool and sweet about them as if it blew from beds of primroses. The -lass wished that David Blake had more to say, wished that the quickness -of the spring would run off his tongue’s end; she did not know that he -felt it--more than she, maybe--but had no words in which to tell her of -it. - -“You make a body thoughtless-like, Priscilla,” he said at last. “Never -asked ye what the job was I was wanted for; and here I am without a -tool to my back.” - -David was able to do so many jobs, and do them handily, that it might -be one of twenty that was asked of him to-day, and he looked anxiously -at Priscilla, to ask if he should go back for his tools. - -“I was watching the water-wagtails,” she answered, scarcely hearing -him. “They’re home to the old stream again, David, and that means the -spring is here, or hereabouts.” - -He watched the pair of mating birds sit, first on the low stone wall -that guarded the stream, then flicker to the road, their white tails -moving like a lady’s fan. - -“Mating-time, Priscilla,” said he. - -Something in his voice, something in the true, quiet ring of it moved -Priscilla strangely. - -“They’re bonnie birds, David,” she said. “Winter’s out, and -springtime’s coming in, when they wag their trim, white tails.” - -“Ay, true. But what tools ought I to have brought, like?” - -Priscilla sighed, for dull-wittedness did not commend itself to-day. -“No tools at all, David. The roan cow I’m so fond of has lodged a slice -of turnip in her throat, and father cannot move it.” - -“Easy as falling out of a tree, Priscilla. Lord, I thought you -farmer-folk knew somewhat--but when it comes to a cow, ye’ve got to -whistle for David the Smith!” - -Priscilla glanced at him with a roguery as dainty and secure as that -of the spring itself. “They say ye can talk to the four-footed things, -David, and make them understand ye. Pity ye can’t spare more words for -us poor two-footed folk.” - -“Ay, but the beasts are sensible, somehow, lass. They don’t maze ye -up with words and what ye might call the frills and furbelows o’ -life--they just look at ye, and feel your hands going smooth and quiet -down their flanks, _and they know_.” - -“Billy has that sort of instinct, I have noticed,” said Priscilla -demurely. “There’s not a dog in the countryside that won’t come and -fawn on him--though some of our dogs are not just gentle.” - -David gave another of his great, hearty laughs. “My father always said, -when he was alive, that I’d been intended for a natural, and missed it -only by good luck. I’m fond of Billy the Fool myself; simple and slow -is Billy, and what he lacks in wit he makes up for in heart-room.” - -“That’s true, David,” said the girl, a little daunted, as she often -was, by David’s settled outlook upon things. - -For herself, there were times when she longed to cross the limits of -this life at Garth, longed for the romance of the beyond; but when -David talked as he was talking now she felt shamefacedly that he was -in the right to be content within the boundaries of the fields and the -blithe, raking hills, the village smithy and the village farmsteads. - -David Blake did not belie his reputation when, after following the -wood-path through the Ghyll, they came to Good Intent--a grey and -well-found homestead--and sought the mistals. What with surgeon’s skill -and the skill that comes from utter friendship with all cattle, he did -what neither Priscilla nor her father could have done. - -“Give you thanks, David,” said Farmer Hirst, a broad, well-timbered -man, with a voice like thunder on the distant hills. “She’s the pick of -the lot, this roan ye’ve saved, and saving’s saving, whether it is your -child or your cow that’s ailing.” - -“Ah, now!” murmured the blacksmith, “there’s joy in saving beasties, -and no thanks needed.” - -“Well, thanks are waiting for ye when ye care to pick ’em up--which ye -seldom do, David--and meanwhile I’ve to see if my men are cutting the -thorn-hedge to my liking. Priscilla, there’s cake and ale within doors; -there’s one in Garth can look better to David’s needs than ever I could -do.” - -Now David’s laugh was hearty; but it was a child’s whisper when -compared with Farmer Hirst’s, especially when the older man fancied -that he was using rare diplomacy. A true yeoman of the north was this -master of Good Intent--owned his own house and land, his own quiet, -wholesome pride, his line of goodly forbears. And so, because he had -learned to know a man when he saw him, he had long ago chosen David as -the favoured suitor. - -“Lasses must wed, leaving their fathers lonely,” the farmer would say -to himself as he sat o’ nights--Priscilla gone to bed--and drank his -nightcap of hot rum. “I’d have felt less lonesome-like if Priscilla’s -mother wasn’t lying green under sod, and me alone save for Cilla. But -lasses must wed, and I’ve seen o’ late the mating look in Priscilla’s -face. Well, her mother wore that look, once on a day, and I’ve seen no -better in my long life, and never shall. It must be David--oh, ay, it -must be David!” - -So he left them together this morning, and his big voice seemed to echo -up and down the grey, stone hills long after he had left. - -Farmer Hirst had given the blacksmith many chances of this kind; and -always it had been, as now, the signal for David to grow tongue-tied, -for Priscilla to show the wild-rose flag of maidenly rebellion in her -cheeks. - -“’Tis kindly, this smell of a mistal,” ventured David by and by. “Sweet -o’ the kine, I call it--’tis so lusty and so big to smell.” - -Priscilla answered nothing. There’s something in the fragrance at a -cattle-byre that makes for wooing, no man can tell you why; and the -lass was young and was feeling two spring seasons meet in her--spring -of her untried youth, and spring of the tried old world that knows its -faith. - -“Cilla, the throstles are singing out-of-doors,” said he, bending an -ear toward the open fields. - -His meaning should have been clear; for, when a throstle sings across -the reek of an open mistal-door, the human oddities of speech should be -altogether lost, and the world’s tongue interpret all. Yet Priscilla -missed it, and disdained the thrush’s clarion note. - -“Ay, David, and the world is turning round about the sun, and the stars -come out o’ nights, and I’ve to do my churning by and by. David, is -there naught beyond your throstles and your stars and the sun that -guides the world?” - -“Naught,” answered David stolidly. “They’re life, Priscilla, and maybe -when we’re hid beneath the sward we’ll know of bonnier things--but not -just yet, I’m thinking.” - -It was David’s moment, had he known it. It needed a touch, a glance, a -right word spoken that should ring in tune with the spring; and while -he halted there came a sound of whistling all across the mistal-yard. -It was not like Farmer Hirst to turn back when once he had set off, -and Priscilla wondered whose the footstep could be--the step that was -quicker and lighter than her father’s. - -“One of the farm-men, maybe,” muttered David, remembering, now that the -opportunity was like to be lost, the one right speech he should have -whispered into Priscilla’s ear. - -“No--nor yet father’s. ’Tis a town-bred step, David. Cannot you hear -the mincing tread, as if he thought the sweet yard-litter could hurt a -body’s feet?” - -“Ay, now you name it, so I can. Treads nipperty-like, as a cat does. -Mistrust that sort of going, I. Who can he be, Priscilla?” - -“Some stranger likely. Some one that’s never smelled the warmth of a -cattle-byre, so I should say.” - -The footsteps sounded near and hurried now, but still there was that -delicate, lady-like treading across what Priscilla had named the sweet -yard-litter. David and the girl, looking from the shadows of the mistal -into the open sunlight, saw a well-dressed figure of a man--a man -neither short nor tall, neither dark nor fair--a man no way remarkable, -unless the sun was full upon him, and, seeing him from a shadowed -place, you noted the uncertain eyes which long ago had been a puzzle to -his mother when he stood beside her knee. - -“There was no one at Good Intent, except old Martha,” said the -newcomer, lifting his hat with an air which David Blake could not have -copied had Priscilla’s love depended on it. “She told me you were -here--‘likely,’ she added, in the queer speech I used to know, ‘seeing -the roan cow was sick, and you were tending her.’ Priscilla, surely -you’ve not forgotten me?” - -David Blake was the best-tempered man in all the long vale of -Strathgarth, so folk said; but there were times when he was as ill to -meet, as ill to look at, as if he had been a north-born dog, guarding a -north-built threshold from a stranger he distrusted. And David listened -to this prit-a-prat man who tried to mimick old Martha’s wholesome -speech; and Priscilla, glancing sideways at the man who should have -wooed her in the mistal--as women will glance toward a known lover from -a rival known by instinct--Priscilla saw David Blake in a new guise, -and one not pleasant to her on this peaceful day of spring. - -She smiled at the newcomer, inclining her head a little in the pretty, -willowy fashion that Garth village loved. “You’ve the better of me,” -she said. “I do not remember you at all. Stay, though,” she added, -seeing the sunlight on his face, with its inscrutable, wild eyes, “I -seem now to have known you long ago.” - -“Five years ago, Priscilla,” he answered, with a laugh which David -swore was false to the note of throstles and all wholesome things. - -“You ask me to remember some one I knew at fourteen,” said Priscilla -quietly. “It seems long ago to me.” - -David went to smooth the flanks of the roan cow, who turned her head -and licked his waistcoat tranquilly from the topmost to the lowest -button. - -“I know him now,” growled the smith. “Garth has been well rid of him -these five years, to my thinking. Pity’s he’s come back.” - -He glanced again at the other man, and was overtaken by an impulse to -throw his adversary bodily out of the mistal-yard; so he pulled himself -together, as one who was accustomed to follow kindly instincts only. - -“Well, I’ll be jogging, Priscilla,” he said, making for the door. “The -cow is ailing naught so much, and ’tis time I got to smithy-work again.” - -“So you’ve forgotten me too, David?” said the stranger airily, as Blake -was pushing past him. - -“Nay,” answered David, not seeing the proffered hand. “I remember you -well, Gaunt of Marshlands--and I’ll bid you good day, as I was ever -glad to do.” - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -“That’s a pleasant sort of welcome, eh?” said Reuben Gaunt, as he -watched David’s broad back disappear round the corner of the stables. - -Priscilla’s interest was awakened already, and the smith had done an -ill turn to his own cause by arousing her sympathy as well. - -“You’ll find pleasanter welcomes here in Garth,” the girl answered, -with that candour of thought and expression which in itself was -dignity. “It was stupid of me to forget you, Mr. Gaunt, but I was so -little, when you used to play big brother to me and show me all the -wonders of the Dene.” - -“I think it must not be Mr. Gaunt. The folk who like me call me Reuben, -as you did once.” - -Priscilla was vaguely disturbed. Softness of speech and manner -she understood, for she had ever been a favourite with the landed -gentlefolk of Strathgarth; and, because she understood them, she -detected the false note in Gaunt’s would-be correctness. Yet she pushed -the distrust aside; for this man had been away from Garth for five long -years, had seen the mysteries hidden in the beyond, and doubtless he -could tell her of them. - -“We are older now,” she answered, a little smile belying her rebuke. -“It must be Mr. Gaunt, or naught at all.” - -“Well, then, it must be Miss Priscilla, too?” - -“’Twould be fitting, I think. Five years are not bridged in a moment, -and father tells me I’m a woman grown, though I feel a child when the -spring comes in as it is coming now.” - -An older and more constant playmate than Gaunt of Marshlands sang to -her--sang blithe and high--through the mistal-door; but she scarcely -heard the throstle, for Gaunt brought news from the beyond. - -“Where have you been these years past?” she asked, moving restlessly -from foot to foot. - -“Everywhere, I fancy,” laughed the other. “I’ve seen the world, as I -always meant to do; and a queer world I’ve found it.” - -As a child wipes the school-day’s sums from its slate, Priscilla lost -the record of her working and her playtime hours. The grey serenity of -Garth, the sweetness of its roadside gardens, the slow, rich gossip of -its folk--these things went by her. She forgot the low, musical humming -of the churn, the look of the butter as it lay, round and golden as -a kingcup, on the stone tables of the dairy. She heard no longer the -splash of milk into the foamy pail, the lowing of the kine as they gave -their evensong of praise. - -Not restless now, she leaned against the stall, her eyes wandering now -and then to Gaunt’s, then returning to the mistal-yard and the croft -beyond. She was listening to this man who had spent five years beyond -the limits of Garth village, and his tales enthralled her. In an absent -way she wondered that those well-known fields, the familiar yard, had -never seemed so small as now. - -Reuben Gaunt was talking well. The picture of the girl, her lissome -outline framed by the oaken stall, her hands clasped above her head, -the lights and shadows of the mistal playing constantly about her eager -eyes--these might well have moved a duller wit than Gaunt’s to make -the most of itself. And, when he stopped, Priscilla was silent, her -head thrown further back and her glance going out and out, over the -grey field-walls of Strathgarth, over its dingles and its hills--out to -the borderland, and across into the unknown. - -“You have come back suddenly,” she said at last. “None knew in Garth -that you were coming home, or we must have heard of it.” - -“I chose to return unawares, and see what sort of welcome Garth would -give me without preparation.--And, gad, I learned from David Blake -quite soon enough,” he finished, with an easy laugh. - -“And shall you stay among us?” - -He had been watching her during that long silence. Faults in plenty the -man had, but in his way he could understand the finer lines of beauty; -and now, as he met Priscilla’s eyes, he found her exquisite--something -as faultless, and yet as natural, as a harebell swaying to the wind. - -“Yes, I shall stay,” he answered. - -Her eyes fell, in answer, not to the words, but to the tone. And, -because she had been wont to look all folk bravely in the eyes, she -grew impatient of her shame-facedness. - -“I cannot idle all the morning through,” she said. “I’ll give you good -day, Mr. Gaunt, and get to my housework.” - -David Blake, meanwhile, had turned aside before he reached his smithy, -and had crossed, by the stile at the road-corner, into the field where -Farmer Hirst was busy hedge-cutting with his men. - -“Hallo, David! Followed me up, like, have ye?” roared Hirst, as he -chanced to turn his head while the smith was still half a field away. - -“Ay, I like the sound and the look of cutting a thorn-hedge,” answered -David, as he drew nearer. “Thought I’d come and set ye straight if ye -were showing faulty hedge-craft.” - -The two farm-men turned with their bill-hooks in their hands. -They nodded at David and grinned at his simple pleasantry. Lithe, -clean-built fellows they were, both of them, such as they breed within -the boundaries of Strathgarth, and they were friends and, save in the -matter of wage-earning, they were roughly the equals of their master. - -“Come ye, then,” chuckled the farmer. “See what we’ve done a’ready, -David! See how trim and snug the whole line lies of it! Nay, not that -way, lad!” he broke off, as one of the hands began to lay a stout -hawthorn stem, sawn half-way through, all out of line with its fellow -on the left. - -He bent the branch as he would have it lie, then stepped aside--for a -heavy man, Hirst was oddly active in his movements--and set to work to -pluck a root of dog-briar from its deep bed. Twist and turn the root in -his hands as he might, it would not budge. - -“’Tis all these durned leather gloves,” he said, throwing his gauntlets -off. “They keep the prickles out, David--or reckon to--but when a body -wants his naked hands--well, let him wear them naked.” - -Again he tugged, but the old root would not give; so David grasped -Priscilla’s father by the middle, and “_Yoick!_” he cried, and they -pulled together. The root left its hold, more suddenly than they had -counted on, and David, being the hinder of the two, bore the full brunt -of the farmer’s fall. - -David got to his feet by and by, and coaxed the wind back into his -lungs. Farmer Hirst was laughing till the tears ran down his ruddy -face; the men were laughing, too; so David, soon as he found breath, -fetched out that slow, deep body-merriment of his. - -“We got him out o’ground! Oh, ay, we daunted yond old briar-root!” said -he. - -Whereat the four laughed so heartily that a pair of curlews--just -returned, like Reuben Gaunt, from sojourning God knew where--got up -from the further side of the fence, and went crying toward the moor. - -“Briar-roots are the devil and all,” said Hirst, “when ye come to clean -a hedge-bottom.” - -“Bear bonnie roses all the same, when June comes in,” ventured the -blacksmith, not telling Hirst that wild roses reminded him, too often -for his peace of mind, of Priscilla. “Pity to stump ’em up, say I, and -pity came of my lending my hand to the job just now.” - -He made pretence to rub himself, as if the farmer’s bulk had raised -painful sores on him. It is easy to laugh when the spring’s a-coming -in, and the four workers startled a black-faced ewe that was near to -her first lambing season. - -“Get away wi’ your jests, David,” answered Farmer Hirst. “D’ye think I -want to have my lambs dropped hasty-like in the ditch down yonder?” - -Yet by and by, when they had worked their fill at the hedge-cutting, -and it was dinner-time, David drew the farmer aside. He had not known -till now what had brought him to the fields here, instead of to the -smithy where he had urgent work to do. For the blacksmith’s brain was -like an eight-day clock that stands in the kitchen corner; it moved -slowly--_tick-tack, tick-tack_, with sober repetition--but, when the -moment came to strike the hour, there was never any doubt as to the -time he had in mind. - -“John Hirst,” he said, “ne’er mind your dinner yet awhile. I’ve -somewhat lies on my chest, as a body might say.” - -“Well, I lay there not a long while since, a trifle sudden and a trifle -hard,” laughed Hirst. - -“Ah, now, will ye be quiet? I’m like Fool Billy, as Priscilla said just -now, and ye think I’m jesting when I’m trying to talk sober sense.” - -“Dinner-time is sober sense, David, judging by my itch to get at cheese -and bread and good brown ale. What then, lad? What ails ye?” - -“I’m slow of speech, unlike my smithy-bellows,” went on the other -doggedly. “I find the right word always the day after to-morrow, -instead of the day’s minute that I want it.” - -“I’ve a trick of the same kind myself, David. What then? Speech is -speech, but trimming a thorn-hedge, or ploughing for your turnip-crop, -is a sight better than hunting words. Tuts, David! Ye’re yellow about -the gills, and some trouble’s sitting on ye, by that token.” - -“Ay, some trouble is,” said David. - -“Priscilla gave ye cake and ale?” put in the other anxiously. - -“She forgot to offer it, and I forgot to lack it.” David’s eyes -followed the neat line of the hedge, and he nodded gravely at it. -“Wish men were more like thorn-bushes, John--wish you could lop their -unruliness, and twist their ill-grown branches into shape, and make a -clean, useful hedge at the end of all.” - -Farmer Hirst was thinking of his dinner with gaining tenderness. “What -is in your mind, David, lad?” he asked. “’Tis like watching the kettle -boil, this getting at your meaning.” - -“Reuben Gaunt is back again in Garth,” the smith blurted out. “That’s -my meaning, John, and I tell you we could well have let him stay t’ -other side of the world, and ne’er have missed him.” - -The farmer’s face clouded for a moment. “We could have spared him--ay. -But what of it? Because a fool chooses to come home again, are we to -go pulling fiddle-faces on a blithesome day like this? Hark ye, David, -I’ll not bide a minute longer; there’s cheese and ale all waiting in -the hedge-bottom yonder, and you’re going to share it with us.” - -So David laid his trouble aside for the moment, and the four of them -sat on the sunny hedge-bank, and said little until for the second or -third time they took more cheese to help the butter out, or more bread -to help the cheese out, or another pull of ale “to settle the lot -trimly into place.” - -“Wonderful March weather,” said the farmer, draining a last draught. -“Near to April, and not a lamb-storm yet. ’Twill be twelve year since I -remember such a spring.” - -“Found a primrose fair in bloom this morn,” said one of the farm-men. -“Wonderful weather, I’ll own, farmer--but what’s to come with April? -Mistrust these easiful, quiet March-times myself.” - -“Ah, get ye along!” cried Hirst. “Believe the best o’ the weather, I, -and always did. They laugh at me in Shepston market--say I’m no true -farmer, because I’ll not speak o’ the weather as if she were a jade for -any man to mock at.” - -There was a silence, while the men lay tranquilly against the bank and -watched the blue sky trail her draperies of cool, white fleece across -the west wind’s track. - -“Reuben Gaunt is back, I’ve heard,” said one of the farm-hands -presently. “Came last night, all unbeknownst-like, same fashion as he -left, five years since.” - -“There’ll be brisk times for the lasses, then,” put in his fellow drily. - -Again the farmer’s face darkened for a moment. “’Tis work-time, lads, -not gossip-time, and many a yard of hedge to fettle up before we get -our suppers.” - -“I’ll be getting to my own work, too,” said David, nodding his -farewells and moving down the field. - -At another time he would have put his own work off, would have taken a -hand till nightfall with the hedge-trimmers, would have given them jest -for jest and laugh for laugh, while he trimmed, and cut, and bent the -hawthorn boughs into their place. But to-day he could not. - -“There’ll be a brisk time for the lasses, then,” he muttered, echoing -the farm-hand’s idle speech. “Ay, there’s always trouble o’ that sort -when Reuben Gaunt’s at hand.” - -Through the quiet fields he went, but they brought little benediction -to him. He remembered Gaunt and all his ways, remembered how, when he -left Garth, there had been no sadness in the men’s faces, but grief and -bitterness in many women’s. - -“What the dangment do they see in him, these lasses?” growled David, -as he climbed the wall and dropped into the highroad. “Littlish in the -build--face as good to look at as a mangold-wurzel’s--must be those -devil’s eyes of his, that never lie still for a moment, but go hunting -like a dog that sniffs a fresh scent every yard.” - -David had summed up his man with unerring judgment in that last -thought--so far, that is, as we can judge of any man. Had Gaunt been -downright evil, it would have been easier for the men of Garth to -have thrashed him long ago into a likelier and more wholesome habit. -But even to-day, when he was in a mood that, for him, was bitter, -the blacksmith knew that his enemy was neither good nor bad, but -purposeless. He had watched him grow from childhood; and year by year -his name of Reuben seemed more and more a prophecy of days to come. - -“Unstable as water--ay, just that,” thought David, as he reached the -smithy. - -Billy the Fool, after dusting the smithy fire with coke and smudge, had -settled himself to sleep again; but he was awake on the instant when -David’s footsteps sounded on the roadway. He rose, and shook himself -with a big, heedless satisfaction. - -“I’ve been a-dreaming, David,” was his greeting. “Dreamed I was wise, -like ye are at most times--saving when Miss Priscilla comes.” - -“Ay?” said the other, patting Billy on the shoulder. - -“I didn’t like it, David! Glad to waken is Billy the Fool. There wasn’t -no frolic in’t.” - -“I can believe you, lad. What news, Billy, since I went up street?” - -It was the habit in Garth village to ask Billy for news, however many -times a day you met him, though none could say how the idle custom had -first come into use. - -“Ay, there’s news. I’ve been at my games again, David the Smith.” A -smile broadened slowly across the placid face, while the blacksmith -listened good-humouredly. - -“Never met your like for games, Billy,” he said, fingering his tools -after the fashion of a man who means to begin work by and by, but not -just yet. - -David, indeed, was thinking less of work, and less of Billy, than -of the encounter in the mistal. Reuben Gaunt had come like a shadow -between the springtime and himself, had blurred the sun for him: keen -to foresee, as slow men often are, the blacksmith felt as if a blight -had fallen on Garth village, checking the warmth, holding the green -buds in their sheaths. - -Yet Billy soon claimed his ear. “I’d looked to your fire,” went on the -natural, “and stepped out into the road, to see what time o’ day it -was. Perhaps a half-hour since it was--and what d’ye think, David?” - -“Couldn’t guess, lad, couldn’t guess.” - -“Well, there was a littlish man, all dressed up as if ’twere Sunday; -and he came down the road, and I knew he’d been to Good Intent.” - -David glanced sharply up. “How did you know that?” - -“Miss Priscilla lives there. All the younger men--and happen a few o’ -the old uns too--will always be wending Good Intent way when the spring -comes in. Habit o’ theirs, David--habit o’ theirs! I go that way myself -sometimes.” - -The blacksmith, not for the first time, was puzzled by Billy the Fool. -The natural’s unerring instinct for all that made for the primitive in -bird or beast or human-folk, when coupled with his child’s disdain of -everyday good sense, would have troubled keener wits than David’s. He -recognized Reuben Gaunt, moreover, from the other’s description, and he -fingered his tools no longer, but followed Billy’s story. - -“Came whistling down the road, did the littlish chap. I wondered, like, -at what, for ye or me could have outsized him two or three times over.” - -David laughed, though he was little in the mood for it. At every turn -of his path to-day--whether he were talking to Priscilla, or dining in -the hedge-bottom with Farmer Hirst, or talking to Billy--Gaunt’s shadow -crossed his path. Yet he laughed, for he was simple, too, and big, and -there was something that tickled his fancy in this quiet assumption -that little men had little right to whistle on the Queen’s highway. - -“Came whistling down, did he?” asked the blacksmith, strangely eager -for the story. - -“Ay, and stopped when he saw me. ‘Flick-a-moroo!’ says he, and twitched -my chin, and seemed to think he’d played a jest on me.” - -Again David chuckled; for there was none in the Dale of Strathgarth -that could mimic a man as faithfully as Billy, and he had caught -Gaunt’s mincing accent to the life. - -“‘_Flick-a-moroo_,’ says I, easy as answering a blackbird when he -calls. I didn’t like having my chin tickled, David, but I bided like, -as one might say. And then he says--’tis queer and strange how little -a grown man can be, yet can strut like a turkey-cock--‘Ye seem to know -what’s the meaning of _flick-a-moroo_’ says he, ‘though it’s more than -I do.’ ‘Ay, I know the meaning of _flick-a-moroo_,’ I says.” - -“Well, lad?” asked David, waiting till he had finished a laugh that -came before the end of the story. - -“Ye see, David”--a happy, cunning look was in the natural’s face--“ye -see, we were near t’ other side o’ the road yonder, and I minded there -was a snug, far drop over th’ wall, and some young nettles growing -soft as a feather-bed. So I says again, ‘Oh, ay,’ says I, ‘I know the -meaning o’ _flick-a-moroo_,’ says I; and I catches him, heels and -head--’twould have made ye crack wi’ laughter, David, to see it--and I -holds him over the wall awhile, and drops him soft as a babby into th’ -nettles.” - -Again David laughed. He could not help it. “And then, Fool Billy?” he -asked. - -“Why, I went and looked at him, and I says, ‘Oh, ay, I know what’s the -meaning o’ _flick-a-moroo_,’ says I--‘and so do ye, I’m thinking.’” - -David felt a joy in this daft enterprise as keen as Billy’s. Was it -not the expression of feelings which he had himself only checked with -an effort up yonder in the mistal-yard? - -“’Twas outrageous, and not like ye, Billy,” the smith observed, his -whole face twinkling. “Should’st be more civil when strangers come to -Garth.” - -Billy looked apprehensive for a moment; of all things, after work, he -hated the reproof of those whom, in his innocence, he fancied to be -wiser than himself. A glance at David’s face, however, reassured him. - -“Civil when strangers are civil, David,” he chuckled. For Billy, vague -as his outlook upon morals was, showed himself persistently on the side -of the Old Testament. “I’d bested him, ye see! Owned he didn’t know -what _flick-a-moroo_ meant. Billy the Fool did.” - -“We’ll have a change of play, Billy,” said the smith. “Just make the -bonnie sparks go scummering up again, and I’ll to my work o’ making -horseshoes.” - -David stole many a look at the other’s face as they went forward with -their labour. He was realizing that there were possibilities of tragedy -about this lad with the big frame and the dangerous strength. It was a -jest to drop a man gently into a bed of nettles--but what if Billy’s -passion were roused in earnest? What if some one pierced through that -slothful outer crust of his, and touched some deeper instinct in him? - -“Might be a sort of earthquake hidden in poor Billy,” he muttered. -“’Tis hard to guess what he’s thinking of, right at the beating heart -of the chap.” - -The smith would have been astonished, had he been able to sound -these heart-beats of his comrade’s. It was Priscilla he was thinking -of--Priscilla of the Good Intent--Priscilla, who brought the sunshine -into Garth for one poor fool whenever she crossed his path. - -“She’ll be fettling up the house-place now, I reckon,” said Billy -suddenly. - -“Who, lad?” - -“Why, Miss Priscilla. ’Tis her time of day for doing on’t. Te-he, -David! I hoicked yon chap fair grandly over th’ wall--Sunday clothes, -and _pritty-prat_ speech, and all. Nettles don’t sting i’ March, they -say--but I’ve known ’em do that same.” - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -Spring was abroad indeed these days. Garth village, good to see even -in grey winter-time, grew to the likeness of a well-kept garden. The -winding street--white at one time, then glistening-grey when the sun -shone on it through April rain--moved lazily between the cottages -and the yeomen’s square, substantial houses. And always, between -the house-front and the highway, there was a garden, big or little. -Sometimes--when the cottage was so small in itself that there seemed no -room for a garden-space--there would be a strip, no more than two feet -wide, fenced round to guard it from the wandering ducks and geese and -dogs of Garth. Sometimes a bigger house would shrink, with disdainful -pride, from too close a rubbing of shoulders with the street; and -its garden would be wide and guarded by a grey stone wall, with a -white-painted gate in the middle of the wall. - -But always, right and left of the good street of Garth, there were -gardens, and, whatever their size or shape might be, the same flowers -bloomed in all. Crocuses still glowed yellow when the sun came out to -waken them; but these were of the older generation, and daffodils were -nodding already high above them with the effrontery of youth. Auriculas -were showing the white miller’s-dust about their buds; the ladslove -bushes pushed out green, fragrant spikes into this unexpected weather; -primroses caught the laughter of the spring, and celandines looked -humbly at the sunlight. - -Priscilla of the Good Intent, as she came down the street, was no way -out of keeping--so the kindly gossips said, standing each at her sunlit -door--with the gardens and the weather. For it was true that not men -only, but women, were reminded always of a flower when their eyes fell -on Priscilla; and each was apt to choose his own favourite flower as -Cilla’s namesake. - -The village parliament, made up of men and women both, is seldom wrong -when it passes judgment on a neighbour; and there was none in Garth -who would deny off-hand that Priscilla of the Good Intent was rightly -named, thanks to the title of the farm on which her father, and his -fathers before him, had laboured thankfully. - -“There goes slim Miss Good Intent,” said one cottager to another, -across the quickset hedge that parted them. - -“Ay! Sunshine all along the street,” the other answered. “Trust she’ll -fall into a good man’s hands; for into some hands she’ll fall soon, or -else a lad will just reach up and pluck her.” - -Priscilla had smiled and nodded to them as she passed--nodded and -smiled, indeed, the length of Garth Street, as if she were the lady -of the village. She was no less, indeed, for she had that simple -pride which knows its station and disdains no greeting on life’s -highroad. Unspoiled as a primrose, opening to the warmth of spring, was -Priscilla; and it seemed the pity of life that she should ever have to -meet contrary winds. - -Billy the Fool, at the extreme end of Garth, was passing the time of -day with David the Smith, as his wont was; for the two were rather like -an elder and a younger brother, and sought each other out by instinct. -It was two weeks and a day since Billy had dropped his victim into a -bed of growing nettles, and neither he nor David had spoken of the -matter since--the blacksmith, because he was too fastidious, in a rough -fashion, when a rival was in case; the natural, because he forgot such -trifles until the season for remembrance came. Reuben Gaunt, for his -part, had kept silence, and had thanked heaven, in his own random way, -that the jest of his sitting down among the nettles was not common -gossip now in Garth. For Reuben hated to be laughed at, as the half -and between men of this world always shrink from the laughter of their -neighbours. - -“The birds are all a-mating and a-building, David the Smith,” said -Billy. “Cannot ye hear the throstles calling to the hen-birds?” - -“Ay,” growled David, a sudden anger coming to him; “but ye and me are -no way mated, Billy the Fool. What ails us, lad?” - -“Life ails us,” said Billy unexpectedly. “We’re over slow and -overpleasant, David. Chase ’em and have ’em, David the Smith--that’s -how I’ve seen the bird-folk go a-wooing. Te-he, there’s Miss -Priscilla!” he broke off, and seemed about to run and greet her, in his -friendly, dog-like way, when a second figure came into the street from -the bridle-track that led to Thorlburn. - -The natural stopped, suddenly as if he had been indeed a dog and his -master had whistled him down. - -“Garth Street is not what it used to be, David,” he observed, -dispassionately. “More muckiness about the roads, though why I know -not, seeing they’re smooth and silver at this moment.” - -David said nothing for awhile; but he saw Reuben Gaunt lift his cap -to Priscilla, with that indescribable air of overdoing the matter -which roused the blacksmith’s temper. He saw, too, that they stayed -and chatted--Priscilla laughing--and afterwards went up the Thorlburn -bridle-way, which led to a field-track winding at long last to Good -Intent. - -“Come in, Billy,” said the smith--his voice came suddenly, and was -half-brother to a sob--“come away in and play at blowing the bellows, -while I fire the ends of those posts that Farmer Hirst is wanting.” - -“What does he want ’em for, like?” asked the natural, curious at all -times. - -“To make a pen for yon rambling turkeys. The hens will go wandering -after the cock-bird, and they’re laying in the hedge-bottoms, and over -t’ other side the beck, and Lord knows where. ’Tisn’t the hens I blame, -Billy; ’tis the ruffling master-bird, with his tail spread like a silly -peacock’s. Pen him in we will, Billy--and, if he breaks his neck in the -wire-netting, so much the better for all sides.” - -It was rarely that David allowed himself so stormy an outbreak. -Had he taken his wooing in this fashion two weeks and a day ago -in the farmyard of Good Intent, breaking down the barriers of -diffidence--Priscilla’s and his own--there might have been a different -life-tale for David the Smith. - -“Te-he!” chuckled Billy the Fool, shambling toward the smithy. “’Twould -be a rare game to pen in the turkey-cock. _Gobble-gobble di-gobble_, -he goes, whenever he comes across the likes o’ me, and his wattle goes -red as the floor, David, when a man’s been killing a cow. Ay, I’ll blow -the bellows for ye, if so ye’re going to prison up yond old, prideful -devil.” - -“Soothes a body’s temper,” muttered David, after he had been at -work for half an hour--thrusting the pine-posts into the blaze, -turning them about, taking them away when the pointed ends were -charred sufficiently, while Billy played contentedly and hard with -the bellows. “God knows I’d like to see Priscilla happy, with me or -another man; but Reuben Gaunt sticks in my gizzard like a fish-bone.” -He laughed quietly, for he always sought from humour an antidote -against the storm-winds of life. “Suits me, seemingly,” he said to -himself, “to be fair mad with a man; for work takes the tetchy humours -out of ye, and work pays ye afterwards.” - -Could David have left his forge more often, in order to seek -Priscilla’s company--and he was well-found already in the bread and -cheese of life, and knew that there were savings of the years behind -him--could David have understood that a maid, if you love her and -she chances to love you, needs wooing with a desperate seriousness -and a desperate gaiety--he would have been less interested to-day in -the making of charred posts wherewith to furnish forth John Hirst’s -turkey-pen. - -Priscilla, meanwhile, was wandering up the bridle-track with Reuben -Gaunt, and the little, plain-featured man with the wild eyes was -talking to her--talk being his prime work in life--and telling her of -the countries he had seen, the busy streets, the things remote from -Garth’s quiet highroad, and Garth’s quiet hill-slopes where the work of -farming life was done. - -Like cloud-land drifting before a merry wind, the old life went -receding from Priscilla of the Good Intent. The street of Garth grew -dull; the singing of a farm-hand, as he strode up the hilly field -in front of them, was so much noise in a rustic bauble-shop. Reuben -Gaunt’s plain face, his little body, receded too, and only his wild -eyes were left--the eyes that looked into hers and reflected, so she -thought, the world beyond Garth village. - -Billy the Fool, had he been in this quiet lane, would have been finding -the first wild-strawberry bloom, or another blackbird’s nest; but -Priscilla, who had loved such things aforetime, was looking far beyond -them now. - -“You had seen so many countries, and there were more to see. Yet you -return to Garth,” said Priscilla suddenly. - -They had halted at the gate that opened on the field-track to Good -Intent, and the girl was leaning with her arms upon the topmost bar. -The long and quiet glance she gave her companion was childish in its -wonderment. - -“Yes--to stay, I doubt. ’Tis free and pleasant to go roaming; but a man -grows tired of earning his bread as best he can. I’ve been a jockey, -a trainer, a gold-miner--a publican, Lord help me, for one whole -year--and all seemed to leave me as poor as it found me, Priscilla.” - -It was a little sign of the new days, but a clear one, that the girl’s -pride was content with his half-tender, half-easy use of her name. She -did not call him Mr. Gaunt, but avoided any name when speaking to him. - -“But you had the life--the life.” Her voice was almost passionate. “You -did not see the same hills every day, and churn the butter whenever -Thursday came, and milk the cattle o’ nights and mornings, from -spring’s beginning to winter’s end.” - -“No, Cilla--yet, somehow, when the old folk died and left me -Marshlands, and word came to me that the snug property was mine, I -longed for the home-fields--longed to settle down.” - -Reuben was sincere in this, so far as his way of life allowed him to -be sincere in anything. He was glad to be home again, glad to revisit -nooks and corners which he had known in boyhood. Even the wanderers -need their rest sometimes, and this man with the queer, wild eyes was -fonder of Garth village than he had ever known. - -“I must take a wife, Priscilla, now that I have something to keep her -on,” he went on, leaning against the gate-post and stroking his upper -lip. “Marshlands will never thrive unless it has a mistress.” - -Priscilla looked straight in front of her, with a heedlessness that -angered Gaunt. Keen-witted as he was, he should have known that Yeoman -Hirst’s daughter was not one to be wooed at the end of two weeks and a -day. - -“Yes, ’twill need a mistress,” she said, indifferently. - -Her thoughts were all of the new lands that Gaunt had opened to her -fancy, and she would have answered, had she been asked the reason of -her interest in Reuben, that he was the bringer of stirring news, and -heartsome news, into the round of her life at Garth. - -Gaunt was silent for awhile; wooing had sped so easily with him in -times past that contempt or opposition ruffled him. - -“Suppose you choose my wife for me, Cilla?” he said at last, with -would-be playfulness. “Fair or dark is she, and can she manage a dairy -and a roomy house?” - -“I had not thought of it,” said Priscilla, turning her candid eyes -on him again. “’Tis for you to settle such grave questions, I should -think.” - -Her laughter hurt him afresh; and, while he was seeking for a way to -meet rebuffs he little liked, John Hirst came up the road. Hirst was -not one to scowl at any time; but his thick brows came together when he -reached the top of the rise and saw these two together. - -“Crossing homeward by the fields, Priscilla?” he cried, in a voice that -startled them like thunder out of a tranquil sky. “Well, so am I, and -we’ll just gang together, lassie.” - -“Morning, Mr. Hirst,” said Gaunt, soon as he had recovered from his -surprise. - -“Morning, Mr. Gaunt,” answered the other gruffly, opening the gate. -“Come, Priscilla--we’ll go arm in arm, as your mother came from kirk -with me more years ago than I remember.” - -Priscilla felt a big hand grasp her arm, and found herself, with no -time for a good-by to Reuben, moving quickly up the field-path at her -father’s side. - -“Well?” said the farmer, presently. - -Priscilla did not answer, but released her arm, and set a little -distance between them as they crossed the fields. She was angered that -her father had shown discourtesy--a thing uncommon with him--to the man -who had laid strange, vivid colours on the palette of her fancy. - -“Oh, you’re out of temper with your dad,” said Hirst, a big laugh -forcing its way, willy-nilly, through all his disquiet. “So was your -mother, over and over again, before I brought her safely to kirk. -Hearken to me, little lass. Oldish men are foolish men, they say, and -forget their youth; but Billy the Fool talks wonderful sense, just time -and time, so I may do it with safety, eh?” - -He halted to stroke the flanks of the roan cow which David had lately -saved, then stole a look at his daughter’s face, and found rebellion -there. - -“’Tis as old as the hills, lass, this tale of what to do, and what not -to do,” he went on, his voice quite gentle on the sudden. “Two folk -leaning over a gate--a lad and a lass--and no harm done, maybe. Did it -myself, when your mother was slim as you and I was courting her. But -ye want the right lad and the right lass, Priscilla, for that sort of -gate-over-leaning.” - -Priscilla was no want wit, and the years had taught her that Yeoman -Hirst could never so subdue his voice unless he were deeply moved. - -“Father, ’tis so perplexing,” she said, taking his arm again in -obedience to a friendship that was like no other in Garth village, save -that between the blacksmith and his crony. “I do not like to see you -disdain Reuben Gaunt.” - -“And why, if I might ask?” - -“Because there’s something bigger than Garth and its grey street.” - -“Something lesser, too, I reckon. Go on, lassie. I felt the same myself -once, and tried t’ other thing, and came back in great content to -Garth. I once--” - -“The world beyond, father!” she broke in, with one of those passionate -gusts that were apt to surprise folk who thought her even-tempered and -reserved. - -“Ay--a small world, Priscilla,” chuckled John Hirst. - -“Yet _you_ longed for it once--father, you know how we have sat on -Sabbath evenings in the brink-fields, and watched the sun go down, and -played at seeing lakes and rivers and steep mountains in the clouds. -’Tis the same with me now. Reuben Gaunt has talked of strange cities, -strange countries, lying out beyond the cloud-line yonder--and, oh, I -want to get to them!” - -“Reuben Gaunt _would_ talk that sort of trash!” said Hirst, the -strength and the stubbornness of the man showing plainly. “A here -to-day and gone to-morrow man, is Reuben, lass, whether ye like to -hear me say it or no. Cities and countries are there, over beyond -where Sharprise cuts the sky? Well, then, they’re men and women in -them, and men and women have been much the same since Adam’s time, I -take it, save for tricks of speech and wearing-gear. You’d find naught -different to Garth, Priscilla--but ye’d miss the homely hills, and the -clover-fields, and the look of Eller Brook when spring is painting both -banks yellow.” - -Priscilla, because in her heart of hearts she was disposed to think her -father right, was bent all the more, in her present mood, on being out -of sympathy with him. - -“I should like to see them--should like to judge for myself, father, as -you and Reuben Gaunt have done.” - -John Hirst had had his say, and now was minded to smooth the rough -edges, as good-tempered men are apt to be when they have hurt a woman. - -“And shall do, then,” he said, drawing her to him. “Only choose a -likelier comrade for the journey, lass, when the time comes for leaving -Good Intent.” - -They had reached the hedge which Hirst and his men had been laying on -the morning when Reuben Gaunt had come afresh into Priscilla’s life. -Trim and low it stretched, the strokes of the bill-hook showing yellow -between the green, primal budding of the thorns. - -“Good work, yond, though I say it myself,” muttered Farmer Hirst. - -“Yes, good work, father,” the girl answered absently. - -She was not thinking of the thorn-hedge. Her father’s “Choose a -likelier comrade for the journey,” meant in all kindliness and desire -to warn her, had cleared her outlook suddenly. Reuben Gaunt had looked -love enough in these two weeks to have lasted another man a year, -but she had disdained to acknowledge the meaning of his glances. -Priscilla--even to herself--seldom lost that habit of drawing maiden -skirts away from men when they showed a disposition to intrude; but -this morning she was forced to see the matter in its true perspective. -Words dropped by Reuben, as if haphazard, recurred to her. He was no -longer the scarcely-seen interpreter of worlds beyond her reach; he -grew on the sudden to be the man who had seen these lands beyond, and -she wondered if that wild look in his eyes were the mirror of something -gallant and good to look upon. - -The girl was so silent and so grave that her father twitted her -good-naturedly. “Day-dreams, eh, lassie? They come in spring, I’ve -noticed--ay, even to grizzled elders like myself.” - -“Day-dreams, or day-realities--I scarce know which, father,” she -answered. - -Reuben Gaunt, meanwhile, was smarting under a sense of foolishness. -Priscilla had laughed at him. The farmer had sent him about his -business as if he were a hind. - -“I get queer welcomes in this Garth,” he said, watching father and -daughter move up the fields. “’Twould seem it’s naught at all to own -Garth’s biggest house and richest lands. Garth is a bit like Billy the -Fool--likes or dislikes at sight, and always did, however good a man’s -coat is.” - -Reuben was admitting unconsciously that his experience of the bigger -world had led him to expect a welcome according to his station. He -turned fretfully to return across the fields--in all his movements -and his way of taking life he suggested something of a child’s -perverseness, as if his body had aged and left his soul behind in the -race of life. - -He halted when he came to the first stile. His pride was smarting; -his love for Priscilla--which touched already the random good in -him--was rendered barren for the moment by that one girl’s laugh of -hers. Small wonder that this man--who, after all, was as God made -him, and therefore to be pitied somewhat--had never caught the fancy -of the forthright villagers of Garth. He was too big in his own eyes, -too eager to see insult where only friendly raillery was meant; too -heedless of the truth that the right word at the one right moment is -more than lands and raiment. Reuben could not stand against a real -insult, such as Farmer Hirst had given him just now; and he sat on the -stile and nursed his wrath, and, like his namesake, he was unstable as -the wind. - -He watched the patient fields, where the sunlight glistened on the -clean, new blades of grass. Far up the pastures, a glint of limestone -caught the sun and showed a track which, years ago, before he left -Garth village, had been a wooing-trail for him. - -“I’ll go and see Ghyll Farm again,” he said, getting down from the -stile. - -It was one of the big moments of Gaunt’s life, had he but known it. Yet -he seemed to guess as little of it as the wind which, like himself, was -turned by any hill that met it in its passage. He crossed the highroad, -and climbed the further stile, and went up the track that led him to -Ghyll Farm; and he whistled as he went, and moved with an eager step -which folk, less versed in the ways of Reuben than the villagers of -Garth, would have thought full of purpose. - -The farm stood high up on the rise where the pasture-fields ran into -the moor and lost themselves, and Reuben, seeing the rough, black -outline of it a half-mile ahead, began to think of other days. - -As if in answer to his thoughts, a big, strapping lass came up from -the shallow dingle that cut the moor in two. She carried a basket of -eggs on her arm, and she moved with a lithe, free swing that was almost -insolent in its strength. - -Gaunt forgot Priscilla, forgot her father’s insult. The worse man in -him stepped forth, triumphant and uncaring as the girl who came to meet -him. - -“Why, ’tis you, Peggy?” said Gaunt, touching his cap, but not lifting -it with the flourish which exasperated David the Smith. - -“Seems so, Reuben,” she answered, setting down her basket and standing -with a hand on either shapely hip. - -It was not easy to read the look in Peggy’s face. There was derision, -and rosy pleasure at the meeting, and defiance; and Reuben was daunted -a little, for he liked women to go easily upon the rein. - -“I’m home again, you see,” he said, awkwardly. - -“Seems so. I heard you were back two weeks ago, and fancied you were -overproud these days to visit Peggy Mathewson. Got a fine house of your -own, and what not, now your folk are dead?” - -“I used not to be overproud to visit you,” said Reuben, his eyes -catching fire at hers. - -“Well, no. But that was years ago, and you were always light to come -and go, Reuben. D’ye remember that you left without a good-by said?” -she went on, the grievance of five years coming out with sudden -bitterness. “Mother talked to ye, Reuben Gaunt--would have thrashed -you, I believe, but for your luck--mother is strong as a man to this -day, and that’s more than you will ever be.” - -Reuben’s face was like a dog’s when he has done amiss, and knows -it, and tries to make you understand that he is innocent. Of all -the welcomes he had found in Garth, this was the sharpest and most -tantalizing. - -“Had my folk to think of, Peggy. ’Twould have broken father’s heart--” - -“Oh, ay!” The girl was fine in the strength with which she treated -Reuben Gaunt. “You always had somebody’s heart to think of, Reuben, -when you wanted to run wide and free from trouble. What of me, lad, -left here to think of things?” - -“You’re looking bonnier for the trouble, Peggy, left here or not.” - -“Old trick o’ yours, Reuben. Your arm was ever lithe to slip about a -lass’s waist, and your tongue to grasp a lie.” - -They looked at each other, and Priscilla of the Good Intent was far -away from Reuben. - -“Could slip an arm about your waist this minute, Peggy.” - -“Doubtless--if I’d let you.” - -She stood away from him, alert, secure, yet with a careless touch of -invitation in her glance. - -“What is your errand, Peggy?” he asked after a pause. - -“I’m taking a sitting of eggs to Hill End Farm. Folk fight rather shy -of mother and me, Reuben, but they seem to know where to come when they -want a clutch of Black Minorca eggs.” - -He fell into step beside her, and Peggy only shrugged her shoulders. It -was natural, and like old times, that Gaunt should ask no leave. - -“Carrying my eggs all in one basket,” she said, by and by, after he -had helped her over a clumsy stile. “Always did, Reuben, if ye call to -mind. ’Tis a failing of the Mathewsons, I’ve heard tell. They don’t -look to see if the basket is strong and well-found--they just take a -daft fancy to the look on’t, and pop the whole clutch in.” - -“I’m here in Garth to be sneered at,” said Gaunt, with sudden passion. -“I knew it after the first day or two, Peggy, but I’d looked for -something different from you.” - -“You’re always like yourself, Reuben.” The girl looked at him with a -quiet, impersonal surprise that was almost pity. “You’d pour honey into -one ear and trust it to run out safely at the other. I’m the only lass -in the world to ye, eh? Those will-o’-wispish eyes of yours are saying -it. Yet honey stays sometimes; and a lass goes on eating it, and finds -the taste on’t sweet.” - -Reuben Gaunt took the basket from her arm and set it down; and then he -grasped her hands and stood facing her. There was a suddenness and fire -about him that the girl liked to see--as she would have liked to find -the withes of her egg-basket not quite so slender as they seemed. - -“Peggy, I’d thought to find a welcome here at Garth. There’s a damned -conspiracy against me, and yet I came home again with soft and quiet -thoughts enough, God knows. You’ve failed me, too.” - -“You did not seek me out, Reuben, till you were tired of better folk.” - -“More fool I, then, Peggy.” - -“It takes you a fortnight to tire, I remember, and two weeks chasing -other game, and then you’re back again.” - -The girl laughed suddenly. To know a man to the core of him and find -him wanting, and yet to be weak in his hands when he returns--it is a -plight which brings women to the borderland where tears meet laughter. -And tears are apt to conquer in such a case, though laughter is the -safe, abiding road. - -Across the ages came the call to the girl’s heart--“As a hen gathers -her chickens under her wing.” She heard the voice. She was stronger -than Reuben Gaunt, and knew it, and her pity lay about him like a -mother-wing. - -“Come close and hither, Reuben. There’s naught else will do for ye, -’twould seem,” she said. - -“’Tis five years since I kissed ye, Peggy,” he said by and by. - -“Ay,” she answered, with a weariness that shamed her big, straight -body. “Ay, Reuben. We’re as we are made, I reckon, and ye and me are -equal fools, each in our own way.” - -She picked up her basket, and they went along the quiet fields -together. The grass was growing under their feet, and a lark was -singing to the sun. There was no hint, from lark or greening pastures, -that this narrow sheep-track which they followed was leading two folk -into idleness. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -Though spring blew warm and soft from the west and Garth village saw -its trim, quiet gardens blossom out to welcome the young summer, there -was unrest about, as if an east wind blew. - -Neighbours passed the time of day together, and farmers from the hills -came down and stayed to ask if this God’s weather-time would last. - -“Likely not,” was the answer always. - -“Ay, likely not,” the farmers would agree, though their wholesome, -wind-blown faces suggested a more friendly outlook even on the weather. - -“Ye’re looking glum-like, misters,” said Billy, stepping up one morning -to a group of them who stood chatting in Garth. It was a week after -Reuben Gaunt had walked across the fields with Peggy Mathewson. - -They were not aware of any special gloom, but began to think it must be -true if Billy said so. - -“And I’ll tell ye why,” went on the Fool imperturbably. “Te-he! I’ll -tell ye why, ye wise farm-folk. Simple and fain to play am I; but I -think a lot, just whiles and whiles, and Billy can answer riddles when -more sensible-like folk seem bothered.” - -These farmer-folk, who could guide a plough, turned all to Billy the -Fool, who could not guide his own reason. They waited for him to tell -the cause of their ailment--an ailment of his own discovering, not of -theirs--as if he had been the village doctor or the village parson, or -something more practical than either; and Billy, finding himself the -hero of this springtime gathering in Garth village, laughed vacantly. - -“Tell ye the answer to yond riddle in a brace of shakes, farmers all. -Easy as tumbling off a wall; but ye wise folk look downwards when ye -see a stone fence, and wonder how ye’ll light. Shameful poor thing to -wonder how you’re going to fall off a wall. Never did think o’ the -matter myself. Just climbs up, and drops soft-like down, does Billy, -and finds himself on t’ other side somehow.” - -“Ay, ye’re plump enough to fall soft, Billy,” laughed a red-cheeked -farmer. - -It was curious to see his brethren check the unruly speaker with -nods and murmurs; they were men, for the most part, who had seen the -frosts of April come to nip the April buds, and therefore they were -superstitious. It boded ill to laugh at Billy the Fool when he wore the -look he did just now, for to them all naturals were “wise.” - -“Tell us, Billy,” said a grey old man coaxingly, as if he held a baby -in his arms. - -“Well, now, I will, seeing ye put it that way.” The natural’s placid -smile roved from one to another of the group. “Could tell ye in a -twinkling, farmer-folk, if I were minded to.” - -“Tuts, thou’rt minded to,” said the grey old man, coaxing still. -“Ye can tell us how the weather sits, and where the first nest goes -a-building--surely ye can tell us what’s the matter with Garth village?” - -“Ay, I could tell ye,” said Billy the Fool, his slow smile spreading -like quiet sunshine on them all. “’Tis Reuben Gaunt ails Garth. Don’t -need the likes o’ he, misters; he’s, as ye might say, a cuckoo in the -wrong nest.” - -The men looked at one another. Billy the interpreter had put into -words for them a vague unrest that had been with them during these past -weeks. It was not that they bore Gaunt of Marshlands ill will; they -were too forthright and too clean of habit to harbour malice. It was -rather that they all felt as if the grey village was itself no longer; -they had remembered Gaunt’s record before he left them, and the peace -that followed his long wanderings abroad. And now, at a word from -Billy, they understood these matters. - -“Hadn’t ye thought of it afore?” asked Billy, his lazy eyes as full of -laughter as a moorland pool when April breezes sport across it. “Knew -it myself the first day I clapped een on Reuben Gaunt Te-he! Ye’re -fearful wise and terrible hard in the head-piece, misters, but ’tis -soft Billy has to guide ye time and time.” - -“We’ll give you credit for it too,” muttered the grey old man. - -“Never had money myself--not to speak of,” he said, with a tranquil -chuckle. “Spoils folk’s lives and bothers ’em, does money, so I’ve -heard tell. Cannot lie under a hedgerow on June nights and hear the -birds a-twittering them to sleep. Must be prisoned in a great big bed, -must folks wi’ money, and have a great big roof sitting down on them. -Not for Billy the Fool, thank ye, that sort o’ smothered life! But -there’s summat else, misters. Ye who’ve got money, like, might do a -service to Garth village.” - -“Ay, and how, if a body might ask?” said a kindly farmer. - -“Well now, ye might take your shovels and a big sack, each of ye, and -ye might spade your money into ’t sack.” - -A friendly smile passed from one to another of the farmers. Billy the -Dreamer had stepped in front of Billy the Wise Fool, and they waited -for a jest. There was a fine, free suggestion of untold wealth about -the lad’s talk of a shovel and a sack that appealed to their humour. -For they had tended, all of them, the niggard fields. - -“Then ye’d bring your sacks o’ gold,” went on the natural--his face was -so solemn and so sly that none could guess whether or not he knew that -he was jesting--“and ye’d pour your gold out right along the roadway -here, and Reuben Gaunt would never see that the daffy-down-dillies were -fuller of sunshine than the gold that strewed Garth Street.” - -“To be sure he wouldn’t,” said the grey old man. His tone suggested the -quietness of a man who sees a moorland trout spreading dark fins in a -pool, and moves warily to tickle him out on to the bank. - -“Ye see,” went on Billy, with his inscrutable, large air, “ye see, ye -might put it to him this way. ‘Reuben Gaunt,’ ye’d say--or ‘Mister -Reuben Gaunt,’ seeing he owns land--‘silly boy Gaunt,’ ye’d say, ‘just -look ye at all this shovelled gold that lines Garth Street.’ And he’d -answer, ‘What o’ that?’ And ye’d answer back, ‘Silly boy Gaunt,’ ye’d -say, ‘there’s a line of gold from here to Elm Tree Inn. ’Tis yours for -asking,’ ye’d say, ‘granted ye do one thing. Oh, ay, ’tis yours for -sure, granted ye do one thing.’” - -“And what’s that one thing, Billy?” rapped out the grey-haired farmer. - -“Why, that he’d quit Garth and take the gold along with him. Never -would miss gold and Reuben Gaunt myself. What say ye, misters? Billy -the Fool’s a child, but somehow, as a chap might say, his head is -screwed on right foremost way. Give him your gold, say I, and shift him -out o’ Garth.” - -A great laugh went up. These farmers, not greedy of money by nature, -but fond of it, as most north-born people are, saw the slow humour of -that trail of gold which ended at the Elm Tree Inn. - -“And what when Reuben Gaunt had quitted, Billy?” asked one. - -Billy the Fool took out a black and antique pipe before replying. -There were half-a-dozen pouches waiting for him on the instant, and he -filled from the first offered--Priscilla’s father’s, as it chanced--and -borrowed a match. Billy was always borrowing from his neighbours, and -thrived on it. - -“Well, look ye here, neighbour-folk,” he said, puffing long trails of -smoke into the sunlit quiet of Garth. “I reckon there’d be ease of -heart, and spring a-coming in, when Reuben Gaunt had left us. Don’t -know myself, misters, but that’s what Billy the Fool has to say to ye -wise folk.” - -They left him by and by, one or two of them patting him affectionately -on the shoulder, and went down the street in twos and threes. It -chanced to be market-day in Shepston, as any dweller on the fells could -have told, seeing so many farmers in Garth Street at this hour of a -busy springtime morning. - -“Slow and wise is Billy,” said one to the other as they walked between -the limestone wall on one hand, the budding hedgerow on the other. - -“Ay, knows a lot. Only lacks the trick o’ letting out all he knows, or -we’d be wiser, Daniel, us folk in Garth.” - -Billy meanwhile leaned placidly against the grindstone which stood at -the road-edge just this side of Widow Lister’s cottage. The grindstone -had been out of work these many years, and the lichens gave it a mellow -dignity such as sits on old men after their labour is done, and well -done, and the resting-time has come. Perhaps, if you had asked the -lovers of Garth village to name their friendliest landmark, they -would have said at once, “Why, th’ old grindstone. Have leaned against -it many a time, and talked right good sense the while on summer’s -evenings.” - -Billy was not talking now. One could not have said whether he were -thinking even, so imperturbably he watched the smoke from his pipe -curl up into the blue and tranquil air. Yet, just as he had been the -interpreter of Garth’s unrest not long ago, he was the interpreter of -spring just now. Like some primeval dweller in the green forests of a -younger world, Billy the Fool looked out at nature, and watched the -seasons pass him, and knew that weather and fresh air were relatives -of his. They pitied him in Garth, as having no kin; but Billy, had -he found words at any time in which to speak of it, could have told -them, with that sudden, easy laugh of his, that he had a mother and -sister-folk and brothers. - -“Might as well be wending down-street way,” he said at last, shaking -himself as he stood upright and knocking out the ashes from his pipe. -“Terrible lad to smoke is Billy, and I feel the need of another -pipeful, as a chap might say. Will go and sit on the seat, under the -old elm tree, and happen a body’s body might come along and offer me a -fill.” - -The big tree in the roadway, fronting the inn to which it gave its -name, was browning fast, in token of green leaves to come. The wide -circle of the street here, where three roads met, was shimmering in the -sunshine as if new-washed and wholesome. - -“Terrible fond of a seat is this plump lad,” murmured Billy, sinking -carefully into the oaken bench that circled the great elm. - -He sat there, empty pipe in mouth, and he watched young April glow upon -the inn-front and the further hills behind. Great faith had Billy, and -therefore great tranquillity; and, though he hungered for another pipe, -he sat beneath the elm tree, as if tobacco fell, as dew falls, from the -skies of eventide. - -As he waited, noting lazily for the twentieth time that the wagtails -had returned to Garth and were dusting themselves in the roadway, -Reuben Gaunt came down the street. The natural saw him--scented him -rather, so it seemed--a hundred yards away; and he shifted the empty -pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, and gripped it with his -teeth. - -“Hallo, Billy, give you good day!” said Gaunt, as he came nearer. It -was Reuben’s way at all times to conciliate a fool, if he were strong -and liable to play Fool’s-Day jests with a man by dropping him into a -nettle-bed. “Give you good day, Billy. An empty pipe, eh? Well, I’ve a -full pouch at your service.” - -Billy yearned for another fill and another borrowed match wherewith to -light it; and they thought him weak of will in Garth, but now he looked -over and beyond the tempter. - -“Thank ye, no. I’ve smoked enough for a daft boy’s head-piece to -withstand that same,” he said, with the courtesy which seldom failed -him. “I be looking at the springtime gathering over Garth, Mr. Gaunt, -and I do seem, as a witless chap might say, to have scant thought for -baccy.” - -“But a right good brew of ale?” suggested Gaunt, nodding at the grey -and newly pointed front of the Elm Tree Inn. Like a child, Reuben was -always most eager to have his way when he was thwarted. “A right good -brew of ale, Billy? You like it, so they say, and have a head to stand -it, too.” - -A second and an equal temptation came to Billy the Fool. He was silent -for awhile, and turned the matter round about in that queer mind of his. - -“Thank ye, no, Mr. Gaunt,” he said at last, with desperate sobriety. -“I’m busy as can be with thinking o’ Miss Good Intent. She wouldn’t -like to see either of us drinking ale at this hour of a spring morning.” - -“Give you good day again, Billy,” said Gaunt, his little sense of -humour leaving him. - -“Ay, glad to give ye good day,” answered Billy, and watched Gaunt -follow the line of the grey street. - -Billy sat on beneath the elm tree and hoped for better things than -Reuben Gaunt could ever bring him. Yet he looked wistfully from time to -time, first at the inn-front, then at his pipe. - -“They’re heartsome matters, now, are a half-pint of beer and a pipe o’ -baccy. Ye’d own to yourself, Billy--now, wouldn’t ye?--that they were -heartsome matters,” he murmured. - -Reuben Gaunt, meanwhile, had turned up the lane that led to Good -Intent. He knew that John Hirst would be at Shepston market, and was -sure therefore of his welcome at the farm. He did not get as far as -the house, however, for Priscilla was standing in the home-croft as he -came through the stile. From sheer frolic she had donned a sun-bonnet, -pretending that this April sunshine was overwarm to bear uncovered. The -bonnet was pink, and her simple gown was lavender-blue, and she looked, -to Gaunt’s eyes, the trimmest and the bonniest maid that he had seen in -all his travels. - -She was feeding a noisy multitude of hens and turkeys, and it was -pleasant to see how carefully the bigger birds refrained from stealing -from the fowls--nay, left the tit-bits to them often, and showed -altogether the behaviour of a big, good-tempered dog towards a small -and fussy one. - -It was the turkey-cock that first warned Priscilla of Gaunt’s approach. -The “prideful devil,” as Billy the Fool had called him, was proving -his right to the title in good earnest. His tail was spread, his -wattle grew and grew until the head of him was crimson as a wild-rose -berry when autumn’s sunshine lights the hedgerows. He made towards -Gaunt, moreover, with little steps that in their fretfulness and -self-importance suggested comedy. - -Priscilla turned to learn the reason of this outbreak, and her eyes -met Reuben’s. A delicate flush and a look of pleasure in the girl’s -candid face was Gaunt’s welcome--a greeting which John Hirst would have -understood had he been there. - -“Good day,” she said sedately, and turned to feed her birds again. - -Gaunt laughed bitterly. - -“Do you see the turkey-cock’s welcome, Cilla? All the male folk of -Garth seem out of humour with me somehow.” - -It was another sign of the new days which Reuben had ushered into -Garth--one of those signs which are no bigger than a cloud the size -of a man’s hand--that Priscilla of the Good Intent did not resent the -shortened name which few but her father had been privileged to use till -now. - -“You are out of heart with life,” she said, scattering the last of the -food abroad and turning to meet his glance again. - -“Nay, life’s out of heart with me, Cilla. They seem to think I’m lying, -these Garth folk, when I tell them I’d be glad to be here again among -the old home-fields, if only they would let me.” - -The man was sincere. It was a dangerous gift of his, this habit of -speaking what was truth for the moment, though it had no quality of -strength and purpose behind it. - -It was a dangerous gift of his, too, that women were compelled, when -near him, to feel an odd, protective instinct. Peggy Mathewson had felt -the motherhood of life rise up and cloud her judgment as she walked -with Reuben a week ago through the sunlit fields; and now Priscilla of -the Good Intent felt pity’s strength awake. - -“’Tis a bad habit,” she said, moving a little closer to him, “this -being out of heart with life, Reuben”--forgetting that she had vowed -to call him Mr. Gaunt perpetually. “There’s enough and to spare of -gladness, and we must just search for it when times fare ill. Shame -on you, to go whimpering like a child when spring is flooding all the -countryside!” - -She was not thinking for the moment of those fairy seas and lands which -Gaunt had painted for her. In this quiet field, with the turkeys and -the fowls about her, she was answering the prime instinct of all human -life--to better a sad man’s outlook on the world by spoken word, and, -if need were, by that touch of hand on hand which she had disdained. - -“Cilla,” said Gaunt, his face a man’s at last, because for his little -moment he had gripped hold of love. “Cilla, you’re the sunlight and the -joy of life to me. Have you never thought of wedlock?” - -The girl withdrew and put a hand to her skirt of lavender-blue as if by -instinct, and looked at the distant hills. - -“I seldom think of it,” she answered crisply. “The spring and the needs -of the feathered flock are enough for me.” - -“Are they, Cilla? What of the beyond lands--or was I dreaming when you -said you’d like to see them?” - -Priscilla only smiled with the dainty aloofness which angered Reuben -and enticed him. - -“’Tis April,” she said, “and I’m entitled to my whimsies, like the -weather. Besides, I met Billy the Fool in the lane yestreen, and he was -showing other pictures to me. Nay, do not frown, Reuben,” she broke -off, not guessing that Billy’s name was unwelcome to the other on -more counts than one. “He knows the hedgerows and the fields so well, -and he showed me things as old as the hills--things new and wonderful -each spring--things that come to you again each year, Reuben, with a -surprise that seems each year to grow fresher and more eager.” - -“And what did he show you, Cilla?” asked the other jealously, turning -to cry “_Gobble-di-gobble-di-gobble_” to the turkey-cock, and provoking -a hot answer. - -“The first wild-strawberry bloom, the first throstle’s nest, the -first April look of Sharprise Hill when the sun slants on it through -the clouds that mean no harm. Your foreign lands grow misty, Reuben, -somehow, and I love Garth village once again. Billy had ever that -trick--to make you wise in spite of yourself.” - -Reuben paced up and down in a restless way he had; then he stopped and -looked at Priscilla of the Good Intent, and in his eyes there was the -mischief of a partial truth. - -“Those beyond-places will haunt you, Cilla, all the same, and I could -take you to them.” - -The girl was silent for awhile, and then she drew her lavender-blue -skirt more closely round her. - -“Ay, so you could; but, Reuben, I prefer to stay at Garth with father. -I’ve enough to do in a day, and am happy in it. Hark, ye! The throstle -yonder is singing his throat dry. Did ye ever hear sweeter music, -Reuben?” - -On the bench that fronted Elm Tree Inn sat Billy the Fool meanwhile. -He had waited, with his inimitable faith and patience, for a fill of -tobacco and a half-pint of ale to drop from the skies; and his faith -had been fulfilled, for down the road from his forge came David the -Smith. - -“Looking sulky-like,” said David, laying his bag of tools beside his -crony and sitting near to him. - -“Nay, not I. I never look sulky, David. ’Tis not good for this right -wholesome world to look sulky,” said Billy. “I was thinking, David, and -thinking makes a daft-witted chap have fearsome aches and pains in his -inward parts, as a daft-witted chap might say.” - -David gave out his big, rolling laugh as he clapped Billy on the back. - -“Guess what’s a-going wrong with thee, laddikins. Empty pipe, I see.” - -“Ay. And I’m empty o’ matches too,” said Billy, his face like Sharprise -Hill with the April look on it. - -“Empty in the low-ward parts, moreover,” he added, after he had filled -his rakish pipe and lit it. “I’m terrible in need of a sup o’ summat, -David. Reuben Gaunt came by this way awhile since and offered me what -ye might call body-warmth, and I couldn’t seem to stomach it--nay, I -couldn’t, David, not how he’d tried to pour it down my windpipe.” - -“Gaunt been down to the village to-day?” snapped David. “Pretends to -be a farmer, yet doesn’t go on farmward shanks to Shepston market come -Thursday every week.” - -“No, he wouldn’t,” said the other slowly, as he pulled eagerly at his -pipe. “Mister Reuben Gaunt is not by way of farming, as I look on and -see ye busy folk a-farming, like. Does it for play, like Billy.” - -David rarely lost his temper, and still more rarely did he seek -expression for his feelings in strong language; but now he was silent -for a moment, thinking of his love for Priscilla, fearing Gaunt’s love -of her; and a sudden cry escaped him. - -“Damn Reuben Gaunt, and the first day he set eyes on Garth again!” he -said. - -“Shouldn’t swear, David,” put in the other slyly. “Parson do say, -whenever he stoops to talk to the likes o’ me, that folk who swear -go to a fearful dry and overwarm spot. He’s wiser than ye or me, is -parson, David, and we should listen to him, we.” - -“Then he should tell us,” responded David grimly, “why deep-set -troubles come to a man, Billy, without his earning them, and why a man -must swear at times, or else do something worse.” - -“Ay, ’tis a terrible makeshift sort of a world--terrible makeshift, -David; but yet, in a manner of speaking and as a body might say, ye -understand, it suits Billy right well. There’s always fields and -hedgerows, eh?” - -It was not till late, as Billy and he moved up the street toward his -forge, that a strange fancy came to David Blake. He remembered, as a -lad, the stir and gossip there had been in Garth nigh twenty years ago. -A company of strolling players had come to Garth, had played there to -wondering rustics in the barn at the end of the village, and had gone -their way--all save one, who stayed behind and found her way, late on -a mirk and windy night, as far as Marshlands. She was found dead at -the gate of the homestead on the morrow, and a four-year-old child was -crying at her side. None ever knew the rights of the tale; but old -Gaunt of Marshlands was known as the wildest roysterer in the dale, -and, though some disbelieved the story that the woman had come to him -for help and that he had deliberately turned her back, to die in the -rain and cold, yet all believed that Gaunt was father to the child. - -The child was Billy the Fool, adopted and well cared for by all -Garth--a village bairn, the plaything and the property of all kindly -folk. And Reuben Gaunt was the acknowledged son and heir to Marshlands. - -“’Tis odd,” muttered David often and often, as he worked at the anvil -and glanced at Billy. For he remembered the consistent hatred shown by -the natural toward Reuben Gaunt. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -Ghyll Farm was in the parish of Garth, but it lay so high on the -moor-edge, and so far away from the sheltered village, that it was -reckoned out of bounds. Moreover, Widow Mathewson, who lived there with -her daughter Peggy, was accounted something of a heathen even in the -charitable judgment of Garth folk. - -These two, mother and daughter, lived alone at Ghyll, doing their own -farm work--even to scything of the one small meadow when haytime came. -They went never at all to church or chapel; they were distant in their -greetings when they chanced at rare intervals to meet their neighbours; -they were pagan, self-reliant and alone, and it was said that Peggy was -wild as the widow, and never a stiver to choose between them. - -Widow Mathewson was at her door this morning, watching the lambs play -antics with their mothers in the fields below. Big-boned she was, and -tall, and her face wore that lined, hard look of weather which women -rarely show. - -She ceased to watch the lambs by and by, and her eyes wandered to the -track that led to Garth--the track that glistened like a living thing -beneath the April sun. Far down the slope of the path a slight, dark -speck appeared, growing each moment till it showed itself as a man’s -figure. The man was walking fast, steep as the field-track was, and -Widow Mathewson laughed quietly when he came near enough to show the -eagerness of his every movement. - -She left the doorway, and went and rested her arms on the rail that -guarded the potato-patch from the fields. And she waited, with a look -on her face such as David Blake had worn, three days ago, when he swore -outright in the presence of daft-witted Billy. - -The man was so full of his own thoughts that he did not see Widow -Mathewson until the path had brought him to within a score of yards of -her garden railing; and then, for shame’s sake, he had to come forward -with a jauntiness that was obviously ill-assumed. - -“I’m here to give you good day,” he said. “After five years, ’tis only -neighbourly to call.” - -“You’re here to see Peggy, and know it, Reuben Gaunt. We didn’t part -such friends five years since that you need come trying to smooth me -down with lies.” - -Gaunt reddened, and flicked a hazel-switch uneasily against his -riding-breeches. - -“Lies go terrible smooth into a woman’s ear when she loves ye,” went on -the other; “but they’re puffs o’ wind when she loathes the sight of a -man.” - -“I find a deal of pleasant home-coming welcomes,” said Gaunt, stung -into bitterness. - -“We’re not pleasant, ye see. Have to meet the weather, we, and rear the -crops. You may be Mr. Reuben Gaunt of Marshlands, or you may be son -to the devil that fathered ye--’tis all one to me. I like a man, or I -don’t, and I never set eyes on one I liked less than ye.” - -“I’ll be saying good morning, then,” said Reuben, with an uneasy laugh. - -“Nay, but ye won’t--not just yet awhile. Ye came here to daften my lass -Peggy again, so ye thought. Well, ye’re here, as it chances, to listen -to sense from Peggy’s mother. It runs in our family, Reuben Gaunt, for -the women to love undersized and weakly men. We’re overstrong, maybe, -and must have some fretful babby or other to dandle, same as big men -like to do. Peggy’s father was just such a one as you in his time, and -I loved him. Ay, I cried when I buried him, and I cry still o’ nights -sometimes when I wake and find an empty bed. Yet I looked down on him -in life, Reuben Gaunt, as I look down on you. Queer oddments go to make -up a woman.” - -“That’s true, mother,” came Peggy’s low, rich voice. She had returned -from a haphazard scramble on the moor, and had listened to half the -talk with a simplicity that came of pagan habits. - -“Go within doors, Peggy!” snapped her mother, turning sharply. “D’ye -want to catch the plague, or what, that ye go breathing the same air as -Reuben Gaunt?” - -But Peggy did not move. Perhaps the closest bond between these two, -strong mother and strong daughter, was the knowledge that they feared -each other not at all. - -“We’re made up of oddments, ye and me, mother. Ay, ’tis a good word, -that. I happen to love Reuben Gaunt, as you loved father once--and ye’d -better just leave us to it.” - -Widow Mathewson smiled on them both--a smile that was bitter in its -avowal of defeat, in its hapless faith that what would be, would be, -and that the would-be must be bad. - -“Sorrow along, Peggy,” she said. “If ye choose to strew your way with -tears, ’tis not I that ought to blame you. Good night, Reuben Gaunt.” - -The quiet dignity of her farewell troubled Gaunt more than all her -previous outspokenness had done. He felt like a country clown in the -presence of a lady, and he hated Widow Mathewson. - -“Ah, well, now, mother’s hard on ye, and always was,” said Peggy, -touching the man’s arm with a certain fierce tenderness. - -He answered nothing, and Peggy went through the wicket, and moved -slowly across the field, knowing that he would follow. - -“You seem to think the same, from what you said just now,” he muttered, -falling into step with her. He was minded to return in dudgeon by the -path which had brought him up to Ghyll, but the girl’s pliable, trim -look disarmed him. - -“I said that I loved you, Reuben Gaunt. Whether I trust ye or not and -am a fool for all my pains to love where I can’t place trust, is not -for me to ask. Oh, pity of me!” Her shoulders opened to the wind, and -she laughed at herself and him. “To have a mind to think with, Reuben, -and to live near to the fresh air and the wind, and yet to let your -heart go loving, spite of all. I’ve trained a few dogs in my time, -Reuben. Wish I could give myself some wholesome thrashings, and be quit -of you for good and all!” - -Gaunt was no fool, just as he was no wise man. It seemed the wind -had blown from the four quarters at one time when he was born into a -usually steady world. He was no fool; and, though he smarted still from -Widow Mathewson’s contempt, he was quick enough to see that Peggy had -some special grievance of her own. - -“What’s amiss, lass?” he asked. - -“This much is amiss--that now and then I find myself in Garth, and now -and then I hear gossip of Miss Good Intent. She’s bonnie and slim to -look at, I own, and worth perhaps a score or two of you, Reuben; but -I’m not concerned with what she is or what she’s not--I’ve no mind to -share you with another.” - -“What are they saying, then, in Garth?” He stooped to pluck an early -daisy, and Peggy’s mouth twitched with a sort of scornful humour. -Reuben Gaunt was not wont to take a tender interest in wild flowers. - -“They are saying,” she went on, “that you’re seen over-often with -Priscilla Hirst; they say that you’ve a look on your face, when with -her, that they remember from old days. _I_ remember it, for that -matter.” - -They had come to the little wood where water ran between the budding -hazels, where catkins yielded to the fluttering wind. Reuben stopped, -and put an arm about her waist, and the remembered look was in his eyes. - -“Look ye, lass, and see if I am true or not,” he said. - -Peggy laughed openly--it was her protest against this renewed, yet long -discarded, half-belief in him. “Miss Good Intent has said no to you, -eh?” she murmured, with that bewildering frankness which attached to -her mother and herself. “Shame to come begging crumbs, when you wanted -something better.” - -She knew by his eyes that her guess was a true one, that he had come, -inconstant as the wind, to find one playground when another was denied -him. He was the same Reuben Gaunt who five years since had all but -broken her courage and her heart. And, because he was the same, she -felt the old love return, and let her reason go. - -“Mother is vastly right at times, Reuben,” she said. “’Tis in our -family to love a man o’er keenly, and to listen to his lies, and to go -on caring all the more. There’s one thing puzzles me, all the same.” - -He waited, perplexed as he often was by women’s moods, though by this -time he ought to have known their every turn. - -“Nay, only this, Reuben”--there was pathos in the quietness of the -deep, strong voice--“I was young and unused to heartache when I found -it first. I’m five years older, lad, and I’ve suffered and come -through it. Seems it has taught me little. Seems I might as well be -weaker than ye, instead of stronger. ’Tis a bit of a muddle, Reuben, -this life o’ wind and sun and turmoil.” - -David the Smith, meanwhile, was walking up the lane to Good Intent. He -did not need to watch Yeoman Hirst well out of Garth before he stole -into the fold, for he was welcome there at all times. - -A desperate business David had on hand. He had thought much of -Priscilla of the Good Intent during these last days; and this meant -only that he had halted more often in his work of smithying or what not -to wonder how the lass would best be made happy. - -It was while he was sharpening a bill-hook on the grindstone in his -smithy-yard that David had got his adventure well in hand. - -“Never thought of that before,” he said, running his thumb along the -blade. “I’m a rum chap enough, God knows; but, if it comes to a tussle -’twixt me and Reuben Gaunt--well, I’m stronger in the thews than he, -and maybe I’m what ye call steadier-like.” - -So David, with plain faith in plain strength of stronger thews and -steadier morals, laid down the bill-hook, and bade his faithful -comrade, Billy, to sleep on guard; and he strode along the quiet street -of Garth, and turned into the lane that led to Good Intent. - -He found Priscilla in the kitchen, her arms bared above her elbows. -She was making a pigeon pie for Farmer Hirst, and David thought, as he -saw her in the sunlight, that no man need ask for a bonnier sight than -Garth could give him. - -“I’ve something to say to ye, Priscilla,” was his greeting. - -David could never do any business save in his own way. If he were -driving a stake into the ground, he took up his mallet and hit it -plumb; if he were asked to shoe a horse, he did not stay for talk, but -brought the nag to reason soon as he could and clapped the shoe on -it. So now he proposed, in great simplicity, to deal with this more -desperate business. - -“Something to say?” laughed Cilla of the Good Intent. “’Tis not often -you have that, David.” - -He did not heed. If he had spoken out like this at that gloaming tide -when Priscilla had first waited for him to speak, when Gaunt had -shadowed the mistal-door, it might have been better, or worse, for -David; but now it was too late. “The time of day was behind him,” as -they say in Garth, but he did not heed. - -“Yes, I’ve something to say,” he went on doggedly. “When you were -a lile slip of a lass, and when you were maiden-grown and proud, -Priscilla, I loved you just the same. I’m busy to-day, Cilla, but I -broke off to ask if you would wed me. Could aught be plainer, now?” - -The girl rested her hands on the table, and looked at David Blake. She -was silent, for surprise had given way to deeper feelings. It had been -easy to disdain Reuben Gaunt, when he came wooing at a few weeks’ end; -but David’s love was a thing to be reckoned with, a big, protecting -force which had been about her for so long that it seemed fixed and -righteous as Sharprise Hill--a part of this gracious world of Garth, a -part of the comeliness and peace which brooded over its grey old fells, -its grey and fragrant street. - -Priscilla of the Good Intent had little in common with Peggy Mathewson; -but they were alike in this, that each looked out at life with candour -and with little coquetry. - -Cilla glanced with troubled eyes at David--glanced wistfully and -anxiously. - -“It cannot be, David; yet, if you asked me why, I could not tell you. -I know you love me. I know that Garth would seem lone and empty if you -were not in it. What ails me, David? Tell me, and I’ll right it if I -can.” - -But David the Smith knew nothing of such matters. He had made his last -effort--a hard one--and looked for a plain answer, yes or no. Even yet, -had he known how to come nearer to the girl, instead of standing, very -big and very bashful as he swung from one foot to the other--even yet -he might have scattered those fantastic mists which Reuben Gaunt had -woven about Priscilla’s life. - -“There’s no two ways, Priscilla,” he said slowly. “Either ye’ll have -me and make life a different matter; or ye won’t, and I’ll trust ye to -find a likelier mate.” - -“I’m not for mating--father has need of me--oh, David, David, I’m so -fond of you, so loth to hurt you. Cannot you understand? I’m fond of -you, but ’tis not just love--’tis not just love, David!” - -Her voice was trembling, and she fingered restlessly the loose scraps -of dough that littered the baking-board. - -David stood motionless. The boy’s look, that is in every lover’s face, -was gone. Not till now--now, when he had greatly dared and greatly -lost--did he fully know what stake he had in Cilla’s love; and his face -was hard and stern. - -“You were kind to hear me out, little lass,” he said at last. “Ay, ye -were always kind and comely. And I’ve lost ye. Perhaps I may go on -keeping watch and ward about ye, as I always did? ’Tis little I can do -in that way, but I’ve always liked to think I was watch-dog, like, ever -since as a child ye _would_ loiter round about the pool in Eller Beck, -and I feared ye’d tumble in.” - -“Ah, hush, David! You’ve been too good, and I am not strong enough for -Garth. I dream too many dreams”--with a pitiful attempt to smile--“and -I’ve lost the way of the love I might have had for you.” - -“So you’re at Good Intent, David--and welcome!” shouted Yeoman Hirst, -tramping in from the fields across the threshold of the sunlit doorway. - -It was a jest in Garth that John Hirst, though no way deaf himself, -fancied all other folk were so. - -Priscilla dropped her eyes and took up the rolling-pin again. - -“Thank ye,” said David, with a quietness that contrasted oddly with the -other’s roar. “Ay, I’m here passing the time of day with Priscilla. I -must be off by that token, for there’s work crying out for me at the -forge yonder.” - -“Always was, so long as I remember. Outrageous man to be doing -somewhat, is David--fair outrageous. Tuts! Ye’ll stay for a bite and -sup with us? Cilla has a pigeon pie in the making, I see. Always said, -I, that a pigeon pie served two good usages--keeps a lile lass out of -mischief while she’s making it, and keeps her men-folk strong to work -for her after they have eaten it.” - -David shook his head. “I’ve too much on hand, and thank ye, farmer. -Will come another day, if ye’re so good as to think of naming it again. -Good day, Priscilla.” - -With a nod to them both he was off, and John Hirst chuckled weightily. -“Fair gluttonous for labour, eh, Cilla?” he said. “David would do -better if he took more while-times o’ rest, say I.” - -Priscilla was busier with her task than the time of day demanded; and -her father, getting no answer, came round to her side of the table, and -pinched her cheek, and watched the dough of the pie-crust as she rolled -it into shape--watched with the eye of faith, and trusted it would be -brown and wholesome by half-past twelve o’clock, or thereby. - -“The lile lass is busy, too,” he laughed, in what was meant to be a -gentle tone of raillery. “Busy with your hands, Cilla--and busy awhile -since with your eyes, I reckon, when David came a-courting.” - -She glanced up sharply, and again the farmer laughed, as if a half-gale -had got into his throat. “Nay, I overheard nothing, Cilla,” he said. -“I only looked at David’s face, and I gathered ye’d said no. Second -thoughts are best, lile lass, second thoughts are best. Never saw a -properer man than David myself, and I’m reckoned a judge of cattle.” - -“Can you measure human-folk by the ways of the kine, father?” she said, -fitting the dough to the edge of the pie-bowl. - -“Mostly--ay, mostly, Cilla. Chips of the old gnarled tree o’ life, -are all us living folk, two legged or four. Choose a likely lad, -Cilla--and, for the Lord’s sake, get that pie into the oven. Have been -up the fields since seven of the clock, and hunger’s timepiece says -’tis dinner-hour, or ought to be.” - -John Hirst went out again, for he had a virile wisdom and a knowledge -of the time to leave a woman when he had spoken truth to her. - -David the Smith, meanwhile, had gone down the lane. He could never -wed Priscilla now--for Yea and Nay seemed always absolute to him--but -at least he had concealed his heart-sickness from Yeoman Hirst. So do -the younger men think always, not understanding that with age there -comes a clearer understanding of the passions which greybeards view as -onlookers. - -David was of the men who snatch their courage from the thick of -despair, ride out with it, and count it the more precious because it -is riddled through and through, like a banner well baptized by fire. So -he held his head high, and swung staunchly down the lane. - -Three usual folk he met as he came into Garth Street and crossed to his -smithy. They noted nothing out of the common in his cheery greeting; -but Billy, rousing himself from sleep beside the smithy fire, knew by -instinct what his comrade’s humour was. - -“You’re terrible gloomy, David the Smith,” he said, as he stretched -his idle shoulders. “What’s amiss with us all, now spring’s come into -Garth?” - -“Life,” snapped David, and picked up his tools, abandoned for -Priscilla’s sake. “Just life, Fool Billy, and I’d no real quarrel with -life, that I know of, before to-day.” - -“Comes of being wise,” said the other tranquilly. “Try being a Fool -Billy--just try it, David, and lie in a hedge-bottom when ’tis -seasonable, and hear the chirrup o’ the throstle. Begins to try his -whistle, does throstle-boy, before the dawn comes rightly in.” - -David fingered his tools. They steadied him at all times, and his -patient love for them was returned in full, at this moment of his -direst sorrow. He felt his heart grow lighter--less heavy, rather--as -he handled them. - -“Humming a tune, are you?” said Billy presently, with an approving -nod. “Terrible fool’s trick, that, and comforting. Shows ye’re getting -upsides wi’ yourself, as a body might say.” - -“Getting upsides with myself?” growled David the Smith. “Have got to -do, or what’s the use o’ life?” - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -Rumour was not less busy in Garth than elsewhere where folk congregate, -and Reuben Gaunt gave food for it these days. His rules of conduct, -or the lack of them, were a constant puzzle; his wish to play the -gentleman, when by rights he should have been a yeoman, and proud of -the same, perplexed them; moreover, he could be brave and generous on -occasion, and this fitted ill with their notions of a scamp. - -Ne’er-do-wells, pure and simple, they could understand. There were two -or three of the breed in Garth, but these consistently were idle at the -best, and in dire mischief at the worst. - -Gaunt was a puzzle to them, and therefore a whetstone for their -tongues. Then, too, he was fond of horses, and master of them; fond of -dogs, and knowledgeable as regards their ways; and these were qualities -that Garth village liked to see in any man. - -Just now, indeed, it was his love of horseflesh that was talked of most -in Garth. They said that his patrimony was rich, as a farming yeoman -counted riches, but not enough to let him hand over the direction of -his lands to a bailiff--as he had already done--while he himself rode -idly up and down the countryside, or followed race-meetings. - -“Galloping to the devil, eh, as many a lad has done before him,” one -would say to the other. - -“Ay. Seems like as a horse is the best thing God ever made--barring a -good human-chap at his best,” the other would answer; “yet a horse is -the devil and all when ye get a man o’er-fond of him.” - -Another whisper was abroad in Garth, one remote altogether from -bankruptcy or horseflesh. They said that Priscilla of the Good Intent -was not herself of late, that Reuben Gaunt was seen too often in her -company. - -“Too good for the likes of you--eh, Silas Faweather?” one would say. - -“Aye, a mile and a half too good; but what’s to come has got to come, -and lasses are mostly fools i’ the springtime of their life. Not just -such fools, I take it, come later times, when the fairies’ pranks are -over with, and bairns arrive, like, and a sackless husband still runs -daft-wit, following what he calls his pleasure.” - -Cilla of the Good Intent knew her own mind as little, this mid April -time, as Gaunt himself. The man’s plausible, deft homage when he met -her; his seeming forgetfulness of the day when he had wanted her to -marry him, and she had answered with a laugh; his low, quiet voice as -he talked of glamoured countries far away--all these were fast making -Reuben the centre of her thoughts. She missed him if he failed to come, -though she might draw aloof and set a barrier between them when he did -approach her. - -Yet David the Smith was about Garth Street each day, and his nearness, -though she did not guess as much, steadied Priscilla. Beneath all else -there was an assured and pleasant liking for David, a dependence on his -judgment, a looking-out for him, as if her eyes needed shading against -the glare of life, when troubles came too thickly on her. For this -reason she seemed nowadays to play with Reuben Gaunt, though she was -wondering only what her own heart had to say to her. - -News seldom travelled from Ghyll Farm to Garth. The house lay so far -up on the border of the moor, and Widow Mathewson had discouraged -intercourse so long, that you might have travelled through the village, -and asked by the way for news of those at Ghyll, and yet have learned -no tidings at the end of all. Had the widow been ill, or Peggy dying, -days might well have passed before they knew in Garth what had chanced -at the lone and churlish farmstead. So they guessed nothing nowadays -of Reuben’s new infatuation for Peggy Mathewson; had they guessed -it, Cilla of the Good Intent would have had a whisper, kindly and -wholesome, dropped into her ear. - -She heard no rumour, would have disdained rumour had she heard it. -Clean of thought and heart, Priscilla wondered if she loved Reuben -Gaunt just well enough to marry him. She never questioned his good -faith. It was hers to say no or yes--spoiled little queen of the little -village as she was--and she asked herself, over and over again, with -Puritan self-question, if this light of the glamoured lands were not a -will-o’-the-wisp such as danced across the upland marshes. When she saw -David, and spoke with him, it was sure that marshlights flickered about -her fancied love for Gaunt. Then Reuben would come, soft of speech and -pliable, and David would seem a big and country lad upon the sudden. - -Spring, meanwhile, flushed into splendour round about the gardens -of Garth Street, and in the woods, and along the length of mossy -lane-banks. A foam of green-stuff feathered the larches and the rowans, -the dog-rose bushes and the blackthorns. The low, sequestered dingle -hiding Eller Beck was banked so thick with primroses on either side -that it seemed a thousand golden eyes looked up, winking the dew away, -when farm-folk went through the dene at blithe of the dawning-time. - -The weather held, with playful showers that were like a child’s tears, -gusty and soon over. Seldom in the memory of Garth had the pomp and -circumstance of the young summer proceeded with so few mischances. -There had been no sudden snow to hinder the lambs new-dropped about the -pastures; there had been no frost o’ nights; and the throstles sang -their clarion note as if no winter’s wind had ever piped a harsher tune -about the grey fell-village. - -At eight of one of these spring mornings--the wind light from the -south, and the sun playing bo-peep with fleecy clouds--Priscilla of the -Good Intent stood waiting under the elm tree which long ago had given -its name to the village inn. She had been fitful lately in her temper, -and Yeoman Hirst, thinking a day’s holiday would be “good for the lile -lass,” had asked her to carry out some farming business for him at -Keta’s Well, high up the valley. - -So Cilla waited, a trim and slender figure, near the old elm tree. -The public vehicle by which the Dales folk went from Shepston to -Keta’s Well--a vehicle half coach, half omnibus--halted here to take -up passengers. The coach was overdue, as it happened, and while she -waited, Priscilla saw Reuben Gaunt ride down the street. - -Reuben saw her, too, but pretended that his mare was fidgeting upon -the rein. He pulled her sharply back at the entry to the stable-yard, -plucked her forward again, and disappeared. - -“He does not see me,” murmured Priscilla of the Good Intent. “Light to -come and light to go, is Reuben Gaunt, they say--but surely--” - -Gaunt had found the ostler in the inn-yard. “Dick,” he said, “has the -coach gone by?” - -“Not yet, sir. She’s late this morning, like, and that’s rare for Will -the Driver.” - -“Put the nag in the stable, Dick, and look well after her. I had -forgotten that the coach went up this hour to Keta’s Well. Better drive -than ride, eh, when there’s a long way to travel?” - -“Well, that’s true. Better be carried than suit your knee-grip to a -horse’s whimsies,” laughed the other, turning his straw from the left -to the right side of his mouth. - -Reuben strolled out into the highway. Not slow at any time, he had -guessed, seeing Priscilla standing under the old elm with a basket in -her hands, that she was waiting for the coach; and, though awhile since -he had been sure that he meant to ride to a pigeon-match three miles -away, he was certain now that he must go to Keta’s Well. - -“Good day, Priscilla,” he said, with quiet surprise. - -“Good day,” she answered, the wild-rose coming to her cheeks. “You did -not see me, Mr. Gaunt, when you rode into the inn-yard.” - -The ready lie came to Reuben’s tongue. Like water slipping down -between the ferny streamways of the hills, he sought only the quiet -pools--sought them at any hazard of the rocks that met his course. - -“I feared I had lost the coach, Priscilla, and was riding hard to catch -it.” - -The wild-rose crimsoned into June in Cilla’s face. “Are you going, too, -to Keta’s Well?” she asked. - -“I’ve business there. And you?” - -“I’ve business, too. Father is busy in the fields, and has asked me to -do some bargaining for him up yonder.” - -“You’re too bonnie and slim-to-see for bargaining, Cilla,” said Reuben. - -“Am I?” she laughed, with frank disdain of flattery. “I can bargain -well, Mr. Gaunt, when needs must. Ask father.” - -The irony of life rose up and laughed at her, in the midst of this -hearty springtime weather. If ever she had needed a hard heart and a -clear knowledge of what barter meant, she needed them now. She had a -great gift to bestow, or to withhold--the gift which lies in the hand -of every woman once in a lifetime--and yet the spring, and Gaunt’s -whimsical, gay air, bewildered all her judgment. - -“You always flout me nowadays, Cilla,” he said. - -Gaunt was strangely like the dogs he loved so well. Careless of -the past, careless of the future, he longed always for the instant -pleasure, and, if he were thwarted, assumed a helpless face of -innocence. It seemed that the sense of guilt was left out of him at -birth; thwartings by the way surprised him, when another man would have -admitted that he got no more than his deserts. - -Priscilla of the Good Intent, also, was strangely like herself this -morning. She remembered that her father, and all the men-folk of Garth, -were hard on Reuben. She looked at his devil-may-care and pleading -face, and decided impulsively that they were wrong. - -“I do not flout you willingly,” she answered, her candid eyes looking -straight into Reuben’s own. “They are not fair to you in Garth here, -and I am sorry.” - -Across their talk came the patter of horse-hoofs, and the coach swung -merrily round the corner and stopped with a flourish at the inn-door. - -“Good morning, Miss Priscilla!” said Will the Driver, lifting his -whip with a brave salute. Cilla of the Good Intent was his favourite -passenger, and he had seen her, with the quick eye of friendship, as -soon as he had turned the corner. - -He got down to help the ostler with the buckets; for his team of three -were mettled horses, and Garth was the baiting-stage on their journey -up to Keta’s Well, and Will would never admit that the business could -be rightly done unless he bore a hand in it himself. - -There were seats for eight at the top of the coach, but Reuben Gaunt, -though all were empty this morning, did not choose to sit beside the -driver. He handed Priscilla, by way of the yellow-painted wheel, into -the rearmost seat and clambered up beside her. - -“Not on horseback this morning, Mr. Gaunt?” said the driver, who had a -word for every one and knew each dalesman’s habits. - -“No, there’s good in changing, Will,” laughed the other, “if ’tis only -out of one coat into another. A fine spring morning, this, for sitting -on a seat instead of on the top of a horse’s temper.” - -“Ay, my cattle, too, are feeling young Spring come back into their -bones. Terrible wild to handle this morning, Mr. Gaunt. You’ll soon -be up at Keta’s Well, I fancy.” He gathered the reins into his hands, -looked round with a cheery nod to the knot of idlers gathered about the -inn, and was starting forward when Widow Lister ran crying down the -highroad. - -“Here, Will! Nay, lad, you surely wouldn’t have gone and left my bit of -a basket behind?” - -“How was I to know you were coming?” said Will, pulling up and -surveying the woman’s apple-red face--a face brimming over just now -with jollity. - -“Should’st have guessed,” she went on briskly. “And me a lone widow, -too--and to have run myself all out o’ breath at my age, just to catch -a young man who does naught for his living save sit on a seat and let -himself be carried.” - -A placid titter went up from the onlookers. - -“Right!” cried Will the Driver. “Hand up your basket, Widow! Where must -I set it down?” - -“There! Not to guess a simple matter like that! Ye’ve to leave it at -the first stile on your right after you’ve passed through Rakesgill. -Mrs. Fletcher it’s for, and she’s wiser than you were a minute since, -Will, for she knows it’s coming. Oh, and Will,” she added, her red -cheeks dimpling with roguery, “it goes from one poor body to another, -does this bit of a basket, and happen ye wouldn’t charge for it at -either end.” - -“Wouldn’t I?” said Will. “Want me to take it as my own private baggage, -eh?” - -“There’s only some roots of double-daisy in it, and a few plants of -auricula, and a little, round Garth cheese. Mrs. Fletcher’s fond, as -you might say, of flowers and cheese; ’tis all by way of a present to -another lone widow woman--and she my own sister.” - -“Some folk thrive on loneliness, ’twould seem,” laughed Will, putting -the basket under the seat. “All right, Widow! I’ll leave it on the -stile, and we’ll trust to Robin Goodfellow to pay.” - -He started forward, got his team into the straight, then turned round -to Cilla. “By your leave, Miss Priscilla, there’s some of your sex have -longish tongues. I’m proud of being to time, and here we’ve wasted five -whole minutes. No man likes bringing cattle home in a lather, but these -beauties will have to go.” - -“They’ll stand it, Will,” said Gaunt. “Never met a man myself who could -better get a horse into shape and keep it so.” - -Will the Driver showed what his team could do. Like a true dalesman, he -was proud of his own trade, and Gaunt had found a sure way to his ear. -Between the white and sunlit limestone walls they swung, and between -hedgerows where the bird-cherry showed its glossy leaves. Little, -tinkling streams flew by them; and, up above the roadway hedges or the -roadway walls, the clean, sweet fells raked forward to the blue and -fleecy sky. - -To Priscilla it was a journey into the outskirts of that Beyond which -tempted and enthralled her. The sunshine, the quick going of the coach, -the deft, quiet interest which her companion aroused--all helped to -round off this adventure into the heart of spring. They stopped at -Rakesgill, to set down the scanty mail and a few odd packages, and to -take up a passenger on the box seat. As at Garth, the villagers had met -to see the mail-coach in, and Cilla watched the group, and listened to -their banter, with a sense that the freshness of the growing year was -blowing round their old-time jests. - -Widow Fletcher was waiting at the stile--the first on their right hand -as they trotted out of Rakesgill--and it was plain, from her red, plump -cheeks and her cheery air, that she was own sister to Widow Lister of -Garth. - -“Nothing to pay?” she asked, as she took the basket into her hands. - -“No. Widows thrive well in these parts, and wear the luck of the -rowan-berry in their cheeks,” said Will, flicking his whip. - -“Comes of losing men-folk’s company, Will--though thank ye for the -basket.” - -“Men-folk are always wrong, ’twould seem, Widow Fletcher. Came of -listening to a woman in those far-off Bible-times.” - -“Ay, Adam blamed Eve, and Eve’s been blaming Adam ever since. So we’re -quits, Driver Will.” - -“Tongues are longer than time,” said Will, with a happy laugh. “I’ve -naught to do with Eve and Adam, Widow, but I have to be at Keta’s Well -come twelve o’clock.” - -“Like a man,” said the widow to herself, as she watched the coach go -swiftly in the van of the light, smooth April dust. “Like a man, to be -worsted by a lone widow’s tongue, and then to flick his horses up and -drive away.” - -The driver checked his team again, a mile further up the road, to take -another parcel from underneath the roomy driving-seat. This he laid on -the top of a gate that opened on a farm-track. - -“Only a ham for farmer Joyce, Miss Priscilla,” he said, with the trick -he had of laughing over his shoulder at passengers behind. “Seems he’s -not just hungry, yet, or he’d be here for it.” - -“Mr. Gaunt,” said Cilla, as they rattled forward, “it is odd that you -should be going to Keta’s Well to-day. I go so seldom, and you would be -riding, surely, if you were not lazy?” - -“You want to know my business there?” - -“No. Why should I need to know it? Perhaps you are going to buy another -horse.” - -“I’ll tell you my business on the way home, Cilla, because then I’ll -know whether it is speeding well or not.” - -Cilla’s eyes rested lightly on his, then danced away to the grey, far -hills. The girl was a madcap this morning, and deserved to be; for she -had many working days, but enjoyed few spendthrift days of holiday, -with a green world and warm spring winds about her. - -“As you will,” she answered. “For my part, I have father’s work to do.” - -With a flourish, as if he carried great personages--Will was never -so happy as when driving Cilla of the Good Intent--the coach drew up -at Keta’s Well. There was an inn on the left hand of the grey, wide -roadway, another on the right, and the two were so friendly, as it -chanced, that Will baited and took his dinner at either hostelry upon -alternate days. - -Priscilla took Gaunt’s hand daintily, and clambered down into the -roadway. - -“We say good-by here?” she murmured, with a shy flush. - -“Yes,” he answered, “until Will is ready to drive us home again.” - -“Yet ’tis only a good walk to Garth for one as strong as you.” - -“I am lazy to-day, Cilla, as you told me. You go on your business, I on -mine. Remember that the mail goes back at five o’clock.” - -The men all said it was a devil’s trick of Gaunt’s to know just when -to stay and when to leave; the women, most of them, found the trick -praiseworthy; and Reuben, had you asked him, would have laughed, like -the man-child he was, and have said that he deserved neither praise nor -blame, since he was as the good God had made him. At any rate, he had -judged wisely now in guessing that Priscilla would shrink from sharing -a meal with him. - -Priscilla of the Good Intent dined sparingly at the inn on the left -hand of the road, where the landlady mothered her always after a brisk, -impersonal fashion. Reuben dined at leisure in the right-hand inn, and -sauntered out a half-hour after Cilla--punctilious always, even in -the midst of a holiday, when business was to be done--had crossed the -street and walked up into the grey bridle-way that sought the fell-top -farms. - -When Gaunt came out at last, he wandered up the fields. He had found -business here at Keta’s Well, and his business was to think of -Priscilla and to long for her. He saw the rathe-ripe primroses shine -out at him from sheltered dingles, and he gathered a likely bunch. They -were cool and fragrant, and he thought again of Cilla. The larks sang -overhead, and the sad, wild curlews shrilled wide about the fields -their song of destiny. And now from a watered hollow, as he passed it, -a heron clattered noisily from among the trees; and again, as he looked -up some dancing streamway, a kingfisher would dart, with a flash of -blue that startled him, across the sunlight; and everywhere upon the -hills the sheep were bleating happily, calling the lambs to the udders. - -Few dalesmen could have withstood a day which seemed to hold, in the -hollow of the quiet sky’s arch, all that was lusty, and good to hear -and see, and sweet to smell. This was the land’s answer to those who -said that her winter-time was bleak and bitter; and out from some -forgotten Eden the west wind seemed to blow. - -Reuben Gaunt withstood few pleasures at any time, and now he swung -completely into friendship with this land which no remembrance of -other countries could ever belittle to him. He felt again the throb -of boyhood, of boyhood’s keen, unspoiled delights. Good impulses rose -and carried healing with them. For this one day he was a good man in -his own eyes, and that boded ill for Priscilla, who was going sedately -about her business, moving from farm to farm with a lightness and a -happy zest in holidaying which suggested something of the kingfisher. - -Gaunt roved the fells, the primitive, strong motherhood of nature -crying constantly to him from the pastured slopes, where big and little -dots of white against the green showed fine sheep-harvests for the -farmer-folk. His heart was big and clean--for this one day--and he -thought of Cilla, and she seemed the brave, sweet symbol of this vale -of Garth. - -He thought, too, of Peggy Mathewson, living wide yonder of Garth -village and likely wanting him beside her at this moment. He shook the -thought away, and prided himself, God help him, on finding the better -man in himself to-day. - -Another thought he had--repentance for his sins--and this boded ill -again for Cilla of the Good Intent. Repentance heretofore, with Reuben, -had been a bird that laid her eggs in another’s nest, and left her -young to turn out the foster-mother’s offspring. - -The larks were shrilling about him. A peewit circled, dropped, and -fell, not five yards from him as he stood motionless in dreamland; the -bird looked shyly once at him, then dropped her plumed head and went -on feeding placidly. So still the man was that a lamb, new-born and -guileless, came bleating to inquire what manner of thing he was; and -the old ewe-mother ran, forgetting that by nature she was timid, and -butted Reuben with a quiet, yet warlike pressure. - -He woke from his dream, and gave the ewe a playful kick. “Look to your -own married life,” he laughed, “as I am hoping to look to mine before -the year is out.” - -He glanced at the sun, and guessed that it was after four. Repentance -and memory of Peggy Mathewson slipped from him. He strode down the -fields; and, short-statured as he was, and slight of build, he carried -a look of bigness with him. It was Reuben’s holiday, as it was -Priscilla’s. The sun shone on him, just or unjust, and he stood apart -from himself and his past, and felt that the good love and the strong -love were his to ask and take. - -Priscilla, waiting for the coach, and just five minutes before her -time, as her wont was, was surprised by Gaunt’s straight, forthright -air as he crossed the street of Keta’s Well. She had never seen him in -the light with which this witching day of April glamoured all the land. -Every man was better than he guessed to-day, and every woman comelier; -and down the breeze played Puck the Sprite, laughing at all wayfarers -as he laid the cobwebs on their eyes. - -“How has your business sped, Cilla?” asked Reuben, lucky as he always -was in being five minutes before his time, instead of five minutes -after. - -“Well,” she answered, lifting the eyes of truth to his. “And yours?” - -“Well, also, Cilla. I have found what I came to Keta’s Well to seek.” - -They plighted their troth--neither altogether understanding the long -glance--there in the grey road of Keta’s Well. Reuben’s eyes caught -honesty from Cilla’s, and she thought the mirror truthful; and, by and -by, Will the Driver came thundering down the road. - -“Up to time, in spite of women’s tongues,” he laughed, pulling up his -team. “Lord help us drivers, Miss Priscilla, for we suffer much from -women’s tongues. Widow Fletcher will be waiting for me, too, on the -homeward road, if I know her, for ’tis her twice-a-day time to crack -talk with Will the Driver.” - -Gaunt spoke little on the homeward journey, and Priscilla was strangely -silent, too. Passengers climbed up into the coach, or scrambled down, -but these two heeded little of what went on about them. There were -stoppages, at this hamlet and at that, to take up the mails which -Will stuffed into the sack that grew bulkier and bulkier as they went -along. From hill-top farmsteads lasses ran down, bareheaded and cleanly -outlined against the background of the fells, to give Will another -letter for his sack, or another parcel to be hidden underneath the box -seat. All was life and movement on the Garth highroad, but two who -travelled on it were thinking altogether of each other. - -“I gathered these primrose blooms for you, Cilla,” said Reuben, -breaking one of their long silences. - -“Was that your business, then, in Keta’s Well?” The girl’s laugh was -low and happy. - -“Yes.” - -She glanced at him with that wild-bird look which her father had noted -and distrusted weeks ago. Then she looked out again at the fell-tops -and the pastures, which swung past on either hand in wide half-circles. -The magical, blue sunset-time was spreading light fingers already about -the hills and dimpled fields. - -Gaunt did not know himself. Good thoughts came to him like a mystery as -deep as this veil of evening that was clothing all the land. For this -one day he loved Priscilla as a better man might do; he lacked only the -courage to be true to another, at any hazard of his present happiness. -For Reuben Gaunt had never learned, or had never cared to learn, -that honesty is ever and ever like the tight, grey walls of Garth -valley--foundationed well, well built, and proof against the winds of -winter-tide. He loved Priscilla; that was all; and good love, for the -moment, was his pleasure. - -“Ah, I guessed I should see you here, Widow Fletcher,” the driver’s -voice broke in. “What can I do for you this time, in a littlish way?” - -The plump-cheeked woman was standing at the gate as if she had never -left it since the morning. She was laughing, too, as if her face had -kept its dimples all the day--a guess that came near to truth. - -“Nay, I only want you to take the basket back. Lone widows are lone -widows, aren’t they, Will?” - -“Aye, and there’s a plague of them about, ’twould seem. They swarm -like bees in June about this road to Garth. Terrible pranksome cattle, -widows and horses, and terrible hard to deal with,” retorted the -driver. - -“We’re lonely, Will, though. Widows are always sorrowful and lonely. -You’re thinking of charging for the carry of this basket home to Garth? -Men-folk were always selfish.” - -Will laughed, as Priscilla’s father might have laughed, giving innocent -villagers the notion that thunder was springing from a clear and fleecy -sky. - -“I’m selfish this way, Widow Fletcher--that I’ve only a minute more to -waste in talk. Hand up your basket. ’Tis just another trifle to the -load.” - -Mrs. Fletcher let the team start forward, after giving the basket into -safe keeping; then ran down the road with an agility surprising for her -years. - -“Will! Will the Driver!” she called. - -He pulled up with a sort of weary haste. “Ay?” he asked over his -shoulder. - -“You’ll be passing here to-morrow? Well, you might just call at Mason’s -little shop in Garth and bring me a half-pound of tea. There’s number -three painted on the canister, Will--but Mason will know the number, if -you say ’tis for me. Poor widows need their comforts in this life, and -tea soothes a body, like.” - -Will started forward in earnest this time, and addressed the empty road -in front of him, where the leafing hedge on the right hand was casting -plumper shadows than it had thrown since last its twigs were bare. - -“Runs in the family,” he said, flicking an early fly from the leader’s -back. “Widow Fletcher here, and Widow Lister yonder at Garth--they -always want you to do something for them, and always ask you to do it -after you’ve fairly started. There’s a trade in widowdom up hereabouts, -I fancy. Gee-up, Captain, will ye?” he broke off, touching the leader -more sharply with his whip. “You were born of the male kind, Captain, -and so was I, and we’ve got to make up for lost time ’twixt here and -Garth.” - -“Cilla, shall we get down this side of the village?” said Gaunt -suddenly. “We’re nearing Willow Beck Bar, and ’tis summerlike for a -saunter home by the fields.” - -Priscilla looked again at the fells, and smelt the sweet of the breeze -as it passed her. It was three miles from the grey little toll-house -to Good Intent, and there was a suggestion of mystery and adventure in -this finish to a holiday. - -“Why, yes,” she answered simply, “I’ve seven packages with me, but Will -will see that they get safe to Good Intent.” - -They got down at the squat, quiet toll-bar, with its windows fronting, -like a bee’s eyes, on all sides of its face. They went through the gate -together, and Will the Driver watched them for a moment as they turned -into the path that followed the slight stream’s course. - -“See her parcels safely ’livered at Good Intent?” he said to himself. -“Would do more for the lile lass, I. Pity she seems so friendly-like -with Mr. Gaunt. Should keep to dogs and horses, Mr. Gaunt--he -understands ’em. Now, Captain, _will_ you know I’m late on the road, -and trust to you to make the whole team work?” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -They followed the winding stream-track, Gaunt and Cilla of the Good -Intent. And now it was that the day, receding in the west, grew -beautiful as it had never been at height of noon. Strange purples -shadowed all the distant fells, while near at hand the pasture-fields -moved in green, tranquil softness to the heath above. - -“You are quiet, Cilla,” said the other by and by. - -“Quiet? I was listening to the curlews.” - -Not the words, but the girl’s low, passionate voice told what the -curlews meant to her. Now, when the silences crept, dumb of feet, all -down the furrows of the land, it was the curlews only that were loud. -Wide about Sharprise Hill they called, and along the raking backs -of Hilda Fell, and across and over the ordered lines of grey walls, -green fields, and scanty woods that were Garth Valley. They would not -let folks rest, but went crying, crying, fretting, fretting, while -Sharprise wore his ruddy sunset-mantle, and Garth Crag, away to the -east, was donning her grey night-cap. - -Garth folk, when they are compelled to be far away from home, remember -always how the curlews fret and cry about the fells. The sob in the -bird’s call--the sadness that begins so quietly, and afterwards -goes shuddering out across the gloaming’s stillness--they are the -interpreters of music, sad enough, but understood and loved. In the -daytime, complaining of the sheep; near dusk, the curlew’s melancholy; -folk who have known and heard these things will lie o’ nights amid the -welter of the tropics, and call the clear sounds back to mind. Reuben -Gaunt, random as he was, had done the same, and Cilla’s earnestness -came home to him to-night. - -“They’re sad birds, though, when all is said,” he answered. - -“Sad? Ay, and so is life, or was meant to be, if we could only see it -so.” - -Priscilla--whether the curlews had caused her this dismay, or not--felt -restless, ill at ease, as if the light of some great truth were coming -to her, and her eyes were unprepared for it. - -“Now, listen, lile lass!” said Gaunt. He was helping her to cross a -strip of marshy field, and his grasp tightened on her arm. “Suppose -life was meant just otherwise? Suppose there was love of a man for a -maid, and the lark singing up to the sun?” - -The candour in her eyes bewildered Reuben for a moment, as she freed -herself and sprang lightly to the drier ground, and stood facing him, -her hands clasped in front of her. - -“Yes, if it _were_ love, Reuben.” She was no longer proud, or -self-secure. It was rather as if she reached out in search of guidance, -feeling the throb of new, quick impulses, as if she asked Gaunt to tell -her, out of his riper wisdom, whether it were good or ill to follow -these same impulses. - -There was flattery in this to Reuben. He felt big, protective, and -again he yielded to a half-truth--that Cilla had shown him the good way -of love. - -“Lile lass,” he said--and Garth Valley knows no softer endearment than -those words--“lile lass, must I be asking you again and again to marry -me? Cilla, I love you, and I could house you well.” - -She thrust her clasped hands outward, as if to ward off an evil -thought. “What does the house matter, Reuben?” she said, with another -gust of that passion which few suspected in Cilla of the Good Intent. -“D’ye think I would wed for house and gear? I’m asking, Reuben, whether -love is going to sit on the hearthstone and keep it warm--if love is -going to sit at meat with us--” - -“Try, and see, Cilla,” he broke in quietly. - -More magical, and still more magical, the gloaming deepened over the -patient fields. Sharprise Hill was a clear-cut wedge of purple now, -pointing up into an amber sky, and Hilda Fell showed as a dark blue, -jagged line, with a tuft of crimson cloud lying over it like the -tattered banner of day’s defeated armies. Low and roving wide, deep -and tremulous, the curlew’s voice went round and about the pastures, -telling, it seemed to-night, that two human-folk were drifting on -life’s glamour-tide, telling, too, of the mysteries, the tumult, and -the pains which lay ahead. - -They had been silent, awed by the kindred silence of the eventide, the -subtle uproar of the curlews, awed by the gift that had come to each of -them. On the sudden Reuben Gaunt set his arms about the girl, and drew -her to him; and Cilla of the Good Intent, not knowing why, lay there -and did not heed. And then again, not knowing why, she stood away, and -her face was pitiful to see, because she tried to check her sobs. - -“Why, lile lass, you’re crying!” cried Gaunt, awakening from his -happiness. - -At all times brave, at all times candid as the sky, Priscilla checked -her tears, but not the sobs just yet. “I was never kissed before--and, -Reuben--all my pride is gone.” - -Gaunt laughed openly. He would never learn how like a child was Cilla, -how like a braver woman, too, than he deserved. - -“Because I ask to wed you, Cilla?” - -“Because the old life is gone, and I fear the new one. I was never one -to fear--yet now--Reuben, you’ll be kind and true? I can never give my -heart at twice.” - -“Don’t ask you to, lile lass,” he answered cheerily. “Once is good -enough for me, seeing you’ve chosen Reuben Gaunt.” - -Another silence fell on them, broken only by the low complaining of the -curlews. Then Cilla, smiling and sobbing both, looked Reuben in the -face again. - -“It should be no time to be afraid? Tell me again ’tis happiness.” - -“To our lives’ end,” said Gaunt, and meant it at the moment. - -They were nearing the track to Good Intent, and their footsteps lagged. -The Beyond, which Cilla had thought to lie out and away behind the -fells, had come to Garth, it seemed, to-night; for each detail of this -homely land she knew from childhood took on a warm, new aspect. This -was her first love-time, and life held unsuspected melodies. - -“Cilla,” whispered Gaunt, “you’re making a new man of me. You--” - -He halted in his speech, and the girl, had she glanced at him, would -have seen perplexity and helpless anger in his face; but she was -looking ahead with dreamy eyes--looking so far ahead that she scarcely -saw the strapping lass, limber and well-featured, who was coming up the -stream-track. - -Gaunt had seen her, though, and was asking himself why Peggy Mathewson -had chosen this one hour for a saunter up the waterside. As they drew -near his anger changed to fear; for Peggy was apt to be outspoken, and -might ruin with a word this new and better life which, to his fancy, -opened out before him. - -Banned by Garth village as she was, there was no man in it who could -say that this lass from Dene Farm was anything but comely; more than -one, indeed, had sought her company, in a diffident and non-committal -way, to the anger of their womenfolk. Yet Peggy had never shown her -beauty to the full, as she did now in the moment of her tribulation. -She had seen Gaunt before he was aware that she was near, and had -needed no second glance to convince her that a lover and his lass came -wandering down the stream; and, having lived a country life, she knew -that there was no way of dealing with a nettle save to grasp it. For -that reason she straightened her firm, tall body--which had drooped a -little because, until she turned the bend of the stream, she had been -thinking kindly thoughts of Reuben--and she moved up the stream as if -she were over-lady of Garth Valley. - -To Gaunt’s surprise she took no heed of him, but stayed to pass the -time of day with Cilla. - -“Spring’s here at last, after the long winter,” she said, in the rich -voice that even now moved Reuben. - -“Here at last, Peggy,” answered Priscilla, who banned no one, child or -man or woman, whatever folk might say of them. “You’ve chosen the best -time of day for your saunter, too.” - -“Likely I have,” laughed the other. “I’m courtship-high, Miss -Priscilla, as they say in Garth, and my lad waits me somewhere up the -stream.” - -“Well, then, I wish you happiness,” said Cilla, out of the warmth of -her own glamour-tide. “’Twill be no secret soon, Peggy, that Mr. Gaunt -here wants me to marry him some day.” - -Cilla rarely stayed to measure the wisdom of her words, and never when -her heart was glad, because then, of all times, it was right to give -sunshine out. - -Peggy Mathewson winced, recovered as from a blow, and turned to Gaunt -with an impassive face. - -“Did not see you before, Mr. Gaunt. Miss Priscilla here wears such a -look of spring about her that a plain body seems to want to see no -farther, like. You might have chosen worse.” - -With a nod to Priscilla she went her way, and Cilla turned to look -after her and to admire the bold, free swing of limbs and body. - -“There’s something whimsical about her, Reuben. Yet why they give the -Mathewsons so bad a name, I could never guess.” - -“Nor I,” said the other lamely. - -“’Tis not as though they did aught amiss, save live outlandishly away -from Garth and show little care for company. They’re an odd couple, -mother and daughter both; but they carry themselves as if they had a -pride in life, and even father owns that they know how to treat their -cattle and how to rake the hay-crop in. That’s much for father to say, -who thinks that women’s place is in the dairy and the house-place.” - -“I was thinking of you, Cilla,” broke in Reuben desperately. “Why spoil -the night with talk of Peggy Mathewson?” - -“Nay, I know not. The girl has always puzzled me. I could have liked -her, and been friendly, Reuben, but she seems always like the east -wind, that will be friends with none.” - -Peggy herself, meanwhile, had carried her aching heart till she was -sure of being out of sight. Then she stumbled to the nearest gate, and -looked out at the grey, soft darkening of the hills. Sharprise was an -ill-defined, blue-purple splash across the fell-scape now, and the -curlew’s note waned softer and more soft. - -“’Twas to be,” murmured Peggy. “Oh, ay, ’twas like as it was to be. The -queer thing is, that I bear no malice to slim Miss Good Intent. Should -hate her, I--yet, if ’twere not she, ’twould be another.” - -She spoke as if half stunned; for, though her judgment had foreseen -such trouble long ago, her heart had covered up its doubts. She, -too, heard the wailing farewell of the curlews to the twilight; but -it reminded her only of sad weather on the moor--of wet east winds, -with snow behind them, just when the lambing season seemed like to -prosper--of frosty labour in the fields of barren harvests. - -“He’ll break my life in two. Tried hard to, once, did Reuben Gaunt; and -now he’s home-returned to finish off the brave job, ’twould seem.” - -She gathered the remnants of her courage together. With a pitiful -defiance she laughed, though a sob broke half-way through the laugh. - -“Kept my pride to the end. Told Miss Good Intent I went to meet my -lad. Oh, I know Reuben! He’ll think of that in a while, and grow -jealous.--Pity o’ life!” she broke off, straightening herself with -sudden passion and flinging out her capable, strong arms with a gesture -that was tragic in its impotence. “Women keep crying, crying out to -God--if there is one--and asking why men were sent into the world for -mischief. And no answer comes, not if you mucky your knees with going -down in the peat to pray for ’t. And women go on saying there’s no such -thing as heart-break; and men believe ’em, because they daren’t do -otherwise; and graves keep being dug, and good lives shovelled under -’em, with a word or two from parson to smooth the sods down. Lord, I -wish a few o’ the surpliced folk would come to Peggy Mathewson for -guidance!” - -The last silence of the fells came down about the girl. Yet she stood -there, not thinking much, but feeling more than weaker folk could have -borne. So quiet it grew that the busy travels of the field mice could -be heard, as they pattered through the grass, and the nestling of the -lambs against their mother’s fleece was a call, almost, across the -stillness of the night. - -“I knew all along, and I wouldn’t heed,” she whispered to the night. -“I wouldn’t heed again, if all were to be done afresh. Yet what he’s -missed! God, what the lad has missed!” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -Priscilla had forgotten Peggy Mathewson soon after they had passed her -by. She was thinking of Reuben, sauntering step by step beside her, and -of the new elusive joy there was in these April gloaming-tides which -she remembered from her childhood. - -As in all joy, there was a corner somewhere, unswept by the cool -evening breeze, which harboured distrust of happiness. It was not -Reuben she distrusted--for she was one of the brave, simple kind who, -once loving, are hard to move from faith; it was belief in God’s -ulterior harshness, which is the cold refuge of the weak: it was a -doubt of the reality of what she felt, a looking out toward something -steadier and more calm. - -“Troubled still?” asked Gaunt, recovering quickly from the shock of -meeting Peggy, now the danger of it was over for the present. - -“It seems too good, that is all,” she answered. - -And then he talked to her, as they moved through the quiet after-light -and neared the stile that brought them to the croft of Good Intent. He -put his love, his hopes of a finer life, his resolutions for the future -days, into words that would have moved a harder and more clear-sighted -maid than Cilla. He talked once more of foreign lands, and again of -this sweet Garth that lay about them, and he twined his love of Cilla -throughout it all like a golden thread. - -Priscilla forgot that dark corner where vague distrust span webs like -a spider in a dusky room. Out of her heart she gave her love to Gaunt; -and, because her heart was full, she needs must laugh. - -“Reuben, we’ve not told father yet.” - -“No, but will do soon. What’s the thought in your bonnie head, Cilla?” - -“Why, that I must wash my face, for I’ve been crying. Father is never -so tired o’ nights but he looks at me at home-coming, and he seems to -know if an eyelash lies out of its own proper place.” - -This side the stile, where they had halted, there was a well-spring for -the cattle--a trough of stone, all but hidden long since by the mosses -and the ferns that fed greedily upon the water. Priscilla dipped her -kerchief in, and washed her face, and dipped the kerchief in again. - -“Good night,” she said demurely, when she was satisfied that all the -stains of the night’s tumult were removed. - -“Ah, but not so quietly, if you please.” - -So she reached up her face to him; and then he said he would wait till -she was safely home, for even the home-croft held dangers when you -loved a maid. And Priscilla tripped happily across the grey-dark grass, -and, because she was happy, she turned at the bend of the mistal-yard -and hooted like a barn-owl, to let Reuben know that she was safe. - -Gaunt laughed as he turned home about. He did not follow the wandering -line of the stream this time, but took a straight course across the -fields--a course that led him, as it chanced, to the gate over which -Peggy Mathewson was leaning, still fighting despair as best she might. -Her back was turned to him, but even in the dim light Gaunt could not -mistake the figure; he bit his lip impatiently, and wondered if he -should pass on and climb the wall a little further up. - -“Nay, she would know, though she won’t seem to see me now,” he -muttered. “Best have it out, and have done with it.” - -He moved quietly to the gate, and laid a hand on her arm. “Peggy--” he -began. - -She swept his hand away, and turned on him, and Reuben Gaunt, who had -seen mainly the softer side of women until now, was awed by the storm -that broke about him. She said little; but in her voice, in every -movement of her body, there was contempt and loathing. - -“Get you home!” she cried, pointing across the grey haze of the fields. -“Get home to your kennel, Reuben Gaunt. D’ye think I want such as you -to come touching me?” - -“But, lass--” - -“Ay, and _but, lass_ and _but, lass_--and you want to explain, -and explain--fool Reuben, haven’t I learned your tricks and your -wheedlesome ways by this time? Little Miss Good Intent is younger to -’em. Come out of your kennel to-morn, and talk to her; _she’ll_ believe -ye, maybe.” - -“We’d best not part in anger,” he stammered. - -“Hadn’t we? ’Tis the only way we are like to part. I’m waiting for my -lad, as I told Miss Priscilla just now. He’ll _explain_ to ye, Reuben -Gaunt, if that’s what lies in your mind.” - -The suggestion of physical cowardice--not true of him at any -time--stung Gaunt as much as anything the girl had said or left unsaid. - -“If that’s so, I’ll wait for him here with you, Peggy,” he said, -holding his ground. - -For a moment she relented. Gaunt was always showing her glimpses of a -certain hardihood of courage which she liked to see in man or woman. -Then she remembered Cilla, and saw again the look those two had worn as -they came down the fields to meet her--came whispering, hand in hand, -as if they robbed no woman of her birthright. - -“Will you go?” she cried. “I’ve done with you, Reuben Gaunt, and you -with me, and ’twill be a far day and an ill day that brings me within -speaking length of you again.” - -“As you like,” he said doggedly. “I only wanted to--” - -“Ay, to explain! Reuben, I’m too old to your tricks.” - -The tiredness and the scorn of those last words left Gaunt no choice. -Without a word, he set a hand on the top bar of the gate, vaulted it, -and passed out into the greyness of the night. - -“He should end that way,” said Peggy, looking after him. “Sometimes -he’ll take a three-barred gate too many, all in his easy style, and -light on his head the further side.” - -Tired out with passion, wearied of scorn, she turned to wander up the -stream. And she met her lad, and walked with him; and he was known -by the name of heart-break to the few who believe in such old-world -superstitions. - -Cilla of the Good Intent, meanwhile, after crossing the croft in safely -and giving her owl’s call to Reuben, had gone indoors. Yeoman Hirst was -sitting by the fire--it was rarely so warm in Garth, but what a fire o’ -nights was pleasant--and he was nursing a long clay pipe in his hand. -He had been counting his gains in live stock during this wonderful -propitious lambing-time; but he looked up quickly as Priscilla entered, -and in his glance there was that close-seated affection which proved -Cilla right when she had said that “father would know if an eyelash -lay out of its own proper place.” - -“Look’st brave and well, Cilla!” was his greeting. “Got the wind to -your cheeks, eh? Now, I do begin to think, spite o’ being your father, -that you’ve some claim to winsomeness.” - -Priscilla was not so happy as she had been a moment since. This steady -warmth of greeting seemed out of keeping with the quick, random -happiness she had seized by stealth to-night. It had in it something of -the security she had missed in Reuben’s wooing. - -“Ah, shame to go spoiling your own lass, father!” she answered. “And -see, you have no horn of ale beside you.” - -“Not like to have till you come to fill it. I must be getting old and -daft, Cilla, for I cannot rightly taste the wholesome bitter in my -evening draught, unless you come and fill it.” - -She busied herself to fill the horn from the cask of October ale which -stood in the outer kitchen. In outward seeming she was the same Cilla -as of old--capable and gentle, wholesome to look at, and careful of a -good man’s wants; yet until now she had never known what it meant to -hold any but a trifling secret from her father. - -“Now, sit ye down, Cilla,” said Hirst, after a quiet pull at his ale. -“Sit ye down, and tell me all about your day at Keta’s Well. I’m in -good humour, lass. Been thinking, lass, while you tarried shamefully, -that never was such a lambing-time in Garth. These Scotch ewes are -bonnie to see--like ’em best of all, for my part--but they seldom -drop two lambs. Seems there’s a fairy-wand about, Cilla. I go to bed -o’ night, and hear the lark whistle me up next morning, and go up the -pastures, like--and there’s another ewe twinned lambs. The lan’s fair -white wi’ the wee beasties.” - -It was Priscilla’s unrest that answered, and the words slipped from her -unawares. “You’re boasting in April, father, and I’ve heard that wise -folk never boast till May is out--and seldom then.” - -The farmer ran his hand along the arm of his high-backed chair, in -token of his faith that touching wood was a sure antidote to pride. -“There, you’re a lile, trim farmer’s wife already, Cilla!” he cried. -“Wouldn’t you trust even such a weather-time as this?” - -Cilla thought of to-night’s wooing weather, of how little, after all, -she trusted it. “I’ve seen a foot of snow in May, father,” she answered. - -Hirst gave out that thunder laugh of his that rattled the pewter on -the shelves. “Oh, and have you, maid? How many, then, has your father -seen? Never get older that way myself, Cilla--sure as heartsome weather -comes, I believe in ’t like a brother. There may come a storm in May -enough to ding the house-walls in, but, come the next soft May, ye’ll -find me like a lad again, thinking the sweetstuffs will never end.” - -He filled his pipe afresh, then kindled it with one of the paper spills -which Cilla took from the mantel-shelf and lit for him at the wide -hearth. - -“David is late,” he said. “Promised to be here by now, to talk over a -matter of some wheel-axles I want from him, and to join me in a pipe.” - -“David? Is David coming to-night?” - -The girl was surprised by her own terror of David’s coming. To hold -a secret from her father was ill enough, but to meet David, just -to-night--she could not bear it. - -“Well, no, it seems he’s not,” the other answered drily, “or he’d have -been here by now, surely. So you’ve had your frolic, lass, at Keta’s -Well. And your packages all came up before you, with a message from -Will the Driver that you were following on. Likely pranks, these--you -finished the day with a gossip, eh? Your mother was the best soul that -ever lived, but she aye relished a gossip, I remember.” - -Cilla had taken up some knitting, and bent her head under the pretence -that she had dropped a stitch. Her father’s trust in her, his kindly -banter, the old home look of everything, were each a separate reproach. - -“I walked from Willow Beck Bar, father. The evening was so still, and -the look of the quiet fields tempted me.” - -“Would have tempted me, too. So long as you picked up no gallant on the -road--but there, that’s not your way, lile lass.” - -David, meanwhile, had not forgotten his promise to Hirst; but on his -way to keep it he found himself a half-hour before his time, and, -meeting Billy in the fields, had good-humouredly joined him in a -saunter. - -David, as he went up and down the fields with his boon comrade, had a -feigned interest at first in the nests which Billy showed him; for he -was thinking of Priscilla. But by and by his interest awoke; he saw the -blackbird’s dappled clutch of five, and the wise throstle looking at -him as she sat brooding, and the hedge-sparrow’s ragged nest, built in -the kink of a grey limestone wall and bottomed with blue eggs; and he -felt his boyhood return to him. - -“Now, there’s a wren a-sitting over across yond field,” said Billy. -“Wouldn’t ye come with a body, David, and see yon same?” - -“Another day, Billy, another day. I’m due with Farmer Hirst, and must -be getting back.” - -“Well, then, a body must turn when he must turn. There’s no denying -that, David. I’m going to see the little shy bird a-sitting myself, so -I’ll bid ye good e’en.” - -Billy the Fool was moving away, after the loose easy way he had of -carrying his great body, when he felt a lack of something, and stopped -and turned about. - -“Haven’t a fill o’ baccy on ye, David?” - -“Ay, lad--three, if ye’ll take them.” - -“Nay, I’m only wanting one,” said the other, briskly filling his pipe. -“And a match, as a body’s body might say.” - -He lit his pipe, nodded tranquilly at David, then went up the fields. -David watched his unhurried stride, the unhurried trail of smoke that -drifted in his wake. - -“A born smoker, is the lad. Puffs none too fast and none too slow, but -fair as if he had ’twixt this and Judgment to finish a pipeful in. No -wonder Billy needs only a match at a time; yond pipeful will burn its -way till there isn’t a strand o’ baccy left in ’t.” - -In some dim way, David Blake was awakening nowadays from that bluntness -and reserve which, even toward himself, it had been his habit to -maintain. In part he was vastly diffident, and in part his days were -filled with earnest labour, so that all his life he had feared to -indulge in what he named “fancy feelings.” Yet to-night, as he saw the -utter content of Billy the Fool, he was moved to a speculation which, -before the spring came in, he would have counted dreaminess. - -“Will die a lad, yond Fool Billy,” he muttered, as the summing up of -all his thoughts. “He’s the only man of his age in Garth that’s what ye -might call rightly happy. Has no worries, he, and can make a wise fool -like myself see ladhood pictured all afresh in a clutch of blackbird -eggs. Would swop places with Billy, I rather fancy, if the chance were -gi’en me.” - -He gave a last look at the evening hills, the evening fields, behind -him; and for the first time he wondered if Priscilla’s refusal of his -suit were final. Greatly brave in speculation was David to-night, and -the mere hope that Cilla might find second thoughts--a hope slender -as a reed, but real for all that--set a new light in his eyes and a -brisker movement in his feet as he stepped out toward Good Intent. - -He went on the high ground overlooking Willow Beck, and as he walked -he kept looking constantly into the valley. So gently the gloaming -filtered down the valley’s length like a wide stream of silver-grey--so -prayerful and so still the evening was--that a man of harder heart than -David might well have found his eyes go seeking peace and finding it. - -“She’s bonnie, when all’s said, is Garth Valley,” was his thought; “and -here am I, all late for Farmer Hirst.” - -Suddenly he halted, though wishing to get forward. Through the -silver-grey of Garth Valley two figures came; as yet they were no more -than outlined against the grey, but David was held by some unhappy -intuition, and he needs must stay and watch them at a nearer distance. - -Slow, but pitiably sure for David, their progress was; and soon, though -it was too far to know their faces, he knew them by their carriage and -their walk. Spring was over in a moment for David, but boyhood was not -altogether past, it seemed, for he felt his throat grow big, and his -eyes were smarting. - -Once, as he watched them, they stopped, came closer still together, and -went on again; and over David--whom folk thought slow and cheery, not -given to feeling overmuch--there passed the bitterness of death. - -It was no selfish love he had for Cilla. To see any man so close to the -lile lass, whom he had watched over so long, would have been a grief, -because he frankly sought her for himself these days; but had the man -been honest, clean of his hands, David would have felt no bitterness, -only a self-sorrow that he would not have nursed for long, because -such sickliness was foreign to him. - -“If’t had been any one but Gaunt,” he said, “any one in all Garth -village save Reuben Gaunt! Lord knows I hate the willowy slim way of -the man, and he’ll send Priscilla’s happiness abroad--ay, will he, like -any ladkin blowing bubbles for a frolic on his mother’s doorstep.” - -He turned away, and he thought that he could not bear to go to Good -Intent to-night. Yet he had promised, and David’s word, till now, had -been good as Queen’s coin in Garth village. - -Up and down the fields he wandered. If Cilla were not sure to meet -him at Good Intent, he could have gone at once, and covered up his -bitterness from Farmer Hirst as best he might; but it was nearing dark, -and he knew that she would return before the last of nightfall came. - -“I cannot bear to see the lile good lass, and never speak a warning -word!” he cried. - -Out of the silence presently there came a cry--Priscilla’s call to -Gaunt, in token that she had crossed the home-croft in safety--and -David bent an ear and listened. - -“Only a daft old barn-owl,” he muttered. “Birds and their ways, and -maids and their ways--I’m weary of ’em.” - -David was unlike himself, and knew it. It was well for growing lads to -be peevish at these times, but he was old enough, he had fancied, to -have learned some common sense. So he squared his shoulders; and his -face, in the gathering dusk, wore the look he had when he was driving a -stake into the ground or was hammering a horseshoe on the anvil. - -“I’ll go,” he said. “Promises run down the wind, they say, and catch in -any hedgerow--but not David’s promises to Farmer Hirst. Bless me, and -there’s a letter in my pocket all the while, and I’d forgotten it!” - -He set out in earnest this time for Good Intent, not heeding the beauty -of the grey night; and he came to the wicket-gate that opened on the -garden at the rear of the farmstead, and went down the five steps -leading to the door, and knocked. - -“Step in, David!” sounded Hirst’s big voice. “I knew you’d come, lad, -though I said you wouldn’t.” - -David the Smith opened and went in; and he felt himself forlorn, seeing -the look of things within doors. On one side the hearth, with its -back to him, was the hooded chair in which the farmer took his ease -at nights; and a rough-coated elbow showing round the corner of the -oak, a haze of blue smoke curling up toward the rafters, witnessed -to Hirst’s presence. On the other side, facing David, as he entered, -sat Priscilla, her work on her lap, her eyes on the fire that threw -quiet, homely patches of ruddy light and sombre shadow round about the -room. The farm-dog, Fanny, stretched at full length beside the fender, -was too full of dreams to do aught save wag her tail in a feeble way, -though she knew that one of her oldest friends had come. - -It was home, thought David; no subtle detail was wanting to complete -this picture of fair prosperity and honest ease and fellowship--no -detail lacking to save David an added pang. He had been content, -till lately, with his work, his freedom, his trim little house with -its garden sloping down to the stream; to-night he saw only the warm -look of Good Intent, and by contrast his life seemed barren and -unprofitable. He longed for a lass of his own, and a dog stretched half -the length of the ingle-nook, and maybe the cry of a bairn as it waked -in its mother’s arms and fell asleep again. - -“Come forrard, lad!” cried the farmer, getting himself out of his chair -with a cheerful groan--for he was stiff after the long day’s work. -“None so welcome at Good Intent, come late or early. Fanny,” he broke -off, stirring the dog with his foot, “wilt get thy great body under -settle, thou jade, and let a better than thee draw up a chair?” - -The dog stretched herself, gave a low “yeow-ow” of protest, looked up -at Yeoman Hirst to learn if he were in earnest. Seeing he was, she -turned to David, and put her fore paws on his chest and licked his face. - -“Nay, nay!” said he. “What sort of guest would David be, lass, if he -let thee wheedle him after the master had said _under_?” - -Fanny had liquid eyes, of a shade and lustre that any woman might have -owned to the shaming of her sisters; she lifted them now to David’s, in -between the patient licking of his face, with surprise that he should -turn the cold shoulder to a friend in this way. So it ended--seeing the -man’s heart was soft and foolish toward all dumb things--in David’s -bringing a chair up to the hearth, in his taking the dog’s brown-black, -wistful head into his hands and stroking her muzzle softly. - -“Shame on thee, David!” laughed Hirst. “She’ll be all spoiled by -to-morn, when I want her to drive up the sheep into the moor.” - -“We’ll chance it, Farmer! Ay, we’ll chance it. Like to feel a dog’s -head in my hands, I--seems to hearten a man.” - -Now that he had met his trouble, had seen Priscilla face to face and -conquered the outward signs of heartache, David was almost merry. It -had been a desperate venture, this of meeting Cilla so soon; and, now -that he was in the thick of it, he felt something of the glow and -mad-wit gaiety which attends on great adventures. - -Never had Cilla guessed till now that David Blake could be so light -of talk. The sobriety, nearing dulness, which she associated with him -was gone. Keen, quick lights of humour played about his face. He had -stories at command--droll tales which Will the Driver had told him of -the road, sly anecdotes concerning the foibles of his neighbour-folk. -He was guarding a heartache bravely, was David. - -Once, in the pause of talk, he looked at Cilla, and found her eyes -resting on him with strange intentness. She was thinking that the -helping hand-grip she had sought not long ago, when she resisted and -yet longed for Gaunt’s caresses, was David’s own. And, when she saw -that he had caught the glance, and was trying to read it, she took up -her sewing, and hoped the colour in her cheeks would be counted to the -firelight’s credit. - -“Why, Cilla, I’ve a horn of ale beside me, and David here has none!” -said the farmer abruptly. “Where are your manners, lass?” - -“Nay, now, take no trouble,” protested David. “I’ve a pipe betwixt my -teeth, Farmer, and what more should a man want?” - -“Trouble is as it’s taken, David. If ye go forth from Good Intent -without a something good and mellow in your inwards--why, bless me, -there’s no cheer left in Garth.” - -Priscilla was glad of the excuse to put her sewing down and busy -herself with David’s comfort. - -“I’ll leave you to your talk, father,” she said, after making sure that -the farm’s hospitality--cherished for three centuries or more--was no -way shamed to-night. - -“Ay, but come back to lay a trifle of cheese, and cake, and oat-bread -on the table. Have supped once already, I, and so has David, likely; -but strong work comes strong to victuals, Cilla, at the second asking.” - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -Priscilla gave some fleeting answer, and was gone. Up the stone -stairway she went, and into the chamber beside the apple-tree, which, -grown sturdy, was putting out green springtime leaves. A slim, white -sickle moon lay helpless on her back--lighting in a softened fashion -Garth’s fragrant valley. Through the opened casement the tempered April -wind was fretting, as it blew the muslin blind aside. It was a night -when fairies played about the land, when human ears, not deaf to all -romance, heard music fluting through the dull world’s uproar. - -Priscilla of the Good Intent leaned her two arms on the window-seat, -and looked out upon the vagueness of the landscape lit by the -young moon. She was thinking of her surrender to Reuben Gaunt, and -wondering if she were happy in her choice; and always as she asked the -question--pretending to herself that she asked it not at all--David’s -shadow stole in between herself and happiness. - -Gaunt himself about the same hour was standing on the threshold of his -own house of Marshlands. He had turned the loose silver in his pocket -on seeing the new moon, as superstition bade him, and had prayed for -luck. He had tried, moreover, to think constantly of Cilla, but had -thought instead of Peggy Mathewson, and of the lad she hoped to meet -by the winding-path of Willow Beck. Peggy, when she had planted that -retreating arrow in Reuben Gaunt, had judged wisely. - -“Must see her once more to-morrow,” murmured Gaunt. “Must tell Peggy -that new times have come in, and old ones gone--but who, in the deuce’s -name, is the lad she means to take to nowadays?” - -“Reuben is true at heart,” murmured Cilla, as she watched Garth Valley, -grey under the sickle moon. “They wrong him, these Garth folk; he only -wants love and a helping hand, and I have promised to give both.” - -David, below stairs, was talking with John Hirst, while both sent up -clouds of smoke toward the rafter-beams. They had settled the matter of -the axles, and Hirst was chuckling. - -“Wish ye’d come up to-morrow’s evening, David. Yond turkeys of mine are -not penned up yet, and ’t has grown to be a jest in Garth. What with -being throng with the lambs, and cutting a new ditch in Marshy Field -bottom, and all the spring work coming faster than I can deal with, -I’ve no time to think o’ turkeys. The stakes ye made for me are lying -just where ye left ’em, and they say in Garth--ay, pretty well every -time I go down street--that the pen will be nice and ready for next -year’s breeding-season.” - -“’Tis time they were penned, Farmer, I own.” - -“Time? I should think it was. Look ye, David, be up at five o’ the -afternoon or so. There’ll be myself and my two men, and with you to -help we should get the durned thing up in no time.” - -“Right! Yond red-wattled dandy ’ull be fair uproarious, I reckon, when -once his wings are clipped. Wakes the whole village as ’tis.” - -They were silent, puffing quietly at their pipes, till David remembered -the letter lying in his pocket and began to fumble for it among -the odds and ends--nails and screws, a clasp-knife and a two-foot -rule--which bulged his pocket out. - -“Want your knowledgeable sort of head to help me, Farmer,” he said, -handing the letter across Fanny’s curly hide. “Will the Driver brought -the mails this morning, but I little fancied he carried aught for me, -till the postman dropped a letter for me at the smithy. Write few -letters myself, and get few; life’s over-short for such thankless waste -o’ time.” - -Hirst read the letter through. “Come all the way from Canada, ’twould -seem,” he muttered. “And I should know the writer’s name, though I’m -puzzled to guess where and when I last saw Joanna West.” - -“Forgotten my mother’s sister, have ye, who wedded Joshua West of High -Lands? So had I, or nearly, seeing ’tis twenty year since they left -Garth.” - -“Why, I must be getting past my memory, David! A bonnie lass she was, -and spirited. I remember looking her way as a lad, till Cilla’s mother -put all such fool’s nonsense out of my head for good and all! She was -over-good for Joshua West, all the same. Bird of a feather, he, with -Reuben Gaunt--settled to naught, liked spending money better than the -earning of it; wanted to be pretty-boy-rover over all the countryside.” - -David was silent for awhile. Mention of Gaunt brought sharply to him -the remembrance of what he had seen to-night, when looking down from -the higher fields on the grey of the valley’s gloaming. He wanted to -warn Cilla’s father, as he had wanted to warn the girl herself; but, -for the like reason, he held his peace; for Gaunt was his rival, and -David was sensitive almost to absurdity when honour was in case. - -“Ay,” he answered at last. “He was feather-bird to Gaunt. Lost his -money and his lands, Farmer, ye remember, and went overseas to see if -he could frame better, like? Framed well, too, as it proved.” - -“They sometimes do. I remember you told me, years ago, that he was -farming to some purpose at last, and was earning gear and gold.” - -“Puzzles me, too, why that should be. Is’t that Joshua West’s sort o’ -breed cannot rightly stand against Garth weather, with its ups and -downs, and its east wind in May, and its heartsome, daft contrariness? -Or is it that there’s fewer wayside drinks to be had in foreign parts?” - -“Bit o’ both, I reckon. Well, then, he’s dead, by what the letter says.” - -“Ay. Slipped under a timber-waggon, he--Joshua was always fond o’ -slipping one way or another--and they picked him up with his back cut -in two. My Aunt Joanna has not favoured me overmuch with letters, but -she’s in trouble now. Life’s always playing that queer game with me, -Farmer; when folk are up and about, damned if they care a stiver for -David the Smith--but when they’re down, ’tis always I’m their best -friend, and must hurry off at once.” - -“Up or down, folk look to ye, David,” said the other, with unabashed -and honest praise. “Ye’re a bit like Sharprise Hill, ye--Garth folk -_will_ turn for a look at ye, come evil times or good, before they step -indoors o’ night. So Joanna West, having no sons of her own, is lonely -over yonder, now her good man’s gone, and she wants ye to go out and -set things straight?” - -“That’s about it. Yet Garth Village is good enough for me, and always -was. What make of moonshine would it be to go marlaking in overseas -parts?” - -“Now, I’m thinking,” said Hirst slowly. “We’re talking no secrets, -David, when I tell ye that ye want my Cilla, and that I want ye -to have the lass, though I can ill spare her. Well, now, maids are -pranksome.” - -“Maybe,” assented David, his face ruddier than its wont. “No news that, -Farmer. Perhaps, in a littlish way, ye’d let me ask what bearing the -matter has on Aunt Jane?” - -Hirst took his pipe-stem in his hand and waved it to and fro, with a -chuckle intended to be low. “Like ye! Always like yourself, David. Hit -life on the head with a hammer, ye, and never stop to dither round -about the nail-top. What has Cilla to do with this letter coming -overseas? Well, ’tis this way, David. When I was courting Cilla’s -mother, there were ups and downs--more downs than ups, so far as I -remember. The bonniest lass in the world, David, but I couldn’t get -near her anyway; like a mare she was, when you try and catch her in the -paddock, and she looks at you out of the corner of her bonnie brown -een, and says, ‘Catch me if you can.’ What, short of baccy, David?” - -“Nay, and thank ye; but I’m listening, Farmer, and my pipe may rest -awhile.” - -“Well, there came a day when I couldn’t bide it any longer. She was -not for John Hirst, I fancied, and the devil came gripping the reins -of me. ‘Priscilla,’ said I, going up to her father’s farmstead one -summer’s gloaming and chancing to find her in the garden--‘Priscilla,’ -says I, ‘I’m going forth from Garth.’ And she looked at me. I can see -the look yet, David, though the poor lass is lying under Garth kirkyard -to-night. ‘How far are you going, John, from Garth?’ said she. ‘Oh, a -world and a half away,’ says I, as jaunty as may be.” - -“Go on,” said David. - -“Well, I meant all I said, for I couldn’t bide to live in Garth unless -I got Priscilla for wife--mother and daughter of the one name, ye’ll -notice, David, for ’tis a name I love, and smells of double stocks and -pansies. ‘A world and a half away,’ says I. And Cilla’s mother fell to -crying, same as her heart would break; and I cuddled her to me, David, -and I mind to this day that a yellow-legged bumble-bee got up from the -arabis flowers and boomed across our faces as we kissed one the other.” - -“I’m beginning to catch your drift, Farmer,” said David. - -“Time you did, David! Mind ye, there’s no two women like each other in -this world. Men-folk are plain this and that, more oft than not, and -easy ’tis to reckon up their substance and their shape; but women are -teasy-like, and I’m no way for advising ye, David the Smith.” - -“Ye think I’d better go overseas?” said David slowly. - -“Well, ye’d better tell Cilla ye’re going, anyhow, and see how the lile -lass takes it.” - -Had David not halted to-night to look down from the hills into the grey -valley, he might have welcomed Yeoman Hirst’s advice; but, so far as -his leaving Garth affected his chances with Priscilla, he harboured -no false hopes. Cilla was not one to walk lightly in the fields with -any man, and it was sure that her choice had fallen, once for all, on -Reuben Gaunt. - -“She’s not for me,” said the smith, looking straight and bravely into -Hirst’s face. - -“Tuts! Where’s your pluck, David? Put a bit of the devil into that -honesty of thine, lad, for all women like a touch of keen sauce to -their victuals.” - -“There’s devil enough in me nowadays, and thank ye--rather too much for -my liking. Truth is, my temper’s breaking, Farmer, and breaking badly. -Like an ill-forged bit of metal it is--breaks if ye hit it gently.” - -“Ay, I know--I know, David, lad!” put in the other, with the wise, -tolerant smile of age. “Bless me, ’tis a few odd years since the first -man went daft-wit over the first woman, and there’s been other-some in -your place, David, in the in-between years.” - -“I’ll go, anyway,” said David by and by. “Can’t bide still in Garth as -things are. Yet how I’m going to live without Garth street, and the -forge, and the fields running up to the moor--I cannot guess. ’Twill be -a wrench when it comes, for sure.” - -“Well, now, ’tis not for a lifetime, supposing Cilla lets ye go--which, -mind ye, I don’t believe.” - -The door at the stairway foot was opened suddenly. Priscilla had left -her watching of the moonlight and her thoughts of Reuben Gaunt to come -down and spread the supper-board. Her tread was light at all times, and -the two men were so intent on their talk that they heard nothing until -the rattle of the door-sneck warned them. - -Yeoman Hirst prided himself on taking any situation by the horns at a -moment’s notice. So now he laughed, setting the roof quivering again, -and, “David,” said he, “you’re full of droll tales to-night. Pity that -Cilla did not come before to hear yond last.” - -Cilla knew her father’s diplomacy, and guessed at once that they -had been talking of her. Her self-command had in it some of David’s -quality; perplexed as she was by her constant wish to ask David’s help, -bewildered by the glamour-web that Gaunt had spun about her, she gave -no sign of trouble. - -“David is merry to-night, father,” she answered quietly, and went into -the outer kitchen to fetch the supper things. - -“Ay, my word, he’s merry!” muttered David ruefully. - -“Mustn’t let her guess that ye and me are as thick as thieves,” said -Hirst, subduing his voice with hardship. “Love’s as good as lost, -David, when a lass knows her father wants the lad as much as she. -Must run contrary, these maids, or else there’s no frolic in’t. I’d -have their fathers choose their lasses’ mates, for my part; but they’d -rather seek counsel from the first beggar coming to the door to ask for -scraps.” - -After supper--a quiet, unrestful meal to-night--David got up to say -farewell. - -“Thou’lt open to him, Cilla?” cried the farmer, feigning to be stiffer -in the joints than the day’s work warranted. “Old bones are old bones, -choose how you try to prove them young.” - -Priscilla rose gravely, and opened the inner door; then went out into -the porch, and stood looking at the crisp, clean night. - -“I wouldn’t have troubled you,” said David awkwardly. - -“’Tis no trouble, David; and yet, in other ways, you make great trouble -for me.” - -“Now, how’s that?” he asked, surprised into putting his hand on hers -and drawing her into the roadway. “David make trouble for the lile -lass? ’Twas not wont to be, Priscilla, before new times came in.” - -“It is this way, David. You ask too much, and I cannot make a friend of -you.” - -“Seems a pity, lass, for a better friend you never had.” - -“Well, then, but wilt be just a friend, David? One I could come to, and -ask for help?” - -David looked at her. The moon and the stars were tender with her face, -and with her slim and upright body. Cilla had always been the one maid -for him, but to-night there was magic in her eyes and in her touch. -He remembered, suddenly and with hardship, how he had looked from the -hilly fields not long ago, and had seen her in Gaunt’s arms. It was -true that his temper was brittle nowadays--the temper of David the -Smith, which Garth folk spoke of reverently as they spoke of steadfast -summer weather--and he had been over-brave to-night. - -“Friendship be damned!” he said. “I’ll take more or less, Priscilla, -and good night to you.” - -He was gone, and Priscilla of the Good Intent was left in the starlit -road. And first she laughed, because she could not help it, hearing -David break away from his quiet, Puritan mother tongue. And then she -sighed, and wished him back again. And afterwards she glanced at -Charley’s Wain, overlooking the trim farmstead, and wondered if she -had a heart at all, or whether it had only gone astray. Certain it was -that she had never liked David as she did to-night, had never seen the -real man peep out so clearly. Still wanting help from him--help against -herself, or against Gaunt, she knew not which--she had called to him -before she could check the words. - -“David, come back!” she cried. - -But David was striding down Garth Street, and was blaming himself for -the odd language he had used toward Priscilla. - -“Quiet of tongue, am I?” he muttered. “Why break out when the lile lass -comes to bid good night to me? Nay, David, nay! Thou’rt a clumsy lad, -when all’s said, and deserved to lose her.” - -Quiet and still was Garth village, as David walked down its moonlit -length. The gentle noises of the day were gone; no voice passed gossip -up and down the road, no footfall, save David’s, lifted the light April -dust; the grey fronts of the houses seemed full of ripe and mellow -thought, and from their gardens came a warm faint smell of flowers and -green-stuff. - -Now that he was to leave it, the sense of home rushed in on David with -new-found force. He had felt the more in times past, maybe, because -he rarely found an outlet for his affections in words or ordered -thoughts; and to-night he knew, keenly and with pain, how much he cared -for Cilla, how much he cared for this grey street and the grey circling -hills. - -“I’ve got to leave ye, Garth,” he muttered huskily. “Ay, that’s about -the size of it.” - -As he neared the grindstone--standing by the wall-side like some old -pensioner who knows his working past secure and thrives upon the after -ease--he saw a light go shining out across the road from Widow Lister’s -cottage. He saw, too, a plump, small figure of a woman standing at -the door. Nanny Lister, it was said in Garth, would never go to bed -till the last chance of a gossip had gone down the night, and she was -holding to her reputation, so it seemed. - -“Ah, ’tis ye, David!” she said, after peering out to learn who this -late comer might be. “Well, ye’re just in time, for I’ve a grievance, -and you’re the best-tempered man i’ Garth--” - -“Am I?” laughed David, not sorry for this interruption to his thoughts. - -“Well they say so, though I trust no man’s temper myself. Men have a -trick of crazying about some lile slip of a lass or other, and I should -know their tempers by this time, having lived with a husband and buried -him.” - -“Lister lies snug, Widow,” said David, with a touch of that lightness -which Cilla had noticed in him throughout the evening. “Turfed over, -he, and resting from the _clack-clack_ of a tongue, eh?” - -It was odd that the widow, old and ripish in experience, felt just as -Cilla had done--that David showed comelier when he got a bright edge -to his tongue. She bridled a little, to be sure; but that was only a -return of youth, an instinct to stand off from and thwart a man when -most she liked him. - -“Unwedded folk should never talk to wedded ones, David. Maids -and bachelors, I always did say, are like children playing wi’ -dandelion-fluff, blowing to ask if ’tis this day, or next day, -sometime, never, that the right lad’s going to come a-wooing. Well, he -comes, and he isn’t so bright, after all, when ye’ve lived with him a -year or two--but ye’re sort of fond of him and his foolishness--and -ye put up with him, and bake his bread for him, and hearken to -his whimsies when he comes home tired o’ nights and hugs the -chimney-corner. That’s all a side o’ life ye’re deaf to, David, and I -go pitying all ye stark, unwedded folk.” - -David would have winced at another time; but to-night he had fought his -battle, had decided once for all to give up Cilla and the grey village -which she queened, and he was perilously gay. - -“Give pity where ’tis asked, Widow,” he answered blithely. “I have the -forge, for my part, and a quiet cottage to go home to, and a power o’ -freedom ye wedded folk seem always to be missing. Did ye ever hear of -the fox that got caught in a gin in Sharprise Wood and lost his tail, -and went prating afterwards that he looked bonnier for the loss?” - -“Ye’re very full of heart to-night, David. Pranksome, I should call ye.” - -“Have need to be. Just once a year the springtime comes, Widow, and it -behoves folk to be pranksome then.” - -“Well, now, listen to me, for I said you were sound of temper, and I’m -in one of my angry fits just now.” - -David looked at her plump, wholesome cheeks, and laughed. “Ye carry it -well, I must say, Widow.” - -“Ay, women--’specially lone widows--were born just to try and hold up -their heads and pretend, like, naught matters anyway. What I want ye to -look at, David--the moon, young as she is, is better than a candle to -see by--what I want ye to look at is my bit of a garden here. ’Tis no -way big, David, and a plumpish cow could lie along it, and ye’d never -know there was a garden there; but ’tis all I’ve got, and it rears a -good few blooms from March time on to winter.” - -“Bonniest slip o’ garden in all Garth. Well, then, Widow?” - -“’Tisn’t well at all. Stoop down, David, and see where the auriculas -were when I slipped, yesternight, to bed. See where the tulips were, -and where the daffy-down-dillies were blowing all their trumpets.” - -“Ay, they’re gone, for sure,” said David, with real concern. - -“Gone? Should think they were. I came out this morning--feeling as -cheerful as a lone widow ever does--and thought to water my bit of a -garden. Found every single bloom picked off, David, and laid along the -ground.” - -“Now, then, I’m sorry! Pride ourselves, we in Garth, that our gardens -neighbour the road, and yet no hand comes picking flowers by stealth.” - -“’Twasn’t a hand. ’Twas greedy bird-beaks, David. Ye’re friends with -John Hirst, up yonder at Good Intent? Well, ye can tell him from Widow -Lister that ’tis time he penned his turkeys up.” - -“We’ve settled to do that to-morrow, as it chances.” - -“Should have done it a two-week ago,” went on the other briskly. -“Fussy, ill-conditioned fowls, I call ’em. Every morn they come -gobble-di-gobble down street, waking honest folk before ’tis time to -wake. Heard ’em this morn, louder than ever, right under my up-stairs -window, but I didn’t guess they were picking off my flower-heads for a -bit o’ frolic. Wish I had. Would have been after them wi’ the thick end -of a besom.” - -“What’s done can’t be mended, Widow. There’s a lot of comfort in that. -Good night to ye; and, if you’re civil-like to David the Smith to-morn, -he’ll likely bring a fresh lot o’ flowering stuff to fashion up your -garden with.” - -The widow bade him good night in return, and let him go some twenty -yards along the street. Then, with the trick that ran in her family, -she followed him and called him back. - -“’Tis not only John Hirst’s turkeys,” she panted, coming close to -David. “His daughter went roving, too, to-day. Got up on the coach for -Keta’s Well, and Reuben Gaunt beside her. They didn’t return to Garth -by coach, I noticed, and if I had John Hirst’s ear--” - -“Ye’d talk a lot of nonsense into it,” broke in David, sharply. “Miss -Priscilla came home along the fields with Mr. Gaunt, for I met them. -And why shouldn’t she, say I, if she’s a mind to?” - -It was not just truth that David spoke; but it was true to the hilt -in this--that the good name of Cilla was to be kept sacred in Garth -village at any hazard. - -As he neared the forge, a shadow got out from the wall-side and -approached him. - -“Going to work, like?” said Fool Billy, stretching himself with easy -unconcern. “Knew you would, though ye’re longer in coming than I looked -for.” - -“Knew I would?” echoed David. “How’s that, lad?” - -“Ay. Ye said ye were going to Good Intent, and Fool Billy knew ye’d -come home by soon, or sooner, and work it off. Ye always do, David, -after Good Intent. I’m ready for my playtime, too. Have slept awhile, -I, since watching the lile trim wren-bird sitting on her eggs as snug -as clover to the ground. Ready to play, David, is this same Billy.” - -They went into the forge, and got the fire alight and glowing, and -David worked till the sweat ran down him, because only in the friendly -feel of iron and tools could he find ease. - -“Billy,” he said, looking up suddenly, “I’m leaving Garth--leaving grey -Garth, Billy, and going overseas.” - -“Why, then, I’m coming with ye,” said the other instantly. “Me to play -and ye to work--how would this Fool Billy of a world do without us two?” - -David took up his hammer again, and made the anvil ring. “Stay and see -to Miss Good Intent--stay and watch over her, Billy,” he said. - -Billy looked steadfastly at his comrade; and, though the fire-glow -shone on his face, showing each smooth, unwrinkled curve, David could -not understand what was in the natural’s thoughts. It was a half-hour -before Billy explained himself. - -“Best take her with us, David,” he said. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -Reuben Gaunt, on the morrow of his holiday at Keta’s Well, woke early. -A thrush was piping from the lilac-trees outside his window, and the -clean smell of the morning came through the casement. He remembered the -magic of that evening walk across the fields, and found resolution come -easily to him. - -His resolution did not fail him when he had breakfasted and ordered -the black cob to be saddled. He would ride across to Good Intent, find -Cilla’s father, and tell his errand. - -Yet, while his horse was being saddled, another thought came to him; -he was pacing up and down the trim, smooth lawn which, newly-mown, -stretched to the low wall bordering the highroad. The house behind -him showed big for a yeoman’s, prosperous and well built, and the -garden-spaces about the lawn were trimly kept. It looked a good home -for a bride to come to. - -“John Hirst will be busy, likely, about the fields,” he thought, -“before I get to Good Intent. Well, then, I’ll ride round by the -moor, and take my time about it, and trust to finding him nearer the -dinner-hour.” - -He was not sorry for the respite, as he mounted and turned the cob’s -head, not down the broad, white highway to Garth, but up the winding -track that led him to the moor. This meeting with Cilla’s father had -to be, but he liked it none the better on that account, and he guessed -what sort of welcome he would get. - -Gaunt seldom probed into other folks’ motives, or his own; and he did -not know that there was more behind this roundabout journey to Good -Intent than was explained either by mistrust of his welcome, or by -liking for a long ride up the open lands. His project was so dimly -formed that, even when he reached the moor, he turned again to the -left, and not along the right-hand track that led him to Hirst’s farm. - -He crossed the stream that, just below, ran brown and sparkling into -the walled pool used in time of sheep-washing. The track now was -only a narrow, lumpy lane, winding between sloping moor above and -sharply falling moor beneath, such as was plied in October by the -bracken-sledges. Presently it narrowed again into a foot-trail of the -sheep; but Gaunt, keeping his eyes on the pitfalls by the way, went -forward and up towards the waving line of grey-black which marked the -topmost ridge of heath. His cob moved daintily, not liking the rude -menace of the ground, until at last they gained the higher lands, went -quietly over a level stretch of peat, and halted at the edge of Water -Ghyll. - -He looked down upon the steep descent--rocks, and heather-clumps, and -tufts of fern new-greening in among the rusty last year’s fronds--then -glanced across at Clifford’s Peel, where its battered remnants stood -four-square still to the winds, and prated of old days when the Scotch -came raiding sheep and cattle from off the pastured slopes of Garth. It -was here that Cilla and he had wandered as boy and girl, here that they -had sought great mysteries in among the beetling rocks, the rowans, -the deep, thick clumps of ling and cranberry. Water Ghyll had been -a forbidden, happy land to them in those days, and they had always -reached Garth again with tired feet and glowing cheeks, feeling that -they had come safely through hazardous adventures, and trusting soon -to tempt again the frowns of peril. - -Gaunt thought tenderly of Cilla, as he recalled those far-off scampers. -Wisdom in action came harder to him always than tenderness of thought; -and by that token more women’s tears had been shed on his account than -he deserved. - -He had won her at long last, he told himself; and this wild trough -of the moors, filled all with peat and rocks and silver music of the -stream below, seemed to hold some special greeting for him. - -As he looked about him, and across the Ghyll, and down into the haunted -streamway, his horse began to fidget, then reared suddenly. - -“What’s amiss, old lad?” laughed Reuben, all but unseated. “Was in a -brown study, I, and thou’st spoilt it all.” - -A moment later a woman, climbing the steep face of the Ghyll, showed -her head above the ling. Gaunt had been too lost in his own dreams to -hear the rattle of loose stones that witnessed to her climb, though his -horse had not. - -The woman’s face was beaten hard by toil and weather, yet she carried -it straight on her broad shoulders. - -“Ay, ye, Reuben Gaunt?” she said, without surprise. - -Reuben, scarce recovered from the first shock of the cob’s uprearing, -was met by a sharper one. Yet again he laughed, for the crisp of the -morning’s vigour was in him, as in all things that moved on two legs or -on four. - -“Give you good day, Mrs. Mathewson! Scarce looked to see you here in -these lone parts.” - -“Same to ye! Least looked for, surest found, is Mr. Gaunt of -Marshlands.” Her eyes--hazel and big and clear, the one youthful relic -that Widow Mathewson possessed--rested quietly on Gaunt’s own until he -flinched. She was so sure of his frailty; so acquiescent, in a bitter, -stifled way, under the trouble he had caused her aforetime, and now was -causing her; so sure of her own honesty, and of his lack of it. “As -usual, ’twould seem, I am busy, and ye are idle.” - -“’Tis a day to be idle on, if ever there was one.” - -“Maybe, for those born to addle no bite and sup. For my part, I’ve been -seeking strayed sheep all across the moor, and not found them yet.” - -“Then ye’ve done no more work than I since sunrise,” said Gaunt. - -Widow Mathewson rested both hands on her hips, and drew herself yet -straighter. Standing there in the sunlight, framed by the swart moor -and the dappled sky, she seemed to Gaunt like a carven likeness of -her daughter Peggy--of Peggy, grown older, harder, disillusioned -altogether. The straight glance that rested on him was Peggy’s, too, -and the mouth curved into a disdain that despised itself; only the -daughter’s comely youth was lacking, and the flood of passion in her -cheeks. - -“Looking for sheep would seem to be my trade in life from cradle-time,” -she said. Her voice was grimly playful, lest the tragic note should -sound too clearly and beat down the reserve she cherished. “Ay, I’ve -been all my life looking for sheep and not finding ’em, Reuben Gaunt. -A man’s love, and bairns, and profit from farming lean, intaken -land--I’ve sought ’em all in my time, and found ’em go bo-peeping like -the ewes I’m following now. Life’s like that, till ye’ve done with -it--and maybe then we’ll find no softer bed to lie on.” - -“You’re cheery, Mrs. Mathewson,” put in Reuben drily. “Nice -neighbour-body to fall in with, when a man’s spirits are running high.” - -“Oh, I’ve done with cheeriness--done with overmuch grief, too, by that -token. Sometimes, when I look at ye, Reuben Gaunt, a touch of the old -fire comes to me, and I long to throttle ye, stark where ye stand. -Then I laugh to myself, knowing I’d fail at the job, somehow, though I -brought all the will in the world to it. Peggy will have to thole her -misery, as I did mine at her age; and, by that token, I’m keeping ye -from riding out to see her.” - -Gaunt knew at last the hidden motive for his journey. He had not -confessed it to himself; but this woman, with the hard, clear eyes and -clear, hard insight into life, had found the truth for him. - -“I’m riding in the contrary direction, as it chances,” he said. - -“Ah, that proves the matter. There’s other birds like ye, prettyish and -small of build, that fly zig-zag to their nests.” - -Gaunt was nettled in earnest now. “As you want a plain tale, you shall -have it,” he said quietly. “I’m going to marry John Hirst’s daughter.” - -Widow Mathewson knew no surprises nowadays; she had outlived them. -“Guessed as much yesternight,” she said, speaking only half the -truth for once, like Reuben himself. Yet it was only the name of her -daughter’s rival that she had lacked. “Peggy went to bed with tears in -her een, and in the middle of the night she wakened me with her sobbing -in the next-door room. Queer that such as ye can keep such as Peggy -wetting blankets with her tears; but I did the same in my time for as -poor a dandy-tuft of a man as ye.” - -“We are good friends, seemingly,” said Gaunt impatiently. - -“Ay, close as bee and flower, Reuben Gaunt. Ride down to Peggy--she’s -throng with churning--and tell her the same lies that I hearkened to -when I was ripe and young. God plants the like garden for all women, -I take it, with the like apples in it; and, whether the man be half a -man or a tenth part, ’tis all one. Reuben Gaunt,” she broke off, with -the passion she had denied not long ago, “why did ye keep your saddle -just now when I frightened that horse of yours? There’s a sharp rock on -either hand of ye, and two or three in front; whichever way your horse -had thrown ye, ye’d not have lighted soft--and it might have been on -your head.” - -“I learned young to keep the saddle, though I’m loth to disappoint you, -Mrs. Mathewson,” said Gaunt, recovering his air of unconcern. - -“Should have been glad, I, to see ye with your head smashed in,” went -on the other dispassionately; “glad, too, to think ’twas I that started -your horse. But it was not like to be; for ye always had the luck. Luck -doesn’t run in my family, and never did.” - -There was a silence between them, as they faced each other, the only -human-folk in this lonely stretch of heath. In a place more busy, with -others near at hand to temper the reality of what he saw in the woman’s -face, of what he heard in her voice, Reuben Gaunt might have carried -the matter off with more success; but they were alone with the rugged -moor. He saw, during this time of silence, his past life stretching -behind him like a miry, ill-found road. He knew himself dishonest, -though he tried to find again his old, easy outlook upon life. A naked -man, facing the naked truth, was Reuben Gaunt this once; and there was -no Cilla here, sitting beside him as they travelled down the road to -Garth and bringing to him thoughts of tranquil betterment. - -“I’ll be going up the moor,” he said at last, fumbling with the reins. - -“Ay, I would. Then turn to the right, and down to the right again--ye -know your way to Peggy.” - -There was something in the woman’s bitter jest that struck deeper than -any curse would have done. Gaunt looked over his shoulder once, as he -rode up the slope, and saw her standing, at once the victim of destiny -and its symbol; and the breeze felt chilly to him on the sudden, as if -there were snow behind it. - -“’Twas she that put the notion into my head,” he thought. “Well, then, -I’ll ride to Ghyll, as she bids me, and I’ll see Peggy for the last -time. We should part friends, and last night’s parting was no friendly -one.” - -He came to the marshy flats on the moor-top where the stream had birth -that ran through Water Ghyll. Wide to the north and south, wide to the -east and west, swept the hills and moors and fields; here a broken -ridge, and there a soft-descending, rolling spur of hills, showed like -a rude girdle to the comely Vale of Garth. Beneath his horse’s feet the -grouse got up and whirred, crying, crying over the desolate land; and -the sky seemed near, as if a man, by reaching up, could touch it almost. - -In amongst the marshes Gaunt saw the sheep which Widow Mathewson was -seeking. They were feeding on the rich butter-grass that grew in -treacherous places, and he knew them by the branded _M_, red-painted on -their fleeces. Good-naturedly he turned shepherd for awhile, drew round -them--the cob showing frankly his distaste for the wet ground--and, by -dint of whistling, as if he had a farm-dog with him, and by skill of -horsemanship, he gathered the ewes into a flock before him. And so he -rode down the moor again, forgetting his mistrust of Widow Mathewson in -the sly pleasure of succouring her at need. - -She was standing where he left her, looking up the moor. Indeed, the -big heath held only one figure and one thought for her; strong and weak -herself, she loved the weakness and the strength of her daughter, the -one link in her life that no storm had been powerful enough to break. -She was past the stress of youth; but she remembered, and in her heart -she was praying--she, who never went to kirk or chapel--that Reuben -Gaunt might die. - -Gaunt whistled low and clear again, and sent down the sheep--a huddled, -scampering flock--toward the woman. He was no fool in matters of the -farm, but at usual times he was too indolent to use his gifts in that -direction. - -“Coals of fire!” he shouted, putting a hand to his mouth to carry the -sound up-wind. “Here are your sheep--gather them in and drive ’em home, -Widow.” - -“Like him,” said Mrs. Mathewson, with patient wonder. “Kills the heart -in a woman one minute, and the next goes out of his home-bee road to do -her a good turn. Would God I knew what sort o’ clay this Reuben Gaunt -is made of!” - -She gathered her flock together, and started to drive them home; but -Gaunt was riding straight across the moor, and riding fast, for Ghyll. - -It was easy, seeing the farm to-day, with the mellow spring light -dwarfed and sundered by its blackened walls--it was easy to understand -the gospel in which Widow Mathewson and her daughter had been reared. -It was chary of spring, this farm; it had received more kicks than -halfpence from the weather; it looked askance at gifts o’ grace, and -would not listen to the larks on this blithe morning. - -Peggy had just finished churning, when she heard the sound of -horse-hoofs. She stood and listened, and there was expectation in -every line of her strong figure--and in her face a wild self-pity and -derision. - -“So you’ve come?” was her greeting, as Gaunt stepped inside the dairy, -after slipping the cob’s bridle about the top bar of the outer gate. -“Knew you would, soon or late--but ’tis full soon, Reuben, seeing that -only last night--” - -“I want us to part friends. That’s why I’m here,” broke in the other, -tapping his riding-breeches restlessly with his crop. - -The girl laughed. Gaunt had never heard disaster so assured in any -voice. It was as if the farmstead, and the weather it had seen, and the -tumults that had scarred its walls, took human shape and utterance. - -“That’s how ye want us to part?” she said. “Will ye be a fool to the -end, Reuben Gaunt, or are ye thinking life’s a game for bairns to sport -with? Ride back through the ling to lile Miss Good Intent, and tell her -I’ve returned ye with all the will in the world. Tell her that lasses -catch ye, like the plague, and lose what little looks they’ve got -through fretting for your tom-fool ways. Tell her--” - -She broke down suddenly, for the strain of the past night, of the -day’s labour at the churn, had told on her. She had no tears left; but -her eyes were full of a soft mist, such as a warm gloaming draws from -Garth Valley in the spring. Peggy was beautiful to-day; her tragedy was -that of the ages, but her pathos was her own, single and direct in its -appeal. - -The cool, whitewashed dairy framed her; the warm, rich smell of milk -and butter was about her. - -“Peggy,” said Reuben Gaunt, “God knows ’tis hard to part from ye.” - -“Ay, and God knows that Peggy Mathewson knows your lies--knows them -within and without--as she knows her own face--her face, Reuben, -that was bonnie enough to catch ye, but not bonnie enough to hold ye -afterwards. See ye, lad, ye’re bent on killing me one way or another. -Why not take some handy stave and do it now? Better soon than late, -Reuben, if a body’s got to die.” - -“I’m marrying Priscilla of the Good Intent,” said Gaunt doggedly. - -“Oh, I know so much since yestere’en. D’ye think to give her happiness, -Reuben? I could never tell, myself, what was in your mind, or out of -it, at any moment.” - -“Come for a walk in the fields, Peggy,” he said, after a restless -silence. - -“Can as well talk here, and thank ye. As I was saying, ye puzzle me. -A bit like thunder-weather, ye--the wind blows one way and the clouds -drive forrard t’ other way. Reuben, _do_ ye think to make a happy wife -of Miss Good Intent?” - -It was characteristic of this upland lass that she bore no malice -toward Cilla. Her quarrel was with Reuben here, with her own weakness, -with life itself; Priscilla was a harmless and unmeaning bit of flesh -to her, counting for little either way, save that she chanced to be the -one to come between herself and Gaunt. - -“I’m going to make her happy--yes. May a man never begin the good life, -Peggy?” - -“Ay,” answered the other quietly. “A _man_ may always--but I cannot see -ye doing it, Reuben, somehow.” - -“I had so much to tell you,” he said, after another silence. “I -wanted--” - -“Oh, I dare say, Reuben. Wanted to patch up the road ye’ve fouled -behind ye, afore taking to the smooth road ready-made in front? Eh, -but you must be a fool to the marrow, after all! Dress all in your -good clothes, if it pleases ye, and put on a Sabbath face for other -folk--but, for mercy’s sake, don’t come to Peggy Mathewson after that -fashion. Going to lead the good life, are ye? Well, what of me?” - -There was no soft wind blowing here at Ghyll Farm, as it had blown last -night all down Garth Valley. For the second time this morning Gaunt saw -the simple, candid picture of himself. - -“You were crying last night, Peggy. I looked for a softer welcome,” he -said, blurting out his thoughts as a child might have done. - -“Oh, and was I? Who told ye that?” - -“I fell in with Mrs. Mathewson as I rode up here. Besides, I can see it -in your eyes.” - -“Has she found the sheep?” said Peggy, with desperate pretence to ward -off the graver issue. - -“I found them for her. Say, Peggy, what were you crying for?” - -Peggy thought of the heart-break that had been her mate last night -“Crying for a lad ye’ll never know, Reuben,” she answered. - -He was quiet for awhile. Then suddenly his eyes caught fire at hers. -“Oh, come away to the fields,” he said. “We could aye talk better out -o’ doors, Peggy.” - -An hour later Mrs. Mathewson returned, driving her sheep, and found -Gaunt’s horse tethered to the gateway. The house was empty. - -“I’ll thole a lot,” she muttered, “but I’m no way going to let Reuben -Gaunt stable his horse in my paddock while he goes knocking nails in -Peggy’s coffin.” - -She unfastened the cob’s bridle, opened the gate, and sent him up in -the moor. But first she took the bit from his mouth, and laid it with -the reins upon the ground; for she had no wish to let the beast break -his knees through getting the reins across his legs. The horse, glad -of his freedom, turned his head once or twice in search of Reuben, then -galloped off. And Widow Mathewson, who seldom smiled, laughed grimly as -she saw him breast the moor-top, then disappear. - -“Gaunt has galloped as free in his time,” she thought. “Let him find -his horse if he can, and catch it.” - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -Priscilla of the Good Intent had been restless when she bade good night -to David the Smith and provoked from him a discourteous farewell. She -was more restless still when the birds awoke her soon after dawn of the -next day and would not let her get to sleep again. So she got up, and -lingered often at the open window, listening to the bird-calls and all -the fret of newly-wakened life about the fields, while she washed, and -dressed herself, and went through the simple rites that accompanied the -beginning of the day in Garth. - -She wondered if Reuben would like the blue print gown better than the -lilac one. Her head a little on one side, a shy, quick splash of colour -in her cheeks, she looked from one dress to the other, and could not -make her choice. Cilla of the Good Intent was a changed lassie since -that glamoured walk across the fields with Reuben; wearing-gear had -troubled her little until yesterday, and she had chosen her gowns by -instinct, without conscious thought about the matter. - -“I was wearing the lilac one when he liked me first,” she said, with a -low, happy laugh. “Perhaps, when he comes to-day, he will like to see -me wearing it.” - -Beyond the open window, where the fields sloped in green hollows to the -edge of Garth village, the birds could not be quiet. Ousel-cocks were -calling to their mates. Throstles were whistling, piping, singing, the -full flood of their melody let loose; and, like practised singers, -they could afford to play strange antics with their voices. Up and down -the scale the speckled songsters ran; and now they whistled “come out”; -and again they called, with pretence of great sobriety, “There’s love -a-waiting, love’s a-waiting; love and his lile lass.” On the roof-tops -starlings cheeped, until they could bear the thrushes’ rivalry no -longer, and began to mimic them in cracked and foolish notes. - -First love was harbouring with Priscilla. She was in tune with the -birds and the leafing land, and she had to put a hand on the bosom of -her lilac gown, because the gladness of the day went almost beyond -bearing. - -For once, she was earlier abroad than her father, who had allowed -himself another hour of bed after yesterday’s hardship in the fields. -Before it was time to set his breakfast on the board and pour out his -tea for him, she had done a score of little things about the house, and -in the dairy, and in the croft above the house where the fowls were up -betimes. - -“Am going up the fields, father,” she said, as she cleared the table -after breakfast. - -“Right, lile lass! Maids must saunter time and time i’ spring. -Wholesome, too, I say--and I warrant ye’ve your day’s work trimly in -your hands already.” - -“Was down an hour before you, father,” she put in playfully. - -“Ay, old bones are lazy bones. Shame on me, Cilla, lass, to break my -fast at half after seven in the morning. Ye’ll not tell David?” he -added, with the boisterous slyness that his daughter understood so well. - -“I’m not likely to,” she said demurely, and went up-stairs to doff her -apron and to don a hat. - -Here, again, the earlier trouble beset her. What head-gear should she -choose? To be sure, she did not look to meet Reuben in the fields; but -he might ride in for a talk with her father--might be in the croft -among the hens and turkeys, or in the paddock, or in the house-place -when she returned. She wanted Reuben to approve her when they met. - -She made her choice at last, and Yeoman Hirst, just going out to see -that his men were at their work, turned for a look at her as she came -down the stair. - -“Bless me, ye grow bonnier, Cilla!” he cried, with a muffled roar of -true affection. “Tuts! ’Twill be a blithe lad that tempts ye to share -house with him.” - -Cilla answered nothing, but nodded gravely at Yeoman Hirst and went out -by the door that opened on the garden. Up the young, green pastures she -went, carrying first love with her. All things to-day were big with -self-importance; and she, who had thought but little of herself till -now, wondered if she would be always fair in Reuben’s eyes. She trusted -so; for Gaunt seemed worth the best that she could bring him. - -One deep regret she had, to temper the new gladness. She was holding -a secret from her father, and the knowledge, just as it had done last -night, brought a sense of shame to her from time to time. In the -background, too, was another shadow--that of David the Smith, with his -abiding care for her. But the day was not one for shadow except such -as the sun and the breeze between them chased across the pastures. The -world would not let Priscilla be out of mood with it; the reek of the -drying grass, on which late dewdrops lingered still, the clamour of -the birds, the restless pushing up toward the light of winter’s hidden -shoots--all was a conspiracy against repinings or backward glances. - -By the mossy lane past Brow-Top Ings she went, and wild-strawberry -blooms, white and starry, peeped out at her from hidden nooks. -Sometimes loitering, sometimes moving quickly, as if her thoughts -outpaced her, she found the highest fields at last and saw the dark -face of the moor above her. Not caring where she went, and obeying any -whim, she climbed a fence or two and was free of the open heath. Here, -too, spring’s advance was plainly marked, though it needs a subtler -study to perceive it here than in the lower lands. - -Priscilla had no thought of foreign countries now. Garth, whose face -she knew--Garth, the familiar and well-tried--was full of mysteries, -delights, surprises. Could she have ever thought, she wondered, that -Reuben Gaunt had painted fairer lands for her than this in which she -lived? - -She lifted her head on the sudden, hearing a pad of hoofs across -the peaty ground. Gaunt’s horse, weary of his freedom already and -finding himself lost on the edge of an alien moor, was searching for -his master. Cilla was the first human being he had seen since Widow -Mathewson loosed his bridle and sent him wide across the heath; so now -he came, with mincing steps across the broken ground, and laid his -muzzle in her hand, and asked for guidance. - -Cilla knew the horse; it was the best in Garth, indeed, and known to -folk less interested than she in Reuben. Out from the blue sky and the -sunshine fear came suddenly to Priscilla of the Good Intent. Apart from -love of his master, there is always something of portent and foreboding -when a riderless horse comes fawning at one’s hand. - -“Where is the master?” cried Priscilla, soothing his muzzle with a hand -that trembled. - -The cob tossed his head. That was the question he had brought to -Cilla, trusting that in her wisdom she would give him a plain answer. -She had none, it seemed, and presently, growing restless again, he -shook his head free and cantered off. - -Cilla watched him take wide circuits, slacken to a trot, then to a -walk. He was snuffing the ground like a hound on trail, and last of all -he seemed to find a clue, for he turned down the moor along a narrow -track, found the gate open at the bottom and trotted out of sight. The -girl turned, and wandered as aimlessly about the moor as the horse had -done; she was sure that Reuben was lying somewhere in the heather, -thrown and badly hurt, and unable to help himself. - -What had she said to her father not long ago? That snow might follow -all this April weather. And now she recalled the words, recalled the -cold sense of foreboding that had accompanied them. - -Tired and out of breath she halted to look about her. Again, like -the horse, she sought for help--sought dumbly for it--when her own -instincts were at fault. - -“Good day to ye now. Te-he! Rare weather for the time o’ year,” came a -voice at her elbow. - -“Why, Billy, Billy, you startled me!” - -“Wouldn’t do that--nay, not for a pipeful o’ baccy,” said Billy the -Fool. “’Tis this way, as a body’s body might strive to put that same -into plainish speech. I’d been peeping into a nest here, and a lile -nest there, right up the pastures; and Fool Billy got to the moor, he -did, and fancied he’d see if the peewits were a-laying on yond ancient -ground o’ theirs up by Butter-grass Bogs. Then I sees ye--and, durn th’ -odd button that’s left on my coat, Miss Priscilla, if I thought twice -again o’ the peewits.” - -Billy was always the courtier with Miss Good Intent; but she was too -tired, too anxious, to give him more than a wan smile. - -“Help me to find Mr. Gaunt,” she said. “His horse came to me just now, -Billy, with no one in the saddle. He’s lying somewhere on the moor, and -I cannot find him. You’re quick to find missing folk, they say, when -they’re four-footed--well, find Mr. Gaunt for me.” - -Cilla did not know her own voice; it was so eager, so impetuous. -And she relied--and knew it, she who had been self-dependent until -now--upon Billy the Fool. - -The lad’s face altered. Across the plump and childish flesh stray -wrinkles crept, as circles widen on a pool when a stone is thrown into -its waters. But Cilla, though she looked at him with frank, steadfast -gaze, could not guess what was passing through his mind. So it would be -with Billy until the mould lay heavy on his coffin; a love greater than -Yeoman Hirst’s he had for Cilla, a love greater than David the Smith’s; -but his thoughts were prisoned up in an unwieldy bulk of flesh, and to -the end he would be Billy the Fool, Billy the Well-Beloved, just as the -moor about Cilla and himself to-day would always be the moor, telling -her secrets to none. - -“Well, now,” said Billy patiently, “I can find Mr. Reuben Gaunt for ye.” - -“Is he--is he hurt?” - -“Sound as ye or me. Hurt? Not the sort o’ man, he, to get into hurt. -Slips through and about matters that might hurt him, like a snod trout -when ye’re a-tickling of his underward parts in Eller Beck.” - -Cilla did not heed the lad’s veiled dislike of Gaunt. She was too glad -to know that he was safe to care for aught else. - -“Tell me where to find him,” she said impatiently. - -“I’ll take ye straight to where he is,” answered Billy promptly, and -set off down the slope. - -He led her into the fields below, then to a little dingle, all wooded -in with thorns and slim, low hazel-shrubs. Not a word would he speak, -though Priscilla asked him many questions by the way. - -Gaunt might be safe; but to the girl there was something uncanny in the -natural’s silence. The wrinkles were graven deeper now in his face, -and Cilla, glancing at him now and then, was awed by the look--fixed, -inscrutable--in the lad’s eyes. - -“Chanced on him through coming to see a blackbird’s nest o’ mine,” -he said at last, when they were nearing the dingle. “Had just pushed -the twigs from together, and peered in, to find the hen-bird off her -nest--and I happened, as Billy the Fool might say, to look beyond that -same old tree o’ thorn, and down below I saw--” - -“Yes?” asked the girl, fretting under all this needless mystery. - -“What I’ll show ye, if so Mr. Reuben Gaunt be still there or -thereabouts. Now, step ye pratly, Miss Priscilla, and keep your voice -as low as any sparrow chirp; for the mother-bird may well be sitting -again, and ’tis ill disturbing mated folk.” - -Whether it were guile or instinct on Billy’s part, none would ever -know. He might have taken Cilla to twenty equal vantage grounds from -which to look into the hollow; but he made for the thorn-bush, saw the -bright eyes of the bird watching him, took infinite pains to part the -branches a little to the right without disturbing her, then turned to -Cilla. - -The girl, humouring what she fancied now must be some delusion of the -lad’s, crept under his outstretched arm and looked down. A strip of -broken turf, charred with primroses, sloped to the bubbling stream, -and at the water’s edge, Peggy was sitting with Gaunt’s arm about her -waist. - -Priscilla gave no cry. The stream, the two figures sitting by its rim, -quivered and rocked, then circled round about her. The primroses made -thin, waving lines of yellow across this evil, daytime vision. Then all -was clear again--mercilessly clear--and Gaunt’s head was near to Peggy -Mathewson’s, as last night it had been near to Cilla’s. - -Priscilla of the Good Intent stepped back. She was pale, but willowy -and upright still; out of the generations of the Hirsts that had -fathered her, help came to her in the hour of need. - -She walked slowly back into the field, Billy following close behind -her. Whatever the natural had hoped to do by this exploit, it was plain -that, to his own thinking, he had failed. He kept trying to find words, -and, finding none, reached out his hands toward Priscilla, with a -gesture piteous and helpless. - -“Billy, I am troubled,” said Cilla, halting suddenly. “No, you are not -to come with me this once! I am troubled--and, Billy, I must be alone.” - -Grave and sweet her voice was, sweet and grave her consideration for -the poor fool’s feelings when she had need to think only of her own. - -The natural watched her cross the pastures; then his face twitched, -and the lines came out on it afresh; and, after that, he threw himself -on the ground and dug his fingers deep into the turf and cried like a -three-year babe. Afterwards he sat up, his face vacant as of old. - -“Seems as if Billy the Fool were shut up tight in a prison,” he -muttered. “Wears what ye might call a band of iron all round his -head-piece, like, and he thinks, and he thinks, and naught comes on’t. -Miss Good Intent’s going to cry--and ’tis Fool Billy made her.” - -Down yonder in the little dingle, Gaunt and Peggy Mathewson were saying -good-by. For an hour they had sat by the stream, helpless in each -other’s hands, as they had always been. Gaunt had once more told her -frankly--he had found courage for that--that at all hazards he meant to -wed Priscilla. - -“Suppose I went and told her what ye’d said to me, and what ye’d looked -at me, and all the sorry tale?” cried Peggy, roused from her desperate -acquiescence in the gospel that what would be, would be. “Would you -fare well, Reuben, with lile Miss Good Intent?” - -“Well or ill, I should let you go with your tale. I’ll not stand -between Priscilla and the truth, if she must have it--but I’ll not tell -her it myself.” - -“There again, you’re a puzzle, just a puzzle,” she said, with a quick -return to her old manner. “Spoke like a man just then, ye. Other times -ye’ll be half a man, or none at all. I’ve asked ye fifty times, Reuben, -but could find myself no nearer an answer yet--what was left out of ye -at birth?” - -“Seems power to guide myself was left out of me,” he answered sharply. -“Listen to me, Peggy! I’ve nothing much behind me to boast of--but I -love Hirst’s lile lass.” - -“Ay, so ye said,” put in the other drily. “It scarce helps me, Reuben, -to hear it twice. For there’s my own life, as it happens, as well as -yours to reckon with.” - -Gaunt felt like a man whose feet are caught by the bog. The clean, dry -land was near to him; but his feet were chained, and it was hard to -pluck them out. - -As for Peggy, she was ready to drift into any mood, and past days -returned to her with sudden clearness. - -“Do ye mind the day we went to Linsall Fair? ’Twas years ago, Reuben, -but I mind it still. You bought a ring off a pedlar, and you set it on -my finger. Lord, how it all comes back!” she broke off, looking softly -at him, so that her likeness to her mother was altogether lost. “There -was a young moon over the fell-top, and folk were dancing on the green; -and you put the ring on my finger, and my heart went all soft and -shameless. Reuben, you told me--” - -“Told you we were wedded; and we laughed. Ay, I remember, Peggy!” - -And so they fell to quiet talk of bygone times. Peggy wondered at her -weakness, and Gaunt could not fathom the meaning of his newly-wakened -liking to be with this lass when he should have been at Good Intent. - -It was then that Billy the Fool guided Cilla to the thorn-bush where -the mother-blackbird sat upon her nest; but neither Gaunt nor Peggy saw -the stricken face that watched them for a moment between the twigs, -then disappeared. - -“Fine-weather days don’t last, somehow,” went on the girl. “We thought -the world held no two folk, Reuben, save ye and me? Well, we were fools -for our pains.” - -“They’re good to look back on now and then, all the same, those days.” - -“Oh, where’s the use in your looking back? You feel no warmer in -winter-time by thinking of last summer’s heat. _Good to look back on?_ -’Tis easy for ye to talk, Reuben!” - -Gaunt got to his feet, and helped her up. “Time we were moving, Peggy,” -he said curtly--for he was fearing the girl’s despair and tenderness. -“Yond horse of mine will be tearing the reins to bits, for I’ve kept -him longer tied to a gate-post than he ever was before.” - -“So ’tis good-by?” she said, moving beside him up the stream. - -“Ay, for it must be. Bygones are bygones, Peggy.” - -“True--if ye let ’em be. Never fear, Reuben! I’m as proud as Miss Good -Intent, or maybe more so, and I’ll not trouble ye. Begin with your good -life, lad, and see if ye can carry it! And for all reward I’ll ask to -see Miss Priscilla’s face when a year’s gone by and the first bairn has -come.” - -Reuben winced. None in Garth would have given him credit for it; -but, weak of purpose as he was, his love for Cilla touched clean, -wholesome thoughts that had been stifled long ago. He resented -Peggy’s easy speech touching his marriage and what might, or might -not, come afterwards. The girl knew what was passing in his mind, and -laughed--not carelessly, but with the sadness that was rooted deep in -all her moods. - -“Sorry to hurt ye, Reuben,” she said. “You’re a delicate sort o’ plant, -and need a wall ’twixt ye and the wind.” - -They were silent until Intake Farm was well in sight. Peggy halted in -the dip of the fields where the ragged thorn-trees grew. She looked -long and hard at Gaunt, and again there was a strange beauty in her -face. - -“Was going to ask ye for a last kiss, but I’m past that, Reuben. Lad, -I wonder will ye ever know the kisses we might have had! I think ye’ll -waken sometimes in the night, and hunger for what’s past your getting -any longer. Fratch as we may, we were made each for the other, if your -een were open wide enough to see it.” - -“Peggy, lass,” he began, moving nearer to her. - -“Nay, Reuben! Over and done with, like a last year’s nest. Yond’s your -way; I’m going wide into the moor, to cool a touch of some daft fever -that’s come over me.” - -Irresolute, and glancing backward often, Reuben went up toward Ghyll -Farm. Life, that had seemed so plain last night upon the Garth -highroad, was tangled now. The fierce, low passion of the girl--her -certainty of heart-break, with little complaining--a shrewd guess that -she was right in saying he would wake at night and think of her--these -were out of keeping with the primrose lanes of yesterday. - -“’Tis hard to go straight,” said Gaunt at last, with a shrug of his -shoulders, as he reached the paddock of Ghyll Farm. - -No horse was tethered to the gate; but over the top bar leaned Widow -Mathewson, her brown arms naked to the sunlight and a look of grim -derision on her face. - -“Seeking a horse, Mr. Gaunt?” she asked, with studied courtesy. - -“Yes, I tethered him to the gate here.” - -“Oh, ’twill be the one I loosened an hour or so agone. Found him here, -when I came from driving sheep across the moorland; and I hadn’t a use -for him myself.” - -“Thank you,” said Reuben, falling in with the widow’s own quiet tone. -“Sensible thing, Mrs. Mathewson, to loose a cob whenever ye find him -tied to a gate-post by the bridle.” - -“So I thought myself--and, by that token, I slipped the bridle from his -mouth and laid it under the wall here. Will ye take it with ye, Mr. -Gaunt, or shall Peggy bring it over to Marshlands? We’re simple, and -ye’re reckoning to be one o’ the gentry-born nowadays; so I fancy ye’d -think it ill demeaned ye, like, to go carrying a horse’s bridle in your -hands.” - -Gaunt took the bridle, keeping his temper as best he could. Quiet or -stormy, Widow Mathewson always cut like hail against his face. - -“Perhaps you’ll tell me where the cob went, the last you saw of him?” - -“Up the moor, and seemed to relish his liberty. He may be at Linsall -by this time--though I doubt the marshes on that side o’ the heather -would stop him--or happen he’s taken t’ other road, and got to Keta’s -Well--or--” - -“Then where the devil am I to look for him?” snapped Reuben. - -“God knows--which, as I’ve seen life, means always that human-folk -can’t guess. Where are Peggy’s wits, Mr. Gaunt? God knows again--for -bless me if her mother does.” - -Reuben went off, the bridle dangling from his arm; and Widow Mathewson -turned across the paddock. - -“Reckon he’ll have a longish walk before him, any way,” she said. -“Beggars don’t ride most times--and neither does Reuben Gaunt to-day.” - -Gaunt himself abandoned all thought of seeking the cob. It would reach -home, or he would hear of its whereabouts to-morrow. Meanwhile, he was -glad of this further respite from his talk with Yeoman Hirst. - -“It would be too late, by the time I walked to Good Intent,” he -thought. “I’ll ride up about supper-time, and catch John Hirst in his -ripe, evening humour.” - -When he reached home, his cob was waiting for him on his own lawn. It -had jumped the round, grey wall that guarded the highroad, and now, -after a morning’s tribulation, was seeking for grass-stalks on the -shaven lawn. - -Horses and dogs were no harsh judges of Reuben Gaunt; and now, as the -cob came whinnying to him, he said to himself with a laugh that it was -the first friendly welcome he had had since riding up to Ghyll. - -Priscilla had gone across the fields, carrying first disillusionment -now in place of first love--the love that she had buried yonder in the -wooded dingle. She felt no anger toward Reuben; it was as if she had -seen him die suddenly and without warning, had seen him pass into a dim -land of which she had no ken; and the stupor of her grief for him was -on her. - -For herself, the silver thread was loosened that had bound her to the -spring. Sunlight and shadow on the pastures, the rising skynote of the -lark, the fretting of the curlews and the plover; she saw and heard -them, but could no longer understand their beauty. Between herself and -life there was a dead, grey wall; and cowslips nodded vainly to her as -she passed, and, when the lambs came frisking toward her, she did not -heed them. - -She was glad, on reaching Good Intent, to find that her father had -finished his early dinner and was out in the fields. Mechanically -she set about her duties, forgetting to take food herself; and, like -David, she found a certain ease, a certain deadening of pain, in moving -forward with her work. When Hirst came in about half after four, she -was pale, and her eyes were listless, but she was mistress of herself -and ready with a greeting. - -“Thou’st overtired thyself, lile lass,” said the farmer, patting her -shoulder as he crossed to the big hearth-chair. “Eh, well! Maids will -roam i’ the spring, and forget their victuals; and maybe, after all, it -does them no great harm.” - -A gleam of comfort came to Cilla. She had no secret now from this -big-voiced, big-hearted father, who looked for each passing change -across her face as a lover might have done. Sad she might be, but she -could look at Yeoman Hirst again and feel no shame. - -“The spring tires one, father,” she answered quietly. - -“Should think it did!” cried the other, settling himself with a -pleasant uproar into his chair. “Blanketed in snow one week, and -blanketed the next in sunshine. Ne’er heed, lassie; I’m no way for -quarrelling myself with all this warmth that’s bringing up the clover -fair like a fairy’s trick. Cilla, there’s David coming at five of the -clock to help wi’ yond durned turkey-pen. I’m dry, lass, and I won’t -deny a measure of ale would hearten up my innards. Let it be the light -ale, though; light ale, light hearts, they say in Garth--and, bless me, -ye need a lightish heart and a clearish head when it comes to netting -off a pen.” - -David the Smith, punctual to five--by his favourite clock, the sun--was -waiting in the croft when Hirst came out. - -“’Evening, David!” - -“’Evening, Farmer! And as likely a one as we’ll see this side o’ -Michaelmas.” - -“Ay--oh, ay. Wind a thought shrewder than it was but nought to matter.” - -David pointed to the upper corner of the croft. “Thought ye told me -all my stakes were lying where I laid ’em? Why, they’re tight in their -places, Farmer, and the skirting-boards all nailed trim and level.” - -The other scratched his shaven chin and laughed. “Between you and me, -David,” he said, lowering his voice to a confidential bellow, “I didn’t -speak quite the truth. Can drive a stake as true as any man, and can -nail the boards on trim enough; but, when it comes to netting, my men -and me are done, and ’twas that we wanted ye for to-day. It all comes -o’ listening to new-fangled notions.” - -“Well, now, as for that, I know naught o’ netting myself,” said David, -glancing at the plump, white rolls of wire. “Always fenced the run -with boarding, I. Who brought the notion into Garth?” - -“Reuben Gaunt, I fancy; though, if I’d known at first that the notion -came from that quarter, there’s never a yard o’ netting would have come -into my lile croft. Well, we’ve got the job on hand, David, and here my -two men are, and we’d best get agate with it, liking it or no.” - -The farm-hands nodded cheerily to David. “Rum goings on i’ Garth,” said -one. “Would as soon handle a bunch o’ thorn-prickles as yond lump o’ -wire. But Farmer Hirst knows best--oh, ay, he’s for knowing what is -best.” - -“And if he doesn’t, ye’ve got to think so,” put in the farmer drily. -“Here, lads, buckle to.” - -The men handled the wire gingerly at first, then with the carelessness -begotten of a great despair. The uprights--seven feet high--were -standing like so many fingers, pointing to the dappled sky; and, -because the ground rose sharply toward the further limit of the pen, -the upper poles looked down upon their neighbours in the valley. - -“We’ll begin on the level, like,” said Hirst, setting a box of nails on -the turf at his feet, and holding his hammer, so David said, “as if he -were going to fell a bullock.” - -The beginning of the work was simple. The three unrolled the wire and -got one end of it into its place, while Hirst nailed it fast against -the upright. Then they stretched it to the next upright, and so went -forward blithely. - -“There’s naught so much to be feared, after all,” cried John Hirst, his -voice rousing a sentry-rook that was watching them from the elm tree in -the corner. - -“Naught, save sore hands,” assented David. “Though I’ll own, Farmer, -I never met stuff so maidish, and so crinkly-like to handle, as this -same netting. Now, stretch it, lads! There, ’tis all in place for ye, -Farmer.” - -They finished netting the low end of the pen, and turned the corner; -but soon the level of the ground grew higher, and, though the poles -about them were stationed true in height, the netting would go lower -and lower, till it threatened to be merged altogether in the rising -ground above. They twisted it, and pulled it out of shape, and talked -to it as if it were a bairn to be coaxed into a good temper. Naught -served; the upper line of the wire descended constantly, and the look -of this late-builded turkey-pen was a thing for the soberest man to -laugh at. - -John Hirst threw down his hammer at last, and kicked the box of nails -against the wall, and stood off from his handiwork and looked at it. - -“I’m not one to swear at any time,” he said, slowly, “but _dang_ yond -netting. Dang Reuben Gaunt, moreover, who brought new-fangled notions -into Garth.” - -The four men retreated to the wall, and sat thereon, glowering at the -turkey-pen. - -“Daren’t trust myself with speech, I,” said David. “Should say terrible -things o’ yond wire-stuff, once I gave leave to my tongue.” - -“I tell ye what,” said Hirst--his farm-men laughed to see his temper go -by the board for once--“I tell ye what, David. We’ll rive the whole lot -down, and build up the pen with good, honest lathes like your father -did, and mine. And if any man speaks o’ wire-netting in my hearing for -a year to come--why, I’ll ding him on the lugs.” - -“Garth’s right, after all,” murmured one farm-man to the other behind -his hand. “Them turkeys will be penned afore, or a lile while after, -the next breeding-time.” - -“What’s that ye’re saying?” roared Hirst, turning on the whispering -pair. - -“Nay, naught--just naught at all.” - -“Well, ye’d better not say it just now, all the same. David, I fair -hate to be beaten by a job! Let’s rive it down, and bundle it into a -corner, and have done wi’ it. Garth notions will be good enough for me -in future, I warrant ye.” - -David, too, was nettled, for it was seldom he went wrong in anything -concerned with handicraft. “Comes o’ bringing foreign truck into Garth -Valley,” he growled. “Why ye and me should take to handling such -outlandish stuff at our time o’ life, Farmer, is more than I can tell.” - -The gate of the croft was opened quietly, and Billy the Fool sauntered -idly towards them. The natural gave no hint, in look or bearing, of the -woful trouble he had caused himself and Cilla up yonder on the brink of -the wooded hollow. - -“Now, good day, misters all!” was his greeting, as he slouched up, his -hands thrust listlessly into the pockets of his ancient trousers. “’Tis -what Billy the Fool would call a fine evening for the time o’ year; and -yet there’s somewhat cold, and wet, and sharp, blowing up from Easterby -Hill.” - -“Tuts!” said Yeoman Hirst. “Ye’re as wise as a fox when it’s scenting a -hen-house, Billy; but this weather is nailed to the sky, I tell ye, and -won’t shift for a brace o’ weeks.” - -“Te-he,” answered Billy amicably. “I’m just telling ye what I think -myself--what I smell i’ my nostrils, like--but I was never one to guess -what my betters were thinking. Now, masters. I’ve been wondering.” - -“Tell us, then,” said Hirst. - -It was odd that he and David--the two most good-humoured men in -Garth--had lost their tempers utterly to-night, and that it needed -Billy’s advent to show them the droll side of life again. - -“I’m wondering if there is a fill o’ baccy among the four o’ ye--and -maybe a match to kindle a light with. Have been in terrible lonesome -parts all day, and nigh forgotten what a pipeful tastes like.” - -The sun was getting down toward Sharprise Hill now, and the smoke of -Billy’s pipe rose so that the slanting sunbeams caught it tranquilly, -and the gnats, playing in this warmth of spring new-found after the -long winter, drifted away in cloudy streams from a scent which they -abhorred. - -“Ye look terrible low in spirits, all of ye,” said Billy, after he was -sure that his pipe was drawing well. “I fancied, when I came by just -now, I’d never seen four men sitting on a fence and looking so empty, -like, of what they lacked.” - -He had not seemed to look at them until he neared the fence; yet twenty -yards away he had known what their mood was. - -“Did ye ever handle wire-netting, Billy?” asked Hirst. - -“Nay, not that I can call to mind.” - -“Well, go up to yond turkey-pen, and see the way the netting runs into -the hillock, choose what a body does with it; and, if ye can tell us -wise folk how to set the durned thing straight, there’s another fill -o’ baccy for you, Billy, and a fill of ale, and another match to light -your pipe with.” - -Billy strolled up to the pen--the rents in his breeches showed the -brown flesh through--and seemed not to look at it at all. Then he came -back. - -“Misters, might a Fool Billy say somewhat to wise folk?” he asked. - -“Say on, Billy, lad! Say on.” - -“Well, now, if Fool Billy were going to climb a hill, like, after what -ye might call a stretch o’ level walking, he’d sit him down first, -would Billy, at th’ hill-foot, and think a deal about it.” - -“Ay, warrant he would!” chuckled David. - -“Then he’d start fair again for yond up-hill climb. Do the like wi’ -your netting, misters? Cut ’un off, says Billy, where he begins to go -up-hill--cut ’un off as clean as a whistle, and start him fair again.” - -David’s practical mind grasped at once that this was the right solution -of the difficulty, and he laughed nearly as loud as Yeoman Hirst. - -“Seems there’s only one wise man in Garth! To think of us, Farmer, -fuming and fretting, and wasting our time; and Billy strolls up, and -looks about him, and sets us straight in a minute. How d’ye do it, -Billy, lad?” - -“Nay, I do naught. I’d be feared to, David! A fearsome thing ’twould be -if I’d to work like other-some of ye.” - -Like a great general Billy stood by, and watched the progress of the -work, when the four men set about their task again. His advice proved -sound, and the netting began to climb the hill in an orderly, straight -line. - -As they worked--the sun lying now, a ball of softened fire, upon -the edge of Sharprise Hill--the gate of the croft was opened again, -impatiently this time, and Reuben Gaunt came through on horseback. -Billy had seen and heard him long before the others had; but he was the -only one who did not turn his head about as Gaunt approached. - -“Good day, Mr. Hirst,” said Reuben, not pleased to find David and Billy -here, yet striving to cover up his uneasiness. - -“Good day, Mr. Gaunt,” answered Hirst, his face grown hard as a bit of -limestone grit. “I’ll thank ye to close that gate behind ye.” - -“Why? There are no beasts in the croft.” - -“I’m not here to argufy. When you find a gate shut, shut it behind -ye--that’s what I was taught as a lad.” - -It had been a day of insults for Gaunt, and he longed to snap some -hasty answer out and ride away; but his errand robbed him of this -slight consolation, and he made the best of an awkward matter. - -“Billy, just run and shut that gate,” he said. - -The natural turned at last, puffing gently at his pipe. “Would oblige -ye, I, but ’tis one o’ my playtime-days, Mr. Reuben Gaunt. I’d have bad -dreams to-night if I did any work.” - -One of Hirst’s men ran to shut the gate, and Reuben looked the farmer -in the eyes. - -“I want a word with you.” - -“Say it here, then, for I’m throng with work, and this job has to be -finished off to-night.” - -“It can’t be said here. ’Tis a matter of private business, Mr. Hirst.” - -“Well, I can spare ten minutes. David, see that these idle rogues get -forrard wi’ their work,” he added, nodding toward his farm-men as he -moved off. - -Gaunt dismounted and slipped the bridle through his arm, and the two -were half across the croft before Billy found speech. - -“Is yond turkey-cock o’ yours abroad yet, Farmer, as a body’s body -might say?” he called. - -“Ay,” answered Hirst, without turning his head. - -“Well, pen the devil up, says Fool Billy. Pen ’un up, Farmer!” - -When he had watched Hirst and Reuben Gaunt go slowly through the gate -at the far end of the croft and up into the pastures, the natural -relapsed into his former attitude. “Get forrard, ye three wise folk!” -he said, with inscrutable gravity of mien. “We’ll have th’ old devil -wired and boarded in, come to-morrow’s morn.” - -Gaunt found no easy task before him, now that he was alone with Hirst -in the upper field. The yeoman, hearty and courteous to gentle and -simple alike, could rarely bring himself to be civil toward Reuben. -As he put it to himself, John Hirst had a “feeling as if a rat was -crawling over his chest when Gaunt of Marshlands was about.” The -younger man’s courage was chilled, moreover, by the open insult Hirst -had given him in face of the farm-men. - -“Well?” said the farmer, after a long silence. - -Reuben Gaunt took the fence, as he had taken many another on -hunting-days. “Cilla has said she’ll marry me, and I rode down to tell -you.” - -Hirst gasped, then rubbed his eyes, as if he woke from an evil dream -and strove to shake it off. - -“Say that again,” he muttered. - -“Cilla has promised to marry me, and I’m going to be better than the -Reuben Gaunt you’ve known.” - -It was seldom that the yeoman could find a low voice or a harsh one; -but now he did, and his big, clean-cut face had in it the look of a man -when he meets an enemy in righteous battle and lusts to kill him. - -“You’re a liar, Gaunt of Marshlands,” he said quietly. - -Gaunt flushed. “Will you come down to the house, then, and ask Cilla -with me there, whether or no I’m a liar?” - -“Ay, by God I will! Seems you’re a fool, as well as a liar, or you’d -never put it to the test. What, my Cilla mate wi’ the likes o’ ye? -Ye’ve been drinking overmuch at race-meetings, or somewhat of that -sort, to fancy such outlandish nonsense.” - -“Come to the house with me, and ask Cilla,” said the other, obstinately -crushing down his spleen. “Is that fair, or isn’t it, Mr. Hirst?” - -“Fair? There’s naught fair when you come by with your slippery ways. -But I’ll take ye into my house, all the same--for the last time--and -I’ll set ye face to face with my lass, and we’ll shame ye out of Garth, -she and me between us.” - -The wind, that had been quietly veering all day to north of west, blew -shrewdly as they went across the croft, at the far end of which Billy -was overlooking the work of his three comrades. Hirst did not heed the -change of wind; he was warm with faith of his little lass, and hot with -anger against Gaunt. - -“Come ye in,” said Hirst, leading Reuben round to the front door, -whereas he would have ushered David in with little ceremony through the -outer kitchen. “Come ye in, Mr. Gaunt, and I shall offer ye neither -bite nor sup, though that would seem a shameful thing for Good Intent.” - -“Am needing none,” said Reuben. “Seems a queer thing, all the same, -that when I come to you with a straight tale--” - -“A straight tale?” snapped Hirst “What about my lass? Lad, ye’re crazy -to think I don’t know your doings five years agone all up and down the -countryside. Step in, however, and we’ll thrash this business out for -good and all.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -Cilla was leaning on the window-ledge when she heard her father’s -footstep in the porch. The house-place was unlit and dim, save for the -flickering of a fire that was dying hard in the wide grate; but at the -window here there was a soft and tranquil light, half from the gloaming -and half from the clouded moon. The geraniums, lined all along the -ledge, showed a more chastened red than in the sunlight. Outside, among -the lilacs and the hawthorns and the late-leafing copper beeches, the -birds were twittering restlessly, and now and then were giving a last, -clear challenge to the night. - -Priscilla of the Good Intent had been crying quietly. She was stunned -no longer, and had gone through a fire of anguish in amongst her usual -household business; and now the tears had come, as dew falls on the -parched, tired fields. She was glad, when she heard her father’s step, -that it was dark indoors. - -“Why, Cilla, ye’re all in darkness here!” cried Hirst, seeing her -outlined by the half-light that filtered through the window-space. - -“I was idling, father. The day’s so sorry to go down the hills, and I -was sorry, too, to watch it go.” - -From a brave stock came Cilla, and her voice was clear and even. - -“Ay, but I’ve brought company, lile lass. I’ve promised him neither -bite nor sup, but at the least he must have a candle lit here and there -about the house-place.” - -The girl raised her head quickly, and stood back a step or two. It was -hard enough to meet her father, but she was not prepared to welcome -“company” of any sort. She tried, in the dusk of the room, to see who -it was that came, but the guest was hidden by Hirst’s bulk. - -Not once did she guess that it could be Reuben Gaunt. Had Billy the -Fool not led her to the thorn-bush this morning, such a visit would -have been natural and looked-for; but Cilla, single-hearted and -understanding little of concealment, could not realize that Gaunt, -trusting in her ignorance of all concerning Peggy Mathewson, might -still come asking Yeoman Hirst for his daughter. - -“Will you light the candles, father?” she said hurriedly. “I--I am all -in my workaday frock, and I must tidy myself if you bring company.” - -Hirst would have had the matter settled at once; but, before he could -protest, the girl had run lightly up the stair, and her footfall -sounded crisply overhead. So he lit the candles, standing in their -handsome sticks of Sheffield ware; and he took his place in front of -the dying fire, and stood very straight, thrusting his hands under the -lapels at his coat. - -“Stand where ye like, Mr. Gaunt,” he said. “Will not ask ye to sit, for -some matters are best settled standing up.” - -Gaunt moved restlessly about the room, and the silence--broken by the -little noise of Cilla’s movements overhead--did not help him to a more -even frame of mind. But at least, he told himself, he had one ally -here--Cilla herself. When she came down, and Yeoman Hirst heard from -her own lips that she had plighted troth last night, he could talk to -better advantage. - -Cilla did not keep them waiting overlong. She had no need to change her -gown, but only to pour water into the ewer, and bathe her face, and -bathe it over and over again; for she knew that her father hated all -signs of tears, because they weakened him and loosed his steady grip on -life. - -They heard her at the stair-head, the two men waiting below in enmity -and silence; and then they heard the door-sneck rattle, and Cilla stood -for a moment, looking across the candle-light to see who the guest -might be. - -She faltered for a moment, seeing Reuben’s eyes fixed eagerly on hers; -then she moved to the dresser and leaned against it, one hand pressed -tight against the bosom of her dress, as her wont was always when she -was troubled. - -“_You?_” she said faintly. - -That was all; but Hirst, blind in his faith that Priscilla could never -stoop to such as Gaunt, interpreted her trouble as sheer disdain. - -“Best come to what we’ve got to say at once, Cilla,” he began. “Mr. -Gaunt here said just now that you were going to wed him, and I said he -was a liar. Which of us was right, lile lass?” - -Again Gaunt’s spirits fell. He had looked for silence--yes; but for -silence of the happy, maidish sort that is afraid to tell its secrets. -Priscilla of the Good Intent wore no such look; grave, and delicate, -and soft her face was, but her eyes were full of misery. - -“You were right, both of you, father,” she said at last, “and both -wrong. I am not going to marry Mr. Gaunt, but I promised to, yestre’en.” - -It was hard to say which of the men was more non-plussed. This slim -maid, standing with the candle-light upon her face, had robbed them -both of sure yet separate faiths. - -“Ye promised, Cilla?” said Hirst, reaching for the snuff-box on the -mantel, and taking a pinch for habit’s sake. - -“Yes, I promised, father. But this morning I walked up by Little Beck -Hollow, and I took my promise back.” - -Gaunt understood at last; and in his heart he cursed Peggy Mathewson, -who had led him into this. - -The yeoman was hard hit, and hit in his weakest spot; yet he gathered -his strength up somehow, and found a weakened echo of his usual laugh. - -“Second thoughts run safest, lass. Ye may have been a lile, daft fool -yestre’en, but ye are wise to-day. Mr. Gaunt, is there aught more to be -said?” - -“I fancy not. Good even to you,” said Reuben, with a desperate quiet. - -“I would like to see Mr. Gaunt to the door, father, and talk with him,” -said Cilla unexpectedly. - -Hirst looked at her, and saw the strong simplicity that hedged her -sorrow round from prying eyes. He did not know whether he were wise -or foolish--all old landmarks to-night were sundered from him--but he -nodded grimly. - -“Ye may, Cilla. ’Tis the last time he will come here,” he said, -forgetting to touch wood when boasting openly. - -Gaunt opened the door, and waited for her to pass through into the grey -moon-dusk of the porch. - -“Cilla,” he began, “Cilla, ’twas kind of you--” - -“Yes, ’twas kind of me--kind toward the lass I saw you with to-day -in Little Beck Hollow. Yestre’en was so much fancy, was it not? Nay, -you need not interrupt me. The drive from Keta’s Well--the curlews -dipping up and down the fields--the smell of violets in the wind that -blew about Garth valley--they made us fairy-kist, I think, and we -fancied--what did we not fancy, Reuben?” - -Priscilla was self-possessed. The old reserve, half pride, half -modesty, had come to her again. She fenced herself about, and Reuben -Gaunt knew that the wall was strong. - -“I loved you, Cilla, and I told you so.” - -She strove to read his face, here by the light of the clouded moon that -shone upon the highway. Women had done as much before Cilla’s time, in -daylight and in dusk, and had found no answer. - -“Loved me? I do not understand, Reuben. Love is for one and for always, -surely; ’tis not a game to play at hop-scotch with, as the children do -about Garth street. Reuben!” she went on, pain and sincerity between -them getting the better of her. “Reuben, I had heard stray talk of you -and Peggy Mathewson, and had passed it by, because I do not care for -gossip; but I saw to-day that what I’d heard was true--and, Reuben--you -needn’t fear our last night’s fairy-time.” - -“Fear it, Cilla? ’Twas the love-time o’ my life. See ye, that other was -a tale old and done with, and--” - -“Old and done with?” she echoed piteously. “If the cobwebs had not been -blown away, up yonder by the Hollow, _I_ should have been old and done -with, to-morrow, or the next day afterwards.” - -Since grey old Garth was in the making, it had heard such women’s -cries; and to-night it listened sleepily, not stirring from its quiet. - -“What d’ye want of me, Cilla?” he asked, drawing nearer with a caress -which she avoided. - -“I want to see you wedded. ’Twas plain to be seen this morning that you -were promised to her, Reuben, and last night’s forgotten altogether.” - -“Promised to her--what, to Peggy Mathewson?” - -Priscilla would, or could not, realize all that was meant by Gaunt’s -hasty words--the surprise that he should be thought to have meant -at any time to marry Widow Mathewson’s daughter--the touch of chill -contempt in his voice--the acknowledgment that all was “over and done -with,” and that his wooing up at Intake Farm had been so much idle -devilry. - -“Yes,” the girl answered simply. “What else, Reuben?” - -Gaunt knew that he had lost her. Her simplicity, the return of that -gentle aloofness which from the first had thwarted and enticed him, the -lack of all upbraiding--these, and her trust in his good faith towards -Peggy convinced him. Random, full of odd weaknesses and hidden corners -where the better man in him took refuge, he was surprised to-night to -find how vital Cilla’s good opinion was. - -Before he could answer, footsteps sounded down the road, and Priscilla -turned quickly. “Good night, Reuben,” she said. “All was glamour and -fairy-webs yestre’en. Forget it, soon or late.” - -She was gone before he could find a last word to say. He watched her -go, slim, willowy, the clouded moonlight on her trim, bared head; and -then he turned, sick at heart, and went round to the croft to find his -horse, and afterwards rode up the highway. - -David the Smith and Billy passed him twenty yards or so away from Good -Intent. David greeted his enemy coldly, but Billy seemed unaware that -anybody shared the highroad with himself and David. - -“Surly fools, the two of them!” muttered Gaunt. “Could give any man a -greeting, I, at this hour of a warm night.” - -Priscilla of the Good Intent had reached the porch, and stood there, -half in the inner dusk and half in the moonlight. She was thinking, -not of Reuben Gaunt, but of the night when she had seen David to -the door, had bidden farewell to him, and afterwards had called -“David--David, come back!” to unheeding ears. She was reaching out -again for David’s hand-grip, as she always did in time of need. - -David himself, as it chanced, had refrained from stepping in at the -back door of Good Intent, as his wont had been. He had feared to meet -Cilla, lest his resolution to leave Garth should once again grow -weak. Yet now, as he glanced at the grey porch in passing, for old -affection’s sake, he saw Priscilla leaning against one of the two -round, limestone pillars that buttressed the porch. - -“A fair night for the time o’ year, Priscilla,” he said, with would-be -cheeriness. - -“Ay, fair, David. But the wind blows shrewd at times, for all that.” - -“Tuts! We wouldn’t be living, if there weren’t a shrewd wind to blow -all our time o’ warmth away,” growled David, viewing life darkly, -almost tragically, for once. “We’d be dead, Priscilla, and in a bonnier -world.” - -Billy the Fool had gone forward, with a quiet nod toward Cilla and an -easy slouch, as if he remembered nothing of the morning; but David -halted. In sun or rain, Priscilla was good to look at; to-night, with -the moon-glamour on her face and the fret of new-found understanding in -her voice, she was something up and above this world, to such as simple -David, like the moon in the grey, still sky. - -“David, is it true that you are leaving Garth, as father hinted?” - -“Ay, ’tis true. Not yet awhile, for a week or two; for my roots are -here, ye see, Priscilla, and I’m frightened-like to tear ’em out. So -I’m telling myself I’ve a job here and a job there that must be done; -and I’m making a few bits o’ business that weren’t there before; but -I’m going from Garth, soon as I’ve settled my heart into its place.” - -“Oh, I shall miss you, David!” she said unthinkingly. - -David the Smith laughed sadly. “Well, that’s somewhat to the good, at -any rate. Would be a poor business, eh, if a man could fare out to -heathen parts, and never be missed in the old home-place?” - -The night, with its clouded moon, its restless wind that rose -uncertainly and fell again, was like a mirror to Priscilla’s humour. -She was impatient of David’s quiet acceptance of matters; perhaps, had -he stolen now into the porch and lost his diffidence, he would have had -no further right, or leave, to go away from Garth. But David had seen -what he had seen, and his faith that Cilla meant to marry Reuben Gaunt -was as sure as hers had been as regarded Peggy Mathewson. - -And so, because guile was far from both of them, David said good night -and went his way, while Cilla could scarcely check the impulse to cry -once again: “David--David, come back.” - -She gave a last glance at the street, wondering what her life would be -in coming days; then went indoors, to meet her father and go through -with all the talk and explanation which she knew awaited her. - -The look of the house-place chilled her as she entered. The fire was -out. No friendly horn of ale rested at her father’s elbow; he was not -smoking even, but was sitting with his hands upon his knees, his head a -little bent, his shoulders not so square as she was wont to see them. -The two candles threw no cheerful light, and they were guttering now -in the sudden draught that came through the open doorway. - -“I’ll light the lamp, father,” said Cilla, with faint-hearted -bustle. “Shame on me--the lamp unlit, and none to draw your ale for -you--and--daddy, won’t you fill your pipe?” - -“Was dreaming, lile Cilla--just dreaming, I. Fill my pipe? To be sure, -I’d quite forgotten it. Ay, light the lamp, lile lass; I miss ye, -somehow, when ye’re not about.” - -She brought his pipe, his tobacco-box; she lit the lamp, and fetched a -measure of ale and set it at his elbow; it took the keen edge from her -dreariness to minister to the wants of Yeoman Hirst. - -“See ye now, Cilla,” he began, puffing fiercely at his pipe, “I want to -know a few odd whys and wherefores. Ye know my view of Reuben Gaunt? -Is’t sober truth that ye were foolish with him yesternight?” - -“Yes, father.” She was sitting opposite him across the hearth, and her -troubled eyes met his without fear or secrecy. “I thought we loved each -other, and I promised myself to him.” - -“God, ye rate yourself cheaper than I do, Cilla! There, lile lass, -there! I didn’t mean to be harsh! Well, then, what chanced to alter -you?” - -“I walked up the fields this morning,” she said, with hesitation now. - -“Ay, I know! What did ye find there? Not one to shift round like a -windle-straw, ye.” - -“What I found is not for you to ask, or me to tell, father,” she -answered, meeting his glance again. “I can tell you this much--that the -gloaming and the moon between them were overstrong for me last night, -and the morning’s sunlight cured me of my fairy-madness.” - -“Cured altogether, lile Cilla?” asked the farmer, after a silence and a -shrewd, long look at her. - -“Cured altogether--yes,” she answered gravely. - -“That’s good hearing. To tell the truth--and I’m no way hurting ye by -saying it now--if Garth Valley were islanded by water, and ye and me -and Gaunt were stranded on it--as folk _are_ stranded time and time -in those outlandish, heathen parts that David is going to, or says he -is--why, me and ye, lile lass, would keep to one quarter o’ the dry -land, and I’d ram my fist into Gaunt’s face if he came spying over -to our end o’ the safe, high country. Couldn’t bide him, I, if there -weren’t another man to talk to in the land.” - -Priscilla scarcely heard him. Her glamour-tide was over, or seemed to -be; David was unrepentant of his forthrightness, and would not see how -she was hungering for the word, or the look, or the touch which only he -could give. - -“Come here to my knee, lass,” said Hirst by and by. - -She knelt on the patch-work rug, and put her hands on his knee and -rested her head on them, looking into the fireless grate. So she had -knelt in childhood’s days--and afterwards at rare intervals when she -and Yeoman Hirst were moved to special tenderness. - -“I won’t deny my pride’s had a fall, and a steepish one,” he went on, -thinking that his touch upon her hair was gentle. - -“So has mine, father; but life must go on, pride in one’s way or not.” - -“Art going to be a lile wise-woman before thy time? Ay, pride tumbles -and gets muckied, and ye’ve to clean it up again wi’ patience, as ye -clean harness gear. Still, I’m sticking to my pride, Cilla, till they -coffin me up, and so are ye; the Hirsts all do, by nature.” - -They said nothing for awhile, but between them was the speech of trust -and understanding. - -“Cilla, lass?” said the yeoman presently. - -“Yes, daddy?” - -“Wish I knew more about this daft business. Wish ye could tell me, -like, just what ye saw up yond green pasture-lands to-day.” - -“I wish so, too,” she answered simply; “but I cannot tell you, father.” - -John Hirst took a pull at his ale--the first one. “D’ye know what I’ve -been thinking, Cilla?” he said, wiping the froth away from his lips -with a kerchief patterned all in blue and white. - -“Nay, I could not guess.” - -“That, if it came to a tussle ’twixt ye and me, I’d fare hard. Ye’re -so slim to look at, and I could lift ye wi’ one hand and think naught -on’t--but your will is made out of a piece o’ hickory wood, I do -believe. Like ye the better for ’t, I--though ye mustn’t let yourself -hear me say as much.” - -“There’s likely to be no quarrel, father--now,” said she. - -John Hirst sat brooding by the fire, long after Cilla had gone up to -bed. - -He stepped out-of-doors, before locking up for the night, and looked at -the shrouded moon, and tasted the cold of the whimpering breeze. - -“Cilla said somewhat of snow coming, a day or two gone by,” he -muttered, “and Billy the Fool turned weather prophet, too, to-night. -They’re apt to be right Billy and lile Cilla, and there’s a snarl and a -tremor i’ the wind that I should know by now.” - -He did not confess so much to himself, but the superstition of those -cradled by the weather was with him, and in the wind’s contrariness and -spite he heard quiet omens of disaster to himself and those he loved. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -Priscilla was not apt to lie awake nights for long. The keen air of -the fells, the round of her daily work about the farm, forbade it. -Yet, after she had talked with David Blake in the moon-dusk of Garth -Street, had talked with her father afterwards beside the hearth, she -could not sleep, for shame of the kiss that she had given to Reuben -Gaunt, as they walked through fairy-land last night--bitter shame of -the scene that Billy the Fool had shown her between the parted twigs of -a bush wherein a nesting blackbird sat. She felt a great loneliness, an -impulsive longing for the hand of David; she seemed to stand in a wood -where all the trees were thick and heavy, and all the wonted tracks -were lost. - -When at last she fell to sleep, dreams chased her. First David was -laughing at her as he said farewell, and got aboard a ship with big, -white sails. Then Reuben Gaunt was sinking in a moorland bog, and -lifted his two hands in appeal to her, and she was crossing some -stubborn waste of ling to reach him. Cilla of the Good Intent was -little used to nightmares, and she was glad when at last the dawn -stepped boldly into her room and roused her. Her first thought was of -the farm, her second of the silence that lay about the house. The light -which came through the casement seemed brighter, colder than a usual -April dawn. There was no early challenge of the throstle, no sleepy -call of a linnet, and such sounds of human life as came from the -roadway were strangely muffled. - -With a sense of trouble and foreboding Priscilla went to the window, -which she had left open to the soft night wind not many hours ago. -The low sill was an inch deep in snow. She looked out, and in the -white, strong dawn-light saw nothing but whitened branches, whitened -mistal-roofs, and flakes that fell persistently. She stood there -awhile, watching the storm increase, listening to the wind which, -quiet till now, began to whisper round the gables overhead. It was no -playful shower, such as often came in late April, waiting only for the -midday sun to banish it; yet, knowing the signs of weather as she did, -hearing that note in the rising wind whose meaning was plain enough to -all country folk, Priscilla felt no surprise. It was fitting. Spring, -with its make-believe of primrose banks, and birds that litanied the -sunshine, was a dream she had dreamed in company with Reuben Gaunt. -That had passed, and hard winter had set in again. She was glad that it -was so. Winter was a time of stress and hardship, that left no leisure -for dreams. Better the snow than the soft air of an April gloaming, -when all the tribes of furred and feathered things went wooing and set -the like key-note for more sober human-folk. - -Priscilla turned to the ewer, with quick change of mood. She blamed -herself for those few moments at the window. There would be real work -ready to her hand below stairs before this storm was ended. The chill -of the water heartened her, and afterwards she did not halt to choose -between the blue gown and the lilac. She donned instead a rough, -short-skirted gown of homespun, and went down to the house-place. Her -father was standing in front of the fire, which Susan, the farm maid, -had newly lit, and the yeoman’s face was grave. - -“Thought thou wert never coming, lass,” he growled, trying to find his -usual good temper. “You know there’s a lamb-storm blowing up behind all -this bonnie snow?” - -“Yes, father--yes, I know, I’m ready.” - -“Ay, but is breakfast? Susan is young, and late--and you are young and -late, lile Cilla--you’d do without your breakfasts, both of you, but -old folk don’t start the day on an empty stomach, lass.” - -Susan came in at the moment with a dish of steaming bacon, set round -about with eggs, and the farmer sat down to it with the impatience of a -man who is thinking only of his work and of the need to find sustenance -for the day’s battle. Cilla poured out the tea for him, brought it to -his elbow, ruffled her hand across his thick, grey hair. - -“The lambs are needing you, father. Let me come up with you into the -fields.” - -“You? You’ve work enough, lile lass, when we bring the lamblings down -into the fold.” - -“But not till then, father. Let me go with you. I shall be restless, -else.” - -Hirst had all but finished half the dish of bacon, and three eggs to go -with it. He felt ready for the day’s work, and, as the way of a true -man is, his temper gained in cheeriness. - -“I’m like a lover to your whims, lile Cilla. If you’re set on -coming--well, I’ve a sort o’ fondness for the tread o’ your heels -beside me. Hark ye! The wind’s rising fast, and there’s a snarl at the -tail on’t. ’Tis a bitterish end to spring warmth, this. Don your high -boots, lass, and don ’em quickly.” - -Cilla went, with the pleasant, quiet obedience which smoothed many a -rough road for Yeoman Hirst. She was back again before he had time to -grow impatient. - -“Now, though I say it, Cilla, ye look workmanlike and trim,” roared her -father. And he laughed, as good fathers will, with some surprise that -he should have reared a bairn so full of comeliness. - -“Father, there’s work up yonder in the snow,” she answered, with a -gentle laugh. “You can praise me afterwards.” - -“That’s true,” said Hirst soberly. “Praise can always bide like money -in a safe-sure bank. Work willun’t bide; it never did and it never -will, lile Cilla.” - -The road in front of Good Intent was thick with snow when they went -out, for the wind was harrying it as farm dogs chase the roving sheep. -Hirst’s own dogs, when he whistled them from their shelter under the -windward side of a mistal, came trudging to him through a lake of -velvety, soft stuff that hindered them. - -They went up into the pastures, father and daughter, and it was hard to -tell where the ewes lay with their lambs, or where the white hummocks -of the snow were lifted by the wind. Hirst’s farm-hands, cursing the -weather as they followed him, were puzzled to know snow from fleece, -and the dogs were full of petulance. The snow came down in wet, big -flakes. The wind sobbed and wailed, and rose now and then in sudden -gusts, driving the snow-dust savagely across their eyes. And through -the wind-gusts, and the sharp, impatient barking of the dogs, there -came the wild crying of the sheep, the pitiful and weakling cry of -lambs half frozen. - -One by one they found the ewes, and it was odd to see how the mothers, -not valiant at usual times, daft-wits bleating to the empty sky for -wits denied them--grew brave and full of strange resource. - -If a farm-lad gathered a couple of lambs into his arms--twins, which -Farmer Hirst had boasted of last night--the mother would grow manlike -for the moment, would seek for a point of vantage and charge him -down. When Priscilla--loved by all four-footed folk, and by most of -the two-footed kind--when Priscilla gathered a lamb into her arms, to -carry it down to the fold, it was the same. There was panic among these -bleak-witted ewes; and, like all dreads, it brought out some hidden -source of courage. - -David the Smith, scenting trouble, came trudging through the snow to -help his neighbour. He passed Cilla with a quiet greeting--thinking -overmuch of last night’s farewell to her in Garth Street--and busied -himself at once with rescue of the flock. Simple of mind, strong of -body, he set to his task at once, shouldered a ewe that was sick with -the cold, and carried her down the pastures and along Garth Street, -until he came to the turn of the road that led up to Good Intent. Widow -Lister was at her door, as usual, walking up and down in front of her -garden-strip, her feet protected from the snow by huge pattens, her -eyes opened wide for any chance of gossip. She set her arms akimbo on -seeing David, and her tongue was stilled for a moment. Indeed, David, -swinging steadily forward under the burden that hung limp across his -shoulders, his face full of great purpose and the tranquillity of -strength, seemed to fill the snow-set canvas of Garth village. - -“Why, David,” said the widow, in an awed voice, “you’re marrow to yond -print o’ the Good Shepherd that’s hanging ower my chimbley-piece.” - -David halted. The roots of his religion lay deep, and maybe for that -reason he seldom spoke of it. “Oh, whisht, woman!” he said, with a shy, -odd air of rebuke. “I’m a plain man o’ my hands, with a day’s work to -do. I’ll thank ye not to name me in company with my betters.” - -“There, now!” put in the widow plaintively. “You’re the first man I’ve -come across who fought shy o’ praise. You _are_ like, David, all the -same--the ninety-and-nine you’ve left to bring the lost odd ’un in, -just the same as in the pictur.” - -“Ay,” answered David, as he moved forward, “but some o’ the -ninety-and-nine are needing me, too, soon as I’ve gotten this lile ewe -into shelter.” - -The widow let him make ten paces forward; then, heedless as a child -that every halt was so much added to the dead weight on his shoulders, -she tripped after him, her pattens moving nimbly through the snow. - -“Oh, David! I knew there was summat on my mind.” - -David turned with weary good nature. “Well, if ’tis as heavy as what I -carry on my back, Widow, I’m sorry for ye. What is ’t?” - -“Nay, ’tis nobbut a bit of a window-fastener that willun’t catch. ’Tis -such a little job, like, I thought you could slip in, any odd moment -you had to spare and mend it for a poor, lone body. When the wind rises -o’ nights, David, it wakes me fro’ my sleep, rattling the window so.” - -“You and your loneliness!” grumbled David. “Well, I may think of it by -and by.” - -“Oh, and, David--” - -But the smith went forward, and laid the ewe in warm quarters, and -struck up again into the snow by a track that avoided Widow Lister. -Priscilla, meanwhile, had gone far up the brink-fields, in search of -any roving sheep that might have been overblown before they could -reach the lower pastures. It was Cilla’s way to seek always after the -folk who had strayed. - -She found no sheep; but, at the top of the highest brink-field she -halted for a moment to look out and up to the face of the bleak -high moors. The snow came sparingly now, the wind was falling, and -far behind Sharprise Hill a yellow light crept softly through the -snow-clouds. - -At the wall-corner where Priscilla stood, three long pasture-fields -met at the common drinking-trough--a round, deep pool, fed by a spring -which bubbled up from the limestone at the bottom. One field of the -three was owned by Gaunt, and he, too, was seeking strayed ewes this -morning. They met face to face, he on one side of the pool, Cilla -on the other, and they were silent for awhile, embarrassed by their -memories of yesterday. - -“A fit ending, eh, to sunshine and spring weather?” said Gaunt at last, -with bitterness and something near to self-contempt. - -Cilla’s pride had come to her aid. The wild-rose colour was in her -cheeks, but her head was held high, and there was delicate scorn in the -frank glance with which she answered Reuben’s. - -“You are not used to weather, as we stay-at-homes are. It is all in the -year’s work, Mr. Gaunt. To-morrow, or the next day after, we shall have -forgotten there was snow at all--unless we lose any of the lambs.” - -Gaunt was not slow-witted, and he understood that Cilla had taken -firmer ground than he, and meant to stand on it hereafter. There was -to be no hint between them, such as he had implied just now, that they -had shared a day whose magic both regretted. He began to wonder if her -heart had been in the matter at all, and a wayward impulse came to him -to piece their broken love-tale together all afresh. Billy the Fool -came up the field behind them. David, as he carried a couple of lambs -to Good Intent, had met him in the roadway, and had suggested that -there was rare play-work to be done in helping Farmer Hirst with the -sheep. - -“Never found such a game, I,” David had said, with his laugh that shook -the hills, “as setting a daft ewe over your shoulders, or carrying a -couple o’ lambkins i’ your arms. The sport might have been made for ye, -lad Billy.” - -So Billy had sought the pastures; and he chuckled soberly, as he -scrunched through the snow, to think “what a terrible, queer notion -David had for lighting on a bit of frolic.” - -It was only when he topped the last rise of the field, and saw Gaunt -talking to Priscilla across the pool, that his face changed. At times -the clouds and the content that sheltered Billy from the realities of -life were riven asunder, and it was always the one picture that he -saw--a way-worn woman coming with her child to the gate of Marshlands, -the harsh refusal at the door. Now, as he went up through the snow, he -could recall the bitter cold of that long ago night when his mother -and he had sought shelter in the porchway of a barn. Gaunt’s voice, -which was his father’s over again, so Garth folk said, had recalled the -past to Billy when earlier in the year he dropped Reuben into a bed -of growing nettles. The sight of him now, his closeness to Priscilla, -roused, not Billy’s strength, but his will to use it blindly. Before -Cilla knew that he was near, he had passed her, had climbed the wall, -had put his arms about Gaunt and carried him to the edge of the pool. -Hirst himself, or big David, could not have resisted the village fool -when his quietness turned to fury; and Gaunt was slight of build. - -Priscilla was bewildered by the suddenness of the attack; but her -habit was to meet emergencies--such as Reuben’s disloyalty and the -change in April’s weather--with the reliance that came from clean -living under the clean, steady hills. She saw that Billy was swinging -his burden lightly over the pool; and in Billy’s face she saw a tumult. - -“Billy,” she said quietly. “Billy, what are you doing?” - -He turned as a dog does when his master whistles, and the evil left -him--left him Fool Billy once again, with surprise in his helpless face -that he should ever have done amiss. He set Gaunt gently down upon his -feet, and Reuben, sick at heart, went through the snow, and round the -bend of Little Beck Wood, and out of sight. - -Billy climbed the wall, and stood a little behind Cilla, waiting for -chastisement. - -“What made you do it?” asked Cilla of the Good Intent. - -“Well, now, I could no way rightly tell ye.” His blue eyes were fixed -on hers, with the look which few who cared for dogs or horses could -resist. “Seems a sort o’ blindness comes on a body when he sees Reuben -Gaunt, and I put my head down like a bull and made for him. Terrible -weak in the head Billy is.” - -“But it was all--all so unlike you, Billy. What did you mean to do -with--with the man you held in your arms?” - -“Do?” he answered, with quiet surprise. “Why, drown him, Miss Cilla, as -ye do wi’ kittens when they’re not wanted, like. Am fond o’ kittens, I, -but they do get terrible cumbersome at times.” - -“Oh, lad, go down to David at the forge,” said Cilla, with a sudden -laugh that was made up of pity and of helplessness. “Go down to David, -and tell him I sent you to him for guidance. And, Billy, promise me -that--lad Billy, for my sake, promise you’ll not play with life and -death again.” - -His muddled wits caught the one right appeal. “For your sake, eh?” he -asked. There was surrender and question in his blue eyes. - -“For my sake--yes, of course. Always for my sake, Billy.” - -“Te-he!” chuckled Billy. “Will keep that notion right in the middle of -my daft head-piece, so I will. Give ye good day, Miss Cilla.” - -He turned and went down the slope with great cheeriness, taking a -bee-line through the snow and breasting the drifts with the strong, -unhurried ease that marked his days. Cilla did not know it, but her -plea that he should do all things for her sake had made for Billy’s -happiness. To please her was frolic of the sort he enjoyed at David’s -forge, but a rarer and more pleasant frolic. - -Mrs. Mathewson rented the third of the pastures that clustered round -the drinking-pool, and she was leaning over her wall, a still, -passionless figure. She had been a looker-on at the struggle between -Gaunt and the fool; she was always a looker-on these days, grave, hard -of face, a little disdainful of the tumults that beset younger folk. -If swayed either way by feeling, she was pleased that Gaunt should be -belittled in Priscilla’s eyes; in no case could it do him harm to meet -with a tumble or two in his erratic course. And yet, in some odd way of -her own, she “had a silly weakness, like” for this will-o’-the-wisp who -had caused her heartache in the past, and would cause her heartache, -doubtless, many times again. - -“I’ve lost no lambs, Miss Priscilla,” said the widow, enjoying -Cilla’s startled backward glance. “Hope ye’ve had the same good luck -yourselves down at Good Intent. Oh, to be sure, there’s weather, and -weather again, and naught but weather, up here on the heights. We’ve -got to put up wi’ ’t, like ye put up wi’ a silly, daft bairn.” - -“You startled me,” said Cilla, meeting Mrs. Mathewson’s quiet glance. -“Yes--oh, yes, our lambs are all ingathered, or nearly all. I came up -here to seek the last two that are missing.” - -“And found Reuben Gaunt, instead, and a big lad holding him over the -pool? Well, they’re neither on ’em lambs, an’ neither on ’em lions; but -are just what ye might call a mixture ’twixt the two.” - -Harsh this woman might be, but to Cilla she stood just now as something -strong and honest, something that had suffered, and stood firm, and -been beaten by the weather out of all comely shape. - -“I care so little for gossip,” she began, moved by a sudden impulse to -confide in this woman who was grey and hard as the wall on which she -leaned. “Yet it seems to meet you at every turn, and leaves its mark -like the fever. Mrs. Mathewson, why should Billy go past himself like -this? He’s so quiet at usual times--and then he loses himself in fury -at sight of Mr. Gaunt. They say, of course--” - -“Oh, ay,” put in the widow drily; “and they say right once i’ a way. -They’re half-brothers. I should know, for I kept house for Gaunt’s -father before I was fool enough to marry Mathewson o’ Ghyll.” - -Cilla did not wish to hear the tale, and yet she stood there, -irresolute, her face half turned to Mrs. Mathewson’s. - -“You heard tell o’ the night when a stranger-woman came knocking at -the door o’ Marshlands?” The widow was still regarding Cilla with -hard, keen eyes, and it seemed that she, who kept silence with her -neighbours usually, had some purpose behind all this talk. “Well, I was -cooking supper for Reuben Gaunt’s father at the time, and I mind saying -to young Reuben, who was larking i’ the kitchen and nigh teasing the -life out o’ me--he was fourteen or so then, was Reuben--I mind saying -to him that it war a night ye couldn’t find heart to turn a dog out in. -Th’ wind war blowing sleet an’ hail in sheets agen the window-panes, -an’ it war crying down the chimbleys till ye could hardly see across -th’ floor for peat-smoke.” - -Cilla was listening. She had lost all desire to escape. The widow’s -gaunt, tall figure, the impassive hardness of her voice as she brought -the bygone scene before Priscilla’s eyes, were part of the snow and the -white stone fences, part of the falling wind that sobbed through every -cranny of the walls and ruffled the water of the drinking-pool that -divided the two women. - -“Th’ smoke was making me sneeze and cough, but it warn’t that made me -so mad wi’ ’t. It war spoiling th’ master’s supper, an’ his temper -war fearful when aught went wrang i’ th’ house. Well, I needn’t hev -bothered my head about that, for at that minute there came a rapping -at th’ front door, an’ I ran out into th’ hall to see who it war. -There war a woman standing there, an’ th’ wind blew her fair indoors, -without a by-your-leave, soon as I lifted th’ sneck. She war nigh as -bonnie an’ slim as ye, Miss Cilla,” she went on, after a long glance -at the other. “The master was a fairish judge o’ women i’ that way, -I’ll own, like his son ’at followed him. She had a bairn wi’ her--may -be four-year-old--an’ she wanted the master; so I called him, after -shutting th’ door to keep all yond mak’ o’ wind out.” - -She paused and looked across the shrouded fields, and shivered. Hard -as she was, the misery of that night returned to her. Cilla stood -waiting silently. - -“The master came, an’ looked once at th’ stranger-woman, an’ a sort o’ -devil came into his face. Then I knew that one of his black moods was -on him; for I was used to the look o’ them. The woman was very pitiful -to look at an’ to listen to, an’ she said she war his wife--married by -stealth a year after the first mistress died. I believed her, for my -part, an’ a woman can tell most times when another woman’s lying. She -was plain of her speech, though, and Reuben’s father always had a queer -mak o’ pride about him,--must have a ladyish wife at Marshlands, or -else hide her i’ the haymow out o’ folk’s sight. That’s Reuben’s way, -too.” - -Priscilla wondered at the sudden bitterness in her voice, then -remembered that this was Peggy’s mother; and the widow knew, it -was plain, that she was her daughter’s rival. Tears of pride and -humiliation started to the girl’s eyes. It was easier to conquer a -secret trouble than an open one. - -“Well, to shorten a sad tale,” went on the older woman, after seeing -that her taunt had struck home, “Mr. Gaunt turned both mother an’ th’ -little lad out into th’ cold; an’ I could have throttled him for ’t, -if he’d been a thought less strong. The rest o’ the tale ye know, Miss -Cilla. They found the mother dead on the door-stone, an’ Billy the Fool -war strong enough to weather the cold--else he’d not have been here at -the drinking-pool to-day.” - -Cilla gathered her strength again. “Why do you tell me this?” she -asked. “I say, with father, that one day’s trouble is enough as it -comes, without going back to the old sorrows.” - -“Why, lile baby? Because I’ve watched ye an’ Gaunt go lover-like along -the pastures, afore this daft snow came. Because I want to warn ye -that Gaunt comes of a bad breed, an’ never i’ this world could be aught -but a will-o’-wispie. Oh, my lass, I’ve seen a few springs come--but -I’ve seen the end o’ such-like nonsense, and I know.” - -Cilla laughed, and Widow Mathewson, whose outlook on the world -was impersonal and cold--save when human weakness broke down the -barriers--approved this slim lass in her workaday dress of homespun. - -“It was only yesterday that I bade Mr. Gaunt marry where his heart -lay,” said the girl quietly. “If I had cared for him--after that -fashion--should I have been glad when he told me he was marrying Peggy?” - -“You were glad?” asked the widow, with suspicion. - -“Why not? He is fond of Peggy, and I think that--that he will settle -down, as a farmer should--” - -“Ay, so I think, too,” broke in the widow with sudden feeling. “I made -the worst o’ that bygone tale, I own, and never told ye that Reuben, on -that night when he’d been plaguing me i’ the kitchen, crept round into -t’ hall, listening to the stranger-woman’s tale and seeing her driven -out into the wind. Well, he waited for his father to go, and then he -crept to my side, did th’ lad, an’ we listened to her as she ligged, -crying, just outside th’ door. Then he pulled up th’ sneck, an’ he war -lifting her in when old Gaunt came, all thunder and lightning down th’ -passage. Gaunt locked th’ stranger-woman and the lad out o’ doors; an’ -he locked Reuben an’ me i’ th’ big, up-stairs room. ’Twas so we passed -the night, Miss Cilla, but I’ve a soft spot i’ my heart for th’ lad -ever since, spite of his cantrips.” - -They looked across the pool at each other. They were set about by snow, -and moaning of the wind, and white hills shrouded under mists that made -their summits level with the sky. - -“What chance had he?” said Cilla. “With such a father--oh, he did well -that night! He did well.” - -Widow Mathewson turned. “Seems I misjudged ye, Miss Cilla. I niver can -trust a bonnie, lile face like yours these days. Oh, ay, he may do well -enough for Peggy. Anyway, she’s set her heart on him.” - -When Cilla got down to the croft, and reached the mistal, she found -David sitting on an upturned box. He had a lamb on his knees, and he -was feeding it with milk from a bottle. Billy was standing near, and -his face was wide as a rift in the clouds when the sun breaks through. - -“I’ve been laughing, Miss Good Intent,” said Billy. “Near cracked my -sides, I have. Here’s strong David feeding a babby as if ’twere his -own. Te-he! Ye’d never think he was strong at the forge.” - -David was shy. This business of saving lambs from the snow had seemed -natural and easy until Cilla came. Now he felt clumsy. - -“Billy is right,” he said, as he handed the lamb and the bottle to -Cilla. “’Tis a woman’s work, this. I was only waiting till ye came.” - -Late that night when her work was done and the moon was up above the -fells, Cilla unbarred the porch-door and went out into the raised path -that protected the strip of garden from the highway. The wind had long -since shifted to the south, and quiet Garth looked all like fairy-land. -From the green, young twigs of the beeches, across the road, the soft -snow fell away, showing leaves half-opened. There was everywhere the -sound of gentle splashing--wet snow falling on wet snow--and the -fells beyond were clear of mist. The air was full of warmth and scent -of violets; for it was Garth’s way to remedy her spring storms with -daintiest blandishments. - -Cilla was full of her trouble still. It had been easy to give up her -man in the heat of pride and sacrifice; but she was lonely now. She -remembered, as lasses will when they have good fathers, how often -Yeoman Hirst had cheered her in bad weather with a hearty, “Oh, ’twill -lift, lass, by and by. Be sure ’twill lift. ’Tis only nature for the -sun to pop out fro’ behind a cloud and take a body by surprise, like.” - -“Why, yes,” she said, with a long glance at the hills. “Father is -right. It always lifts--but the waiting-time is hard, just time and -time.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -When the sun began to warm the land again, and the sheep were crying up -and down the pastures, their lambs beside them, full summer came with -a swiftness rarely known in these grey highlands. The lilacs bloomed -two weeks before their time. The birds let loose their litanies as if -the blue sky and thrust of the green-stuff forward had not been known -till now. Folk moved abroad with keen sunlight in their eyes, and in -their voices a cheery welcome for their fellows. Even Widow Lister -forgot to fidget, forgot her love of gossip with a spice in it, and -turned instead to tranquil tending of the garden-strip that fronted her -cottage. From the hedgerows and the fields, from the moors that raked -up into the blue arch of sky, there rose a quiet, insistent song of -peace. - -Cilla of the Good Intent met Gaunt by chance these days on the highway, -or in half-forgotten bridle-paths that were young when grey old Garth -was in the building--and they passed a greeting one to the other, and -went their ways. She was puzzled--and so was he, had she guessed the -truth--to note the change in him. He was less assured than of old; -there was shame and appeal in his eyes when he met her; he seemed to -Priscilla like some big, helpless dog that had lost its way and went -seeking for its home. - -Cilla was true daughter to Yeoman Hirst. She might suffer, but malice -went by her like a peevish wind-gust that is over and done with as -soon as it is past. She wished no ill to Gaunt, though he had spoiled -her first dream o’ love. She wondered, simply and without overmuch -repining, that her life had grown so empty, that she no longer cared -for the flower-scents and the wood-reek that guarded Garth village like -a benediction. - -The year wore on to July, and there had been no rain since a light -April shower that had followed the snowstorm. The pastures, striding -stony limestone hills, grew parched and brown. With August, and no rain -from the pitiless blue sky, even the brown of the grass was burnt, -and the lightest of warm breezes carried the dust of the brown way. -Far up the crests of the hills there was no green to soften the white -glare of the limestone. All was pitiless and bare, and lacking any -gift of charity. The sun, at usual times a rare and welcome guest, had -overstepped his welcome now. - -A rumour came to Garth these days, and the farmers, as they rode down -the street to market, grew less cheery in their greetings one to -another. They knew, each one of them, the danger that lay near to their -wives and bairns; and, knowing it, they kept silence, as the way of the -hills is when a tempest shakes them. - -Their wives heard the rumour, by and by, and there was clatter of -tongues along the dust of Garth’s grey street. Widow Lister, by gift of -nature, talked more shrilly than her sisters, just as she had been the -first to bring the news which no folk cared to hear. - -“I telled ye so,” she whispered, running out to meet Hirst one day as -he passed down the street. “The Black Fever has come nigh to Garth, and -ye wouldn’t take no heed. I’m a lone widow myself, with no one to care -for--” - -“Oh, ay, but you have!” Hirst’s voice was cheery still, though it was -less boisterous than usual, and behind it there was a hint of sharp -reproof. “You’ve yourself to care for, Widow. That means a lot to ye.” - -“Now, what do ye mean?” - -“I mean this. That folk who have only theirselves to think on, they -forget to think for others. See you here, Widow, the fever’s not -reached Garth yet. ’Twill reach it sooner, I warrant ye, if you go -scaring timid women as you’re scaring ’em each minute o’ the day.” - -“Eh, now, I’m to be scolded, am I?” The widow brushed a few tears away, -and looked up into Hirst’s face with the timidity which had always -served her well. “To be sure, I’ve no man-body to speak up for me. I -mun bear my crosses meekly, for nobody heeds you much once you’re lone -and widowed.” - -Hirst’s face, with all its jollity and kindliness, was lined deep by -hardship, by fight in life’s open with such plain foes as weather, -peevish soil, and foot-rot that attacked his sheep. The widow’s was -rosy, plump, unmarked save by such little wrinkles as a baby carries; -she had sat by the hearth all her days, sheltered by four walls, and -death, when it had come to force her from the fireside warmth to the -churchyard and her husband’s grave, had been no more than a worry which -spoilt her own comfort for awhile. Yet the round, shining face, looking -up into his, made Yeoman Hirst uneasy this morning; it put him in the -wrong; it made him feel as if he had rebuked a kitten for playing with -a ball of wool. - -“Well, we’re made as we’re made, Widow!” he cried, preparing to move -on. “I only ask you to listen when I tell ye what a power o’ harm ye -can do by scaring folk when the fever’s close at our doors.” - -“Yet you’re going to Shepston market, same as if Shepston hadn’t got -fever in every other house.” - -“True,” said Hirst, his jaw set firm. “There’s need to go to Shepston, -fever or no, if I’m to do right by the farm. There’s no need for -stay-at-homes to chatter and wake a sleeping dog.” - -Widow Lister watched him go through the white, breathless sunlight, and -for once she did not call him back. - -“They’re strange, is men,” she thought. “My own man was like -Hirst--would run into any sort of danger if he’d a whim for it--yet -he’d grow outrageous as a turkey-cock if I set my tongue round a lile, -soft bit o’ gossip. Men, they never seem to understand life, poor -bodies. Ah, there’s David coming up street. He’s a soft heart, he. -I’ll just get him to see what ails yond canary bird o’ mine while he’s -passing.” - -David, however, was impatient. He listened to the story of the bird’s -ailments, but his air was brisk and downright, just as Yeoman Hirst’s -had been. A man is apt to carry that air when he knows how close a -danger lies to his womenfolk. - -“Starve him a bit, Widow. Cosset him less by the hearth, and he’ll come -round, same as other men birds. I’ve a bigger job than canaries to see -to.” - -Again the widow did not pursue him as he strode fiercely up toward Good -Intent. - -“The fever’s come to Garth a’ready, I’m thinking,” she murmured -dolefully. “If David’s lost half o’ the little wits he had, we’ve come -to a fine pass.” - -David halted when he came to the gate of Good Intent. His face was -full of suffering, and for that reason it showed a greater dignity. -He unfastened the latch with sudden decision, as if ashamed of his -cowardice, and stepped into the cool, grey porch, and stood at the door -of the house-place. - -Cilla was standing at the table in the full light of the sun that -streamed through the narrow windows, and she was ironing a lilac frock. -She had not heard his step. - -“Cilla!” he said, in a low voice. - -She started, and let the iron fall, and did not heed that it was -burning the lilac frock--the gown which, so short a while since as -this year’s spring, had pleased Reuben Gaunt. They stood there--David -on the threshold, Cilla at the table--and they looked at each other in -silence, asking some big question. - -“You may come in, David,” she said at last. - -He came and stood beside her, took up the iron and set it on its stand, -with the instinct of a good workman. - -“The lilac gown is burned, Priscilla.” - -“It has served its time, David. Did you come to Good Intent just to -tell me I was careless with my ironing?” - -“No, I didn’t, Cilla.” The smith had grown resolute again. “I came to -tell you that I’m sailing Tuesday o’ next week for Canada.” - -She was stunned for the moment. David had seen her bonnie since he knew -her first, but never bonnie as she was just now, with the sunlight on -her drooping head, her fingers plucking at the scissors in her girdle. - -“I’ve ta’en time to make up my mind, I own,” he went on stubbornly, -“but ’tis made up now. My aunt Joanna, overseas yonder, is a lile bit -like Widow Lister--she’s helpless without the good man she nagged into -his grave, and she willun’t take no fro’ me. She’s fonder o’ nephew -David these days than ever she was when she had him close under her -hand. She wants somewhat done for her, ye see.” - -Cilla glanced up at him, then down again. “What--what has made you in -such haste to leave, David?” - -“Haste, ye call it? I’ve been for going ever since April came in, and -putting off makes no job easier.” - -“You’ll be glad to leave Garth, and see bigger countries?” - -Priscilla could not understand herself. It seemed to her that she -wished to hurt David in some way; she was surprised, ashamed, that news -of his going should have such power to move her. - -“Glad to leave Garth?” echoed David, his blue eyes wide with question. -“Never that, lile Cilla. As ’tis, I should never have dreamed o’ going, -if there’d been you to keep me here.” - -“Could I keep you, David?” - -“Oh, lass, don’t play wi’ me. I cannot bear it. I’ll go easier, all the -same, for knowing all is finished between you and Gaunt o’ Marshlands.” - -The iron was cold by this time, but Cilla passed it idly to and fro -across the lilac gown. “Yes, all is finished--and--and I’m, oh, so -glad, David! So very glad.” - -In token of it she burst into tears, and David put an arm about her. -“Lile lass, lile lass, let me bide i’ Garth. See the love I’ll give -ye--asking so little, Cilla, and giving so much--giving so much, my -lass.” - -Priscilla looked up slowly, and regarded him with a long, steady -glance. Life was so great a matter, and she was so weak to cope with -it. If David would only give little to her, and ask her to give much in -return--if he would be less patient, and more masterful--if he would -find some way of taking her perplexities into his hands and riving them -to pieces--if he would be devil-may-care for once, as Gaunt had been in -the spring--the girl felt, in a helpless way, that then she might bid -him stay in Garth. - -It was their moment, and they let it pass. David was too diffident, -seeing the girl here in the sunlight, to brush aside the cobwebs that -hindered her true vision. It needed a rude hand to do it, and David’s -hand was gentle, as the hands of good men are when they are free of -smithy-work. Cilla was too unsure of everything to yield to a touch -less sure than downright mastery. She waited for him to speak, and -found that he was only looking at her--a more honest dog than Gaunt, -maybe, but with the same waiting look in his eyes that Gaunt had -carried since the jaunty days of spring. - -“You are so--so dumb, David,” she said impatiently. - -“Ay, I was never one to talk much, Cilla. I’m one to feel, for all -that. Time and time I fancy I’m a bit like Billy the Fool--loving the -dust o’ Garth Street when you walk along it, because ’tis you that -passes by, yet never finding a word to put to ’t.” - -Cilla’s strength was nearly spent. The heat of the pitiless summer, her -loneliness since Gaunt had chosen otherwise, the constant peril of the -Black Fever brooding round about Garth Village, had sapped her courage. -For a moment she was tempted to yield to David’s entreaties. He was so -sure of himself, so clean of his heart and his hands. She liked and -needed him. - -She remembered Gaunt, recalled each trivial detail of the day when she -had gone by coach to Keta’s Well, wearing a maiden heart. She thought -of the homeward walk, of the throstle-calls and the keen, young vigour -of the spring, while Gaunt stepped beside her, and talked and took her -unawares. She shrank in fancy from the kiss that he had given her at -the gate. - -“No, David, no!” she said. Her eyes were wet, but she did not fear to -look him in the face. “I’m not proud of Reuben Gaunt--not proud of him -at all--but I’m glad o’ the love I gave him--though--though it died, -David.” - -David the Smith took a long glance at the room--at the plants in the -window-sill, at the settle which had found him on many a bygone night -passing slow talk and quiet pipe-reek with Yeoman Hirst across the -hearth. Then he looked at Cilla, and stood there--strong and good to -see, and diffident--and his air was that of a man who steps into a -church. It had always been his way when Cilla was in sight. - -“Why, then, good-by, lile Cilla,” he said abruptly. “There’s much to be -done, if I’m setting off by Tuesday.” - -“David! David, you must not go like this--thinking me unfriendly. -David, I could never bear to be unfriendly to you.” - -She had moved to his side, and in perplexity had laid both hands upon -his arm. - -“You’ll not understand,” she went on hurriedly. “I shall miss you from -Garth. I shall look for you three times a day. The homeland will be -emptier, David.” - -“Then, lass, why willun’t ye wed me?” - -“I cannot tell. Only--women have no second love to give. Why it should -be so, God knows. But so it is, David. I could never feel for you--what -I felt for another when we walked by the field-ways home to Garth.” - -It seemed strange to Cilla that she felt no shame in the confession. -She would have shrunk from it at another time; but now it was only of -David she thought--of David, who asked for more than she could give -him--of David, who asked for honesty, though she longed to keep him -here in Garth. - -“That’s true,” he answered quietly. “Neither man nor woman has second -love to give. But there’s this to say, Cilla. Time and time, when -you’re alone on the moor-top, a will-o’-the-wisp comes ’ticing ye into -the marshes. True love is true love, lass, and ’tis steady-like; it -doesn’t dance like a light-heeled clown at the fair.” - -Priscilla of the Good Intent was tired, and saw life hidden, as the -street of Garth was hidden by the sick, grey dust that cried to the -skies for wholesome rain. - -“You’re thinking of Reuben Gaunt?” she asked wearily. - -“Ay, just of Reuben Gaunt--no more, no less.” David was watching her -eagerly, not as a lover now, but with a dog’s look when he sees his -mistress running into danger. - -Cilla thought again of that spring journey out to Keta’s Well and home -again. It called to her still, like the song of a laverock up above -the pastures when spring is wild about the land. Gaunt’s words were -in her ear. The kiss she had given him at the gate--the sweet of the -growing grass--the surrender, and the glamour of it, and the big lands -stretching out before her--Priscilla remembered every moment of that -day. She knew that David the Smith was right when he named the glamour -a will-o’-the-wisp; but she did not wish to know it; she resisted the -knowledge with a curious, headstrong passion that she rarely showed. - -“We are to part friends?” she said, in a low, unsteady voice. “You -choose a queer way of saying good-by. There was no need to speak of Mr. -Gaunt at all, still less to speak ill of him.” - -“That is not like you, Cilla,” David answered quietly. - -She was repentant at once, as her way was always. “No, ’tis not like -me. You meant it well--but, David, you are clumsy.” - -Again the longing came to her to keep him here in Garth. The shadow of -a great helplessness lay over her, and from one moment to the next she -did not know her mind. - -“David,” she said, by and by, “do you guess what they will say if you -leave Garth now, with the fever all about us?” - -“I never try to guess what they’ll say, lass. What I do is enough for -me.” - -Cilla, still hating this random mood of hers, could not hold back the -words. “They’ll say you choose your time for leaving carefully, after -thinking about it all these months. They’ll say you are as frightened -of the fever as other folk. They’ll say--that you’re a coward, David.” - -“They’ll be liars, then, Cilla. I’m a man o’ my hands, lile lass, and -I’ve learned a little here and there fro’ my tools. Iron’s stubborn, -and needs patience, but there’s luck, somehow, when ye’ve hammered -the horseshoe into shape. As for the fever--well, it finds ye, or it -doesn’t, and that’s i’ God’s hands. I’m a bit daft, like Billy the -Fool. The day’s work is enough for me--Billy calls it play.” - -Priscilla looked at him for a moment, as a child looks for a guiding -hand. “I--I was wrong to say that, David. No one dare say that you were -frightened. David, what ails me that I want to quarrel with my oldest -friend?” - -“’Tis the heat, Cilla. We’re all wearied out, I reckon. Quarrel wi’ me? -You could as well quarrel wi’ yond grandfather’s clock i’ the corner, -while ’tis saying _tick-tack_ to ye all day long and never changes -tune.” - -Cilla laughed uneasily. “That is the reason, maybe. I love the old -clock, but sometimes--oh, David, I’m weary of its notes sometimes--and -yet I should cry my heart out if--if the clock was not ticking in the -corner.” - -He should have seen her need of guidance, should have taken her random -hint that he might try a change of note--even if his voice were -unaccustomed to it and sounded out of tune. But David had made up his -mind that morning, after long indecision, and his face was set toward -the lonely lands. - -“Best listen to the old clock, for all that, Cilla. It doesn’t go fast, -but it goes for a long while. Well, there’s a deal to be done, if I’m -to get off by Tuesday o’ next week.” - -He took a last glance at Cilla, at the house-place, at the lilac frock -that lay on the ironing-board; and without a word he stepped out into -the dusty street. And, after he had gone, Priscilla of the Good Intent -sat down at the table, and laid her head on it, and sobbed bitterly; -but whether the tears were for David, or for herself, she did not know. - -David went down the street. He carried a big air; and his face, if -sad at all, wore only the dignity of grief, none of its meanness or -self-pity. - -He found Billy leaning against the door of the forge. Billy, thinking -the more because he said so little, had watched the smith go up the -street, had divined his errand by the same instinct which befriended -him in his comradeship with birds and beasts; and now he knew from one -glance at David’s face what was in the doing. - -“You’ll be leaving this right pleasant spot, David the Smith?” - -David was too accustomed to the other’s intuition to feel surprise. -“Ay, I’m leaving Garth. And, lad, I’ve something to say to ye.” - -“Well, then, have ye a fill o’ baccy, an’ may be a lile match or so to -light yond same? Smoke’s a fearful help to a daft body’s head-piece.” - -The smith waited till Billy was drawing tranquil puffs--and indeed no -man in Garth knew better how to smoke a pipe with true respect--then -put a hand against the smithy wall, and leaned there, a figure of -strength and of self-reliance. - -“I shouldn’t like the forge to pass into other hands, Billy. There’s -been one o’ my name here since the Year One, or nigh about, and -’twouldn’t be seemly-like, to see another name above the door. Now, -see ye, lad, suppose we called it play, ye and me, to set ye here as -master-smith? ’Tis ever so much more play-work than blowing bellows, -come to think on’t.” - -“Te-he!” laughed Billy. “Am I to play wi’ all your big, fine tools, -David?” - -“Ay, just that I’ve taught ye the way o’ them, and Dan Foster’s lad -from Brow Farm shall come and blow the bellows for you.” - -“Will that be work for Dan Foster’s lad, or play?” - -David caught the other’s meaning, with a quickness that he might well -have shown when saying good-by to Cilla. “Hard work, Billy--grievous -hard work, while you’re just playing at making horseshoes, -fence-railings, and what not.” - -“And I’m to play at making horseshoes?” went on Fool Billy, smoking -quietly into the face of the stark, blue sky and the heat of the midday -sun. “I’m to play at smithy-work, while Dan Foster’s lad’s sweating -hard at bellows-blowing?” - -David nodded as he filled his own pipe and lit it, leaning against the -smithy wall. “It will be rare fun for ye, Billy--the lad working hard -as ever he can sweat at the blowing, and ye just pleasuring wi’ making -good horseshoes.” - -“It will that!” said Billy. “Fancied bellows-blowing was pastime, I, -but now I see it quite contrary-like. Dan Foster’s lad will be Fool -Billy, sweating at the bellows, and I shall be master-man. Te-he, -David!” - -“Ay, te-he!” growled David. “Get the bellows a-blowing, Billy, for -there’s work needs doing if I’m to get off by Tuesday o’ next week.” - -Billy obeyed. He had little gift of speech, but had the rarer quality -of sympathy; and he knew, in his own odd way, how matters stood with -the master of the forge. - -The smith did not move from his place against the wall until his pipe -was smoked out. Then he gave a glance along the dust of Garth in the -direction of Good Intent, and went into the forge. - -“I’ve met odd folk and queer happenings i’ my time,” he said to Billy, -who was making the bellows roar; “but the queerest o’ the lot is life -itself--just life as we’re living it, Billy.” - -Billy answered nothing, but played gently with the bellows. And David -worked fiercely at the anvil. And the sick, dusty afternoon wore on, -bidding all who had time for idle thoughts to remember how near the -Black Fever lay to Garth. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -David the Smith caught the morning coach on the Tuesday, though he had -all but missed it through remembering a bit of smithy-work that must be -finished off before he left for Canada. That was David’s way; he would -not leave Garth owing the smallest debt to any man, and promises of -work to be finished to the hour were always counted debts of honour by -David. - -There was a little crowd about the Elm Tree Inn, and up above the -folks’ heads he could see Will, the mail-driver, sitting high on the -box seat of the coach, and showing signs of good-humoured impatience to -be off. - -“Hi, David!” called the driver, catching sight of the other a hundred -yards away. “Ye be i’ no hurry to leave Garth, but Will the Driver is. -I carry the Queen’s letters, and Her Majesty--God bless her--will want -to know why I’m late wi’ her post-bag.” - -David was sorrowful enough, but he did not mean to let Garth know it. -He held his head high, and did not quicken his steady forward stride. - -“Oh, the Queen willun’t mind, Will,” he answered. “Just tell her it was -David the Smith who kept her waiting, and she’ll understand.” - -A shade of perplexity crossed his face as he neared the knot of folk -who pressed round the coach. There were apt to be idlers about the -inn-front at this hour, since the passing of the mail was the big -adventure of each day’s tranquil round; but this morning there was -clearly something unusual on foot. - -“What is it?” asked David. “Is there a wedding or a fairing Shepston -way, and me not heard of it?” - -And then it was brought home to him that he was the centre of the -crowd, and he flushed like a great, shy lad to find himself a hero. -Their welcome was so spontaneous, their affection so simple and so -boisterous, that David’s modesty was shocked. David had been accustomed -to do his work in Garth, to walk up and down its street with the proud -and ready courtesy of a man whose hands are strong and whose heart is -clean; and the village had accepted his presence as it accepted the sun -when it shone, or the rain when it watered their growing crops. It was -only now, at the parting of the ways, that Garth fully understood what -it was losing. - -Will the Driver gave the folk little time to show their feelings. He -had kept the seat beside him on the box for David--if seat it could be -called, seeing that most of it was littered by mail-bags picked up from -half-a-dozen scattered villages--and he motioned to David to clamber up -by the fore-wheel. The crowd would not allow it, though, and lifted him -with a “Heave ho! All together, lads!” And David was thankful that the -mail-bags broke his fall a little as he was hoisted into his seat. - -The hampers were passed up, and small, round butter-baskets, and -parcels wrapped clumsily in thick brown paper. Each was a tribute -from some one among the villagers who had felt no need till now to -express his regard for the smith; and each had a dozen eggs in it, or -a spice-loaf, or some other farewell gift of viands, until David broke -into a laugh. - -“Nay, lads, nay!” he protested. “’Twill take another horse to help pull -all these parcels to Shepston--let alone a few odd men to help me get -through wi’ what’s inside them.” - -“Oh, tuts!” roared Farmer Hirst, striving to cover his grief that David -had insisted on leaving Garth. “’Tis a long step and a far step fro’ -Garth to Canada. Ye may varry weel be hungry ’twixt this and there.” - -“The Queen’s waiting,” said Will the Driver, as he flicked the -mail-bags with the end of his whip. - -Cilla slipped from the shelter of her father’s shoulders, and came and -reached up a hand to David. He could make nothing of the girl’s face, -for it was both gay and downcast. He felt something slipped into his -palm, he heard her bid him a quiet farewell, and she was gone. The team -of three started forward, and a shrill cry came to them from behind. - -Will the Driver pulled up, as if by instinct--an instinct he -despised--and Widow Lister ran panting to the coach. She brought no -gift, but then no one would expect such from a widow-body. - -“I couldn’t let ye go without saying good-by, David,” she said, out -of breath. “Besides, I want ye to take a message to your aunt Joanna -yonder i’ Canada. ’Tis fifteen years and a day since she borrowed a -saucepan fro’ me, and went off at her marriage, and forgot to return -it.” - -“Widow, we’re late,” said Will, his good temper near to the breaking -point. - -“Ay, but--David--tell Joanna it isn’t as I want the saucepan back--’tis -burned through t’ bottom by now, no doubt--but I’m not one to like -bearing a grudge all these years. If she’d only say she war sorry, -now--” - -The driver flicked his team, and the white road slipped behind them, -and David had started on the track to Canada. - -For a half-mile Will was silent. Then he spoke, looking steadily at his -horses’ ears. - -“Seems to me that one o’ two things is bound to happen,” he said. -“Either Widow Lister is going to leave the road, or I am. There’s not -room for the two of us.” - -He waited for David’s answer; and, getting none, went forward with his -grievance, not troubling to turn his head. - -“A woman that can carry a saucepan grudge for fifteen years--gee up, -lass Polly, we’ve time to make up!--is a woman that cannot help scaring -a man. ’Tis not just that,” he broke off, still flicking the ears of -his team with a gentle, contemplative whip, as if he were casting for -trout, “’tis not just that bothers me. ’Tis her durned, queer way o’ -being out o’ breath, and growing plumper on ’t every day, an’ holding -up the mail three days out o’ the seven, year in, year out. And the -widow allus chooses her three days--days when we chance to be late, I -mean.” - -The dust went by them faster and faster; for Will prided himself on -reaching Shepston to the minute, though he hated this overdriving of -good cattle. - -“The widow’s never grown up,” he went on, cheerful and happy-go-lucky -again, now that he had vented his grievance. “She’ll be a bairn o’ six -years old till she dies. That’s her ailment, and that’s why we humour -her, I reckon. Yet she married a fairish sensible man, and ought to -have learned summat by now. Gee-up, lass Polly. We’ve time to make up, -I say. She was left a widow too young, maybe.” - -Another mile went by, broken only by a farm lass who held up the coach -like a gentle highwayman, handed a letter and a penny to the driver, -and smiled at him. The outlying farmsteads posted their letters in this -haphazard way, and neither the driver nor the maid said a word to each -other; they were too friendly to need words, as it chanced, for Will -was pledged to marry her within a month or two. - -The next mile passed them, dusty and white. The sun beat down, and -there was not a friendly cloud to hide the pitiless blue of the sky. -It was no friendly blue, such as pansies wear, when times go hard and -the cool, quiet flowers look at a man with eyes of pity; it was a cold -light and a hard light, for all its warmth, this never-ending sky that -kept the Black Fever close to Garth’s borders. - -“There’s no good news fro’ Shepston, David,” said Will, by and by. -“Every day there’s the same tale when I drive in--more folk down wi’ -fever, and bodies waiting to be buried because the coffiners are feared -to go nigh them. I’m tough myself, but I’m getting a lile bit nervous. -They never stop talking on’t, ye see, i’stead o’ letting it be, and a -man can’t help thinking o’ what’s being dinned into his ears by every -body he meets. Bless me,” he broke off, with a quiet laugh, “I’ve got -that bad I’m finding myself looking at Shepston passengers when they -get aboard the mail--looking to see if there’s any sure mark of the -fever on their faces.” - -His companion was still silent, and at last it struck Will that -something was amiss. He turned his head, and checked his flow of gossip -suddenly; he had not seen steady David in this mood before. - -A half-mile out from Garth, the smith had opened his right hand, had -glanced eagerly to see what parting gift Cilla had left there when she -said good-by. He found a sprig of rosemary, and, because he had held it -so long in his hot palm, half fearing to look at it, the scent of the -herb stole up to him. - -It was the scent that drove David’s wits astray, that rendered him -deaf to Will’s chatter, blind to the garish road in front of him. -It meant so much, now that Garth was left behind; it brought each -corner of the old, grey street to mind. He could scent again the -wood-reek curling sleepily from chimney-stacks of twenty shapes and -sizes, the wallflowers blooming in Widow Lister’s strip of garden, -the strong, lusty smell of the forge when his hammer rang on red-hot -iron. A sickness to return laid hold of him; the rosemary had given its -message, and David was fighting with his impulse to get down from the -coach and tramp home again to Garth. - -Then another thought came to him. Who did not know that rosemary stood -for remembrance? There was not a child in Garth but could have told him -what the herb’s meaning was. In some special way, rosemary had been, -time out of mind, the guardian herb of Garth; it grew in every garden; -it grew along the street front, wherever a strip of soil had been -rescued from the highway. Without rosemary, the village would not know -its own face; and Garth folk, when they wished to praise Cilla overmuch -behind her back, said that she was just like rosemary. - -Did she wish him to return? Had she chosen this maidenly token of a -change of mind? Little wonder that David could find no answer; for -Cilla herself, in these days of trouble and indecision, could have -given him none. Will had talked of the widow, of the fever, and what -not; but David had sat with folded arms, watching the road slip by and -trying to grasp his purpose, one way or the other. - -It was the turning-point of Cilla’s life and his; and once again -modesty played him an ill turn. He was a big fool, he told himself, to -go thinking Cilla would marry a dull, workaday fellow; she was made for -daintier wooing than he could give. Oh, ay, to be sure she liked him -well enough, and remembrance meant just that--no more. - -“Seems to me ye’re in t’ middle of a day-dream, David,” said the -driver, after a long look at him. - -David pulled himself together, and his slow, patient smile broke across -the firmness of his lips. “I was,” he answered. “And now I’m out o’ the -dream, Will. They want no wool-gatherers out in Canada yonder, so they -tell me.” - -“And ye never heard a word o’ what I said about the Black Fever? ’Tis -all varry weel for ye who’re leaving it, but I tell ye I’m glad to -get out o’ Shepston every morn, and see the fells looking clean and -wholesome-like--though, bless me, I’ve nigh begun to look at their -faces, too, to see if there be any mulberry patches on ’em. Mulberry -patches, David--Shepston folk won’t let ye forget the fever-signs. -Gee-up, mare Polly! We’re late, and the Queen’s waiting for us.” - -“As for me,” said David, “I look on the fever this way. Ye get it, an’ -ye die, or ye don’t get it, and ye live; either way, what’s bound to -happen is going to come, and crying won’t mend it.” - -“That’s true,” assented the driver cheerily, after due consideration -of the point. “Be durned, David, ye’ve a gift o’ common sense. Thought -I had the gift, too, till I took to looking for mulberry patches i’ -honest people’s faces.” - -When they neared Shepston, the smith turned for a last look at the -hills raking up into the white-hot limestone glare that beat upon the -dale he loved. - -“’Tis good-by, I reckon, lile lass Cilla,” was his thought. - -Reuben Gaunt had not joined the company that met to give David a -farewell at the inn. With all his fickleness, he was not a liar, and -he disdained to make a show of friendship, when he knew that there was -open enmity. Instead, he remembered that it was Linsall Fair-day, and -he walked up the moor to Ghyll Farm. - -Gaunt found the farm-door open, and stepped in. Peggy Mathewson was -busy baking bread, and she looked hot and tired. The heat of the -kitchen, the smell of the loaves, drove Gaunt into the shelter of the -porch again. - -“Phew! I thought ’twould be cooler indoors than out, Peggy.” - -“Did ye? My temper’s not cool, to begin with, Reuben--or should I say -‘Mr. Gaunt’ these days?” - -“Reuben, I fancy.” - -“I like to know. Ye change so often, and your station varies so--now -marrying proud little Good Intent, and then again bending down to take -notice o’ Peggy Mathewson--” - -“I’ve a cure for your temper, Peggy,” he said, with an easy laugh. -“We’ll go to Linsall, and your loaves can wait.” - -“Why to Linsall?” she asked, with a longing glance at the moor. -“Oh, ay, ’tis Fair-day. I’ve nigh forgotten fairs, and ribbons, and -sich-like idleness, since you came home again. What wi’ work, an’ what -wi’ trying to keep up wi’ your cantrips, Reuben, I’m a busy lass.” - -He only laughed and switched his leggings with the riding-crop, which -from sheer habit he was carrying. The girl’s tongue might be bitter, -but her eyes told another tale. “Let’s away, Peggy. A scamper always -does you good. As for the baking--” - -“It’s finished,” she broke in, setting down the last batch of loaves -from the oven; “and if it weren’t--why, I fancy I shouldn’t heed.” - -The old recklessness was in her voice, the old longing for -light-heartedness, though under it all she knew that there was grief -and heaviness. She went up-stairs and was down again before Gaunt had -time to grow impatient. - -“Shall I shame ye at the Fair?” she demanded, standing frankly for his -inspection, her colour heightened, her hands resting on her hips. - -Reuben noted the red scarf, the touches of colour which she had -added deftly here and there to a dress which had seen many fairs and -many weathers. No other lass could have worn such colours. They were -gypsyish, bold, reckless, like Peggy herself, and they seemed to add to -her beauty and her self-assurance. - -“Shame me?” laughed Reuben. “There’ll be eyes for none but ye at -Linsall!” - -She closed the porch-door behind her and stepped out into the sunlight. -“’Twill be enough for me if I keep _your_ eyes fro’ roaming for a whole -day at a stretch. Eh, well, I’m a fool to go wi’ ye, and mother ’ull -wonder what’s getten me when she comes back fro’ selling eggs i’ Garth. -But then she’s used to wondering, is mother,” the girl added, with a -sudden, hard wistfulness in her voice; “it seems to come natural to us -Mathewsons.” - -As they breasted the moor, however, Peggy’s spirits rose. She had a -day’s freedom before her--and Reuben’s company--and there was no need -to vex herself with the question why he, and he alone, had power to -take her natural good sense away. - -They followed one of those winding moor-roads, set between low banks of -bilberry and ling and wild thyme, which seem ever to hide some swift -adventure at the next turning. Peggy, bred in the midst of these wide, -sweeping uplands, had found all her childish fairy-tales, all her -make-believe of battle and romance, among the moors. The gypsy wildness -in her needed colour, warmth, the speed of strange adventures; as a -child, and later as a woman, she had peopled the heath with voices -other than the curlew’s and the plover’s. The countless hollows, -bottomed by rank mosses and deep bracken, hid ambushed men; behind each -hillock that concealed the track from her, she would look for some -figure to come riding down to meet her, and no toil about the farm, no -harshness of the workaday life which hemmed her in at Ghyll, had killed -this glamour of the heath. It was this need of glamour, maybe, which -had bidden her long ago to set her heart on Gaunt; the man’s queer -eyes, with the look in them of devilry and yet of boyish surprise at -life, his irresolution, the very uncertainty from one day to the next -whether he would come tame to her hand, or would be wooing elsewhere, -all enticed Peggy, as the winding hill-tracks did, that promised some -gallant meeting at the next corner--always at the next corner. - -To-day she looked neither forward nor behind. She crossed the moor with -feet as light as Gaunt’s, and he laughed when they reached the top and -halted to take breath. - -“You’re just a wild moor-bird, Peggy.” - -“And why not, Reuben; I was hatched in a moor-nest.” - -The day’s heat had brought its own recompense in a measure, for a haze -was creeping up from the heath, softening the glare. The breeze was -quick up here, and almost cool. Far down below them they could see -Linsall village and its bridge, resting like a small, grey Paradise in -the cup of the tall hills. - -“You were hatched in the pastures,” went on Widow Mathewson’s lass, -after a silence. “There’s a difference always ’twixt moor nestlings and -pasture birds.” - -“Oh, I don’t know! I’m fond o’ the moor, myself--” - -“Ay, fond--fondish, as ye are o’ women--but--eh, lad, ye’ve no love o’ -the heather, and the smell of a marsh when it yields to your foot and -all but gets ye under. ’Tisn’t the same to ye, Reuben. Ye’ve always a -back-thought for the pastures, green i’ winter an’ green i’ spring, and -never a change. They’re snugger, Reuben, and snugness was always to -your liking.” - -Gaunt only laughed, and they ran down the track, hand in hand, till -they reached the wall that guarded the intaken fields. Linsall village -was bigger to them now, and they could see that it was thick with folk. - -“They’ll be dancing on the green to-night?” said Peggy, after they had -climbed the wall and were walking soberly down the long, raking field -that led them to the Linsall road. “Well, I feel like dancing, Reuben. -My feet were never so light under me--” - -“Oh, now, be quiet!” muttered Reuben, with a touch of superstition and -a passing sense of disquiet. “We’re not near a rowan-tree, Peggy, to -touch it for luck when we boast.” - -“We’ll risk it, Reuben! I seem to have no wish at all, save just to -dance and dance wi’ ye on Linsall Green. ’Tis my head, maybe, that’s -light and not my heels.” - -They were on the road now, and Peggy’s mood grew lighter still as she -saw the booths, the tents, the knots of chattering country folk that -covered Linsall Green. She relished the open admiration shown her as -she passed; she welcomed the sly gibes of a few ill-natured and plainer -women; for she knew that Reuben would like her better if she were the -admitted beauty of the day. This strapping lass with the clear judgment -and the capable hands whenever life’s work had to be done, was in -playtime as simple as a child. Gaunt was her good fairy to-day; she -loved him with a passionate devotion that surprised her in quieter -moments; in all things to-day she wished to please him. - -They went into the tavern whose front stretched orderly, and long, -and grey, the whole width of the green. Gaunt made her drink red wine -with their meal; the taste of it was thin and reedy to Peggy, but she -understood vaguely that Reuben thought it a fine thing he was doing. -The glass from which she drank it, was shapelier, too, than any she had -seen, and she praised the wine, and the meal, and the sunlight that lay -white on the white street outside the window. - -Peggy laughed quietly as they went out into the glare again. “If I -never enjoy a day again,” she said, “I mean to take my fill o’ this -one.” - -Again Gaunt felt a touch of uneasiness but shrugged his shoulders, as -his way was, and thought no more of it. If he had been bred nearer to -the Border, he would have said that Peggy o’ Mathewson’s was fey; as -it was, he wondered that he had played yes-and-no with this girl. Her -beauty, her high spirits, the disregard she showed for all admiration -but his own, were pleasant to the man. For months he had been playing -with his promise to Cilla of the Good Intent that he would marry Peggy. -Well, who knew what might happen on this fine day in Linsall? - -“Peggy,” he said, as they threaded their way across the green, “you -need a string of corals round your neck, to set off all the bonnie rest -o’ you. I saw a necklace as we came past the far booth yonder.” - -And a wonderful booth it was, this wooden counter set on trestles, -with a span of canvas overhead to keep sun or rain away. There were -toys on it, and flat-irons, and housewives’ “find-alls;” there were -wooden pipes and clay pipes, and snuff boxes. Betrothal rings, and -wedding rings, and teething rings, lay neighbours to packets of simples -warranted to remedy many ailments. The whole sum of life--its hopes, -its absurdities, its random search after pleasure or after ease from -pain--seemed to lie within the narrow confines of the booth. - -Gaunt took down one of the coral necklaces, and the woman standing -behind the counter gave the pair of them a keen glance. - -“How much?” asked Gaunt. - -The woman’s thoughts were rapid. Were they brother and sister? No! It -would have been sixpence in that case. Had he just met with the girl, -and was he playing with a fancy? She thought not. That would have meant -a shilling. Were they newly-pledged to each other? - -“Half a crown,” said the woman quietly. “They’re the best coral money -can buy, and I can only sell ’em so cheap as that because--” - -“Oh, yes,” put in Gaunt drily. “Here’s the money. Now, Peggy, let me -fasten it on for you--there! I told you ’twas all that was needed to -set off the rest o’ you.” - -Peggy felt a touch on her arm, and turned to find a plump rascal, -with a pedlar’s tray in front of him. His face, a dusky red at all -times--what between weather outside inn-walls and warmer cheer within -them--was a deeper colour than its wont this morning, though his eyes -were quick and roguish, and his spirits gay as ever. - -“Ah, now, Peggy o’ Mathewson’s, come away from the booth,” he said. -“Mother Lambert there has to pay for her stall, and the keep of a horse -to drag it about fro’ place to place. Stands to reason her wares are -dear to buy. Now, Pedlar Joe is his own pony--carries his booth in -front of him, i’ a manner o’ speaking--and can afford to sell things -cheap.” - -“Ay,” put in Mother Lambert tartly from behind her booth, “cheap to -buy, and dear when ye’ve got ’em. We all know _your_ wares, Pedlar Joe.” - -The pedlar sighed, and mutely called the high fells to witness that he -needed no defence. “Women are that jealous,” he observed. Then, with -a whimsical glance at Reuben, “Mr. Gaunt, ’tis ye that’s brought the -Pride o’ the Fair to Linsall. Ye’ll have to buy her one of these lile -scarfs. Peggy’s fond o’ bright colours, as she’s a right to be.” - -Gaunt laughed as he put his hand in his pocket, for the pedlar was as -well-known for twenty miles around as Kilnhope Crag, and he came and -went like the wind, a chartered libertine. “Fond of bright colours, is -she? Like your face, Joe, I take it. And, by that token, you’ve been -polishing your face a little more than the ordinary.” - -“Ay, I’ve been out i’ the sun more nor usual,” said the other -shamelessly. “Wonderful chap, the sun is, for giving good colour to a -body’s face. Now, Peggy, see this crimson scarf here; for old times’ -sake, Mr. Gaunt, ye shall have it cheap for three-and-six.” - -“Say one-and-six,” suggested Gaunt lazily. - -“Nay,” said Joe with dignity. “I may be poor, sir, but I don’t go -bargaining when there’s a lady nigh. Three-and-six I said, and -_two_-and-six I stick to.” - -Peggy and Gaunt moved away, as soon as the bargain was completed, and -Pedlar Joe strolled up to the booth. Mother Lambert and he were good -friends enough, despite professional rivalry. - -“Looks as if Gaunt and wild-bird Peggy might make a match of it, after -all?” he hazarded. - -“So that’s Peggy o’ Mathewson’s?” answered the booth-woman. “I’ve not -been nigh Linsall for four or five years, as ye know, and the lass was -a little ’un then. I’d forgotten her. But Gaunt--there’s no forgetting -him. Maybe he’s caught at last. I had the same fancy when I saw ’em -step over the green.” - -“Maybe,” chuckled the pedlar. “There’s allus a ‘maybe’ when folk -mention Reuben Gaunt. Reuben--it means summat like water, if I call to -mind--water that’s aye running under the brigg i’stead o’ crossing it -to find a bit o’ safe-sure ground?” - -Widow Lambert began to arrange her wares afresh. “Ay, like yourself, -Joe--just like yourself. A caravan and a horse are steady matters, but -a man wi’ a naked pack on his back should go by the name o’ Reuben.” - -So then these two, vagrants both, fell into argument. Mother Lambert -held the landed view of life, as befitted one who had a caravan and -the right to fix her booth on the green for this one day. Pedlar Joe -argued nimbly for the honour of his calling, and his views were those -of the unlanded folk, coloured through and through by talk of freedom, -of leisure in which to snare game--as being no man’s property in -special--and of the joys attending one who, day in day out, had only -his pack and himself to think of. - -The dispute was ended only when Joe caught sight of a country lass, -with a pretty face and an air of foolish vanity about her. - -“I’ve to sell a scarf to Nancy Wood,” he said, with a confidential wink -at the booth-woman. “She’s prattlesome now, and will buy; but she’ll -have no heart for ’t once she’s seen Peggy o’ Mathewson’s.” - -The pedlar sold his scarf; and the sun got down, half between noon -and setting; and still the folk came pouring into Linsall. There was -little news of the fever on this side of the moor-ridge; and, if there -had been news, it would have been disregarded on this day when all the -countryside was pledged to merriment. - -“You’re blithe, Peggy!” said Gaunt, as they moved about the green -together. - -“I should be,” she answered, with a heedless laugh. “I’m free for a -day--and I’m holding both hands out to catch whatever frolic comes.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -Linsall was staid enough throughout the year; but, like Peggy -Mathewson, she made the most of her big holiday. The cobbled inn-front, -wide as it was, could hold no more farmers’ gigs; the stable-yard was -full of traps; and those who rode in late on sturdy horses were forced -to seek billets for their nags wherever a friendly farmstead offered -hospitality. - -The bridge, arched like a delicate, grey eyebrow above the peat-brown -river, was white with faces which looked constantly toward the inn, -as if watching for some spectacle. The Squire was there, and his -womenfolk, rubbing shoulders with yeomen and their wives; farm-hands -pressed close against the stonework of the bridge, and held their -bairns to see what was going forward. The Green below was crowded, too, -and men were running up the pastures that stepped briskly from the -roadway to the moor. Only the road itself, from the fields right down -to the inn-front, was clear of onlookers; and the dust of the highway -showed hot and white as it made a lane between the folk. - -It was time for the fell-race, and there were few dwellers in this -land of climbing fields and overtopping hills whose hearts did not -beat faster at prospect of the race. Of all their sports it was most -in keeping with their daily lives. Each farmer, when he went to call -the cattle into mistal, when he ploughed or won the hay-crop, was -compelled to do his share of climbing; for all the fields at Linsall, -save a few that lay along the river’s level, strode straight up-hill, -straight down and up again. This fell-race indeed, was not so much a -pastime as a test of endurance which has grown naturally out of their -daily occupation, and the winner of it was counted the great man of the -year. - -“Reuben,” said Peggy o’ Mathewson’s, slipping a hand through his arm -as they stood on the green, “the race is to start i’ less than a -half-hour, and I’ve a fancy.” - -“Let’s know it, lass. ’Tis not to-day I’m saying no to you, I reckon.” - -“You must run, Reuben--and you must win.” - -“You’re jesting? Why, I’m all out of practice--” - -“Oh, you’re tough and hard! I’ve only to look at you to see you’re in -condition. You used to win it easy enough i’ the old days, Reuben--try, -just to please me.” - -Gaunt laughed good-naturedly, and began to push a way through the -crowd. “I’ll do my best, Peggy; but I sha’n’t be best pleased if I come -home second, after being reckoned an easy first so long.” - -He borrowed running-gear from the landlord of the inn, and a low hum -went up from the crowd when they saw him step out again into the -sunlight. For it was known that one of the big fell-racers from the -Lake Country had entered for to-day’s struggle, and until now there -had seemed no chance that Linsall could keep the honour within its own -borders. At a meeting less happy-go-lucky and more set about with rules -than this, there might have been trouble touching Gaunt’s late entry. -But Linsall’s rule was that, till the moment when the starter shouted -“Go,” any man was free to take his place along the line of combatants. - -As Gaunt moved quietly to his place, he was stopped by a -shabby-genteel man, whose appearance seemed oddly out of keeping with -the ruddy farmer-folk about him. - -“Beg pardon, Mr. Gaunt, but you mean to run to-day?” whispered the -stranger. - -Gaunt nodded; he had followed horse-racing too long to have any doubt -as to what was coming. - -“You’ll upset all our bets, then, and poor men have to make their -living. See, now, Mr. Gaunt, you’re well off, I know, but the richest -need more, and if you’d a mind to fall out o’ the race--” - -Reuben Gaunt, if by force of nature a crooked man when his affections -were in case, was scrupulously straight in other matters; he had a -plentiful lack of self-guidance, but no meanness; and the suggestion of -the shabby-genteel man touched his temper to the quick. - -“Here, lads,” he broke in, turning to the group of strapping lads who -stood nearest to him. “Here’s one who wants me to run crooked for sake -of a five pound note. Just cool his heels for him in the river.” - -It was all over before the crowd had time to realize the meaning of -the uproar. The intruder into Linsall’s peace was carried at a running -pace to the pool under the bridge, was thrown in and seen to clamber up -the further bank and seek cover like a fox. The farm-lads laughed and -shrugged their shoulders, and went back to see the start of the race. -They had upheld Linsall’s reputation for a race run fairly and with -keenness, and there was little chance that other out-at-elbows gentry -would try to-day to disturb that reputation. - -Gaunt took his place on the starting line. There were nine of -them--lean and wiry fellows all, since upland farming seldom makes for -too much flesh--and next to Reuben was the Lake Country runner, Bownas -by name. Long in limb, lithe and spare in the body, he dwarfed Gaunt -by a good four inches, and seemed built for this business of capturing -the race. - -There were five minutes to go before the signal for the start, and -Bownas looked Gaunt up and down. Finally, he put out a hand. - -“You’re Mr. Gaunt? Pleased to run against ye. I’ve heard o’ ye. Better -a tough race than a slack one any day.” - -Gaunt’s spirits were rising every moment. He laughed as he took the -other’s hand. “By the Lord, we’ll show them what running means, if -they’ve never known it before.” - -He was heartened by the murmurs of the crowd behind him. “Gaunt’s -running to-day,” said one, with a hint of hero-worship in his voice. -“We’ll keep the winner i’ our own country yet,” said another. The -shabby-genteel man’s assumption that his bets were in danger had been -in itself a tribute to his skill. Sympathy was a spur to Gaunt always, -and he felt that the crowd was with him. - -“You’ve to win, Reuben! Make no mistake o’ that,” murmured Peggy from -behind. “I wouldn’t have ’ticed ye to run at all, if I hadn’t been sure -o’ your winning.” - -He turned and looked her in the eyes. “I begin to fancy I shall, -Peggy,” he said; “but ’tis long odds to put me up at a minute’s notice -against Bownas of Shap.” - -“Ready, are ye?” cried the starter. “Ready? Go!” - -There was no excitement at the beginning of the race; and this, too, -was in keeping with the dales-folk, who liked their pleasures to be -long drawn out. It was only the raw youngsters who showed signs of -their paces along the dusty line of road; Gaunt and Bownas trotted -quietly at the rear, remembering that a good deal of ground had to -slip under their feet before the last swift struggle home. - -The haze had lifted now, and the sunlight lay so keen on moor and -pasture that those on the bridge, the remotest point of vantage, could -see each figure as it climbed the pastures, could follow the men when -they gained the darker background of the moor. - -Not one of the nine was running now, and three at least were creeping -painfully up the breast of the moor. - -“Gaunt’s at his old game,” said one of the crowd. - -“Ay, he takes it straight as it comes. Sakes, how he sticks to his -business!” - -It was not then that eagerness began to show itself among the -onlookers. Much depended on the down-hill scamper, but more on that -stubborn climb up the hill-face which, from below and in the sun-glare, -showed steep as a house-wall. - -Bownas of Shap was playing his old game, too. They could see him -turning warily along the dingles, instead of facing the high bluffs. -He counted on saving wind and gaining speed, as he had done in other -struggles of the kind; but he had not run against Reuben Gaunt before. - -The onlookers--and every face now was turned to the moor with fine -expectancy--could see Gaunt keeping a straight line for the summit, -though now and then he seemed to be pulling himself forward by sheer -grip of the tough heather that hindered his feet no less than did the -steepness of the moor. - -They were lost for awhile, Bownas and Gaunt, in the shadow of the -highest ridge. At the ridge-top, pencilled clear against the hard blue -of the sky, stood the turning-post and the man who guarded it. Then, -out of the shadowed space, Gaunt’s figure showed; he had gone straight -as a gunshot, and, without turn or halt, had reached the flag. - -Peggy could not rest quiet in the road below. She had climbed to the -brink of the moor by now, and three or four of the crowd had followed -her. It was Peggy’s day, and she wished it to be full. Gaunt might be -this and that, she told herself, her eyes fixed on the moor above; but -she would forgive him fickleness and all if she could dance on the -green to-night, and know that he was the winner of the race. - -“Gaunt climbs like a wildcat,” said a tough, old yeoman, standing at -Peggy’s side. - -“Climbs like a man,” answered Peggy, and kept her eyes on the hill-top. - -Bownas had reached the flag by now, and had turned to follow Gaunt down -the moor. From below, Peggy o’ Mathewson’s could hear the eager uproar -of the crowd. None thought of the seven stragglers who followed; it was -a race between the homelander and the “foreigner,” and Gaunt himself, -though the blood was surging in his ears, could hear a stifled echo of -the roar that meant good-will to him. - -Gaunt had been used to say that he won his races because his wind was -a special gift, in token that his legs were short. He needed the gift -now; for, out of practice as he was, the straight, unswerving climb had -punished him. - -Bownas was still following his bent, down-hill as up-hill. He chose the -gentler slopes, while Gaunt ran helter-skelter down, straight for the -wall that guarded the pastures from the moor. - -“The wildcat’s won!” shouted the old yeoman at Peggy’s ear. “He’s a -furlong forrarder, and all easy-going now.” - -A long, brown line of shale lay in Gaunt’s path. He would not turn -aside, but trusted to his old trick of sliding down it, feet foremost, -with the shingle scattering round his knees. - -“Oh, be durned!” muttered the yeoman. “’Tis all over wi’ Gaunt! Just -when he had the race i’ his hands, an’ all.” - -Peggy’s face was white; for she had seen the runner trip against a -stone which did not yield to his foot, as the shale had done. So great -was Gaunt’s speed that he could not think of checking himself; head -over heels he went, and landed on his feet again as if by a miracle. -For a second or two he stood dazed by the shock, and Bownas got to -within fifty yards of him. Then, shaking himself together and setting -his face as hard as a flint, Gaunt started down the moor again. - -“He’ll break his neck one day at yond job,” said the yeoman to Peggy. -“Glad he hasn’t done as much to-day. Want to see him win, I.” - -The runners were scaling the wall between moor and pasture now, and -Gaunt was a trifle the quicker in getting over. He passed so close to -Peggy that she could have touched him. - -“Run!” she panted. “Reuben, you have it! You have it, lad!” - -He heard her, and so did Bownas o’ Shap; and both men raced forward -with a quickened sense of rivalry. - -It was now that the crowd lost all restraint, save just as was needed -to keep a clear path to the inn. From the bridge, and from the green, -and from the inn-front--where men were standing on tiptoe in the gigs -to get a clearer view--a deafening clamour rose. It was no spasmodic -cheering, broken by silences, but a steady, ever-growing roar, like -the thunder of a stream when snow is loosened from the hills. Never -since this yearly battle of the fells first took its place in Linsall’s -story had such a race been watched. The time between out and home was -shorter by five minutes than the fastest record known; but, more than -this, there were two men left to fight it out to the end--two men who -came with swift, loping strides through the dust of the roadway--two -men whose faces at another time would have been terrible to see, so -contorted were they with weariness, and desperation, and fierce effort -to keep up. - -Bownas led by a few feet now, and the onlookers were making frenzied -calls to Gaunt to make a last spurt for it. The uproar rose to the -hills that hemmed in Linsall village, and it broke against the fells -with muffled echo. It was a moment when a man might well prove -stronger than himself, and a strange gaiety caught Reuben unawares. -There were still two hundred yards to go, and he saw that Bownas was -content to keep his lead and was waiting for his last big effort until -nearer home. Gaunt could not wait; he gathered all his strength, and -glanced past Bownas with sudden speed and crossed the winning-line -with an impetus he could not check. The inn doorway was in front of -him--otherwise he would have crashed against the wall in his blind -rush--and he ran down the long passage, and checked himself when he -reached the settle at the far end, and sat with his head between his -hands. A darkness and great sickness closed about him for awhile; then -he lifted his head, and saw the landlord standing near him with an air -of much good-will and some anxiety. - -“Bring me something--something in a mug, Jonas,” said Gaunt, with a -feeble smile. - -Jonas laughed, as he patted the other on the back. “Not just sure -whether ye’ve any inward parts left at all, Mr. Gaunt? Want to cure -that durned, queer feel of emptiness? Oh, bless ye, I know it. I’ve run -i’ fell-races before, but niver as ye ran to-day! God bless me, ye’ve -the legs of a deer!” - -Peggy had seen from the pasture-fields how Gaunt came home far down -below; and, when she reached the village, it was to find the hero of -the year being carried shoulder-height by six of the Linsall men. No -leader of old, returning from victory through a crowded capital, could -have claimed more honour than Reuben Gaunt. Unprepared, to gratify a -lass’s whim, he had won a contest that would go down in Garth’s history -so long as there were folk to sit beside the hearth o’ nights and tell -of it. - -Peggy o’ Mathewson’s had had her wish. A buoyancy, an exultation like -Gaunt’s own as he covered those last ten score yards, possessed her. It -was the woman’s pride, unalterable through changing generations, that -“her man” had won his battle. - -When the evening came, and the sun dropped low over Linsall Moor, -and the moon climbed big and round over the shoulder of Harts Fell, -the green was full of couples dancing to the tunes of three fiddlers -perched on Mother Lambert’s empty counter. And Peggy, though the men -pressed round her like a swarm of bees, would dance with few but Gaunt. - -The scene was fairy-like in its remoteness from the humdrum round of -work. The fells on the one side were white and magical; the moor on the -other showed a dark jagged line of mystery; and between moor and fell, -Linsall village lay steeped in fleecy moonlight, her bridge a slender -arch of gossamer that spanned a stream of pearl and blue. There was no -sound, save the gentle thud of feet on the grass, the squeak of the -fiddles, the low tranquil laugh of some country lass as she heard what -her lover stooped to tell her in the pauses of the dance. - -When Gaunt and Peggy left the green at last, and struck up the pastures -toward home, they were followed by much nodding of heads and wagging of -tongues. - -“Gaunt’s not content wi’ winning the race, ’twould seem,” said one. - -“Nay,” said another, “he seems like as he’s set on winning Peggy o’ -Mathewson’s as well. There’ll be lile trouble i’ that, if the look in -her face be aught to go by.” - -Peggy and her man moved steadily up the field-track, then more quietly -when they reached the heath. - -“’Twas here you ran so well,” said Peggy, her eyes shining with some -great, unreasoning happiness. - -“’Twas because you asked it,” answered Gaunt, slipping her arm through -his own as they turned to look down on moonlit Linsall. The faint -screech of fiddles reached them, reedy as the breeze that blew fitfully -about the heather-stems. She was silent, and Gaunt felt that she was -trembling. “Why, what’s amiss? Surely you’re not cold on such a night?” - -“Oh, it is naught, Reuben! I’ve had my day--as full a one as ever I -could wish for--and I’m frightened, somehow, to go back, and begin to -churn, and bake, and wash, and tend the fowls.” - -“I can ease you of all that.” - -Her eyes were soft, and full of the tenderness which life had tried its -best to kill. She seemed about to speak, but checked herself. - -“Will you listen, Peggy?” - -“Oh, we must hurry, Reuben. Come away over the moor; there’s mother -wondering all this while whatever can have come to me.” - -He did not understand her mood, did not understand the withdrawal -which was at once proud and full of mute appeal. They crossed the moor -in a silence broken only by the scuffle of a sheep as they awakened it -in passing, by the sudden whirr of a cock grouse as he rose from the -ling and went barking _to-bac, to-bac, to-bac_ across the moor. - -It was Peggy who broke the silence. They had reached the deep glen -above Ghyll Farm, and she paused at the rowan-tree which branched -across the dancing stream. She had spent long hours under shadow of the -rowan before and after she had learned her love for Gaunt; the place -was friendly to her, for it was haunted by familiar years. - -She stood straight in the moonlight, facing him. The rowan-leaves threw -feathery shadows on her face. “Reuben,” she said, “what’s amiss with us -both?” - -“Why, naught, lile lass. You want to be free of the churning and the -rest? Well, there’s Marshlands waiting for ye, if you choose to come as -mistress.” - -“Reuben!” - -He could not tell whether sorrow or keen gladness lay underneath the -cry. He knew Peggy o’ Mathewson’s had never moved him as she did -to-night. - -“Reuben, I’m all lost on the moor,” she went on quickly. “I love the -peat that ye tread on, and yet I doubt ye. I’ve seen ye a man to-day, -Reuben, and yet I’m wondering whether it can last. The mood’s on ye to -make me mistress yonder. Ay, but to-morrow? Love goes and comes wi’ -some folk, but it stays wi’ women such as me--make no doubt o’ that.” - -“It will stay with me. Are ye going with the rest o’ the flock, lile -one--bleating me down, when I try to get my feet on a straight road?” - -Peggy o’ Mathewson’s stood silent. The moonlight, dappled by the -swaying rowan-leaves, showed a beauty that was scarcely of this world. -Like the weather-stained mother who waited for her coming, down yonder -at the farm, Peggy had peeped into a bigger life than this. - -Suddenly she lost her straightness, and was sobbing in Gaunt’s arms. -“You’ll be good to me, Reuben? ’Tis all or naught wi’ me, and you can -break my heart, or mend it, just as you please. Oh, I should take shame -to talk to ye like this--but I’ll come to Marshlands wi’ no half-love -fro’ ye.” - -Gaunt felt a new warmth, a generous impulse, not only to take this -passionate, headstrong lass to Marshlands, but to make her happy there. -He told her as much in few words, and the answer touch of her hands -as he held them roused something manlier, more robust, in the man’s -contrary nature. - -They stayed awhile under the rowan, and Peggy touched its smooth trunk -from time to time. - -“I’m happy to-day,” she laughed, “just happy, Reuben. And I’m touching -rowan-wood while I say it.” - -There was a light in the kitchen of Ghyll Farm when they came across -the croft, and at the porch-door they could see Widow Mathewson, her -gaunt figure softened by the moonlight. - -“So ye’ve been wi’ Gaunt? I guessed as mich,” was the mother’s -greeting. There was little complaint in her tone, but her usual -half-sad, half-bitter acceptance of the day’s troubles as they came. - -Peggy was not contrite. “I’d finished the baking, mother, and I knew -ye’d guess I was off to Linsall Fair. Mother, I never had such a -day--and Reuben won the fell-race.” - -“Ay, he would. Give him a bit o’ straight running for foolishness’ -sake, an’ he’s clever; ’tis when ye want him to do summat wi’ sense at -th’ back on’t that Gaunt fails ye--fails ye ivery time.” - -“I want you to ask me indoors for once,” put in Reuben. - -The widow looked at him curiously. Without emotion, as if she were -counting up her egg money and finding the total right, she realized -that there was a change for the better in him. His tone was grave, and -he had lost his light, come-and-go air altogether. - -“As ye please,” she answered, stepping aside to let him pass. “’Tis so -late now for us early-to-bed folk that a bit later willun’t signify.” - -In grim silence she brought cake and elderberry wine from the corner -cupboard and set them on the table. Whether a guest was a welcome one -or no, he must not leave without a show of hospitality. - -“Just help yourself, Mr. Gaunt,” she said, with a certain stateliness -that was no way out of keeping with her rough gown and weather-stained, -tired face. - -“Oh, by and by,” he said. Peggy and he were standing on either side the -hearth, and Widow Mathewson saw the confident, warm glances that passed -between them. “We’ve something to tell you, Mrs. Mathewson. Peggy was -pleased with my running, maybe--or perhaps she saw I was fondish of -her--anyway, she has promised to come down to Marshlands as mistress -there.” - -Mrs. Mathewson began to stride up and down the floor. It was her -way--the man’s way--when deeply moved. Folly, disaster, she had looked -for whenever Gaunt had crossed their path; she was not prepared for -honesty. - -“See ye,” she cried fiercely, turning to meet Gaunt’s eyes, “are -ye meaning this? I tell ye, we’re proud, bitter-proud, up here at -Ghyll. I’ve no man to look after Peggy--th’ one I lost would have been -littlish use even if he’d lived--but I was not built after a gentle -pattern, Reuben Gaunt. If ye’re planning some fresh bit o’ devilry, -I’ll bid ye keep clear o’ my hands. They’re strong hands--when I care -to use ’em.” - -Reuben was at his ease for once in the widow’s presence. This new sense -of honesty was a gentler, and yet a stronger feeling than he had known -since childhood. - -“’Tis this way,” he said quietly. “We happen to want one another, and -we’re bent on getting one another.” - -“Ay, ye’re bent on it,” said the widow drily, not taking her eyes from -Reuben’s face. “You’re bent on it to-night. The full moon glamours -folk, so they say. Will ye be bent on it to-morrow?” - -“Mother, you’re hard on Reuben!” broke in Peggy. - -“No harder than he’s been on me, these years and years past. Are ye -playing wi’ my lass, or are ye not? She’s all I have, mind.” - -Gaunt would take no offence. His spirits were high, and that curious -sense of well-doing was with him still. “I shall be getting things to -rights at Marshlands to-morrow. A house that has had no mistress all -these years will need setting straight. After that, Peggy has only to -choose the day when she’ll come to it.” - -The widow’s face softened a little, but she did not spare him. “Very -well,” she said, her fine, keen eyes reading every line of his face. -“Ay, very well indeed, Reuben Gaunt, if ye can hold to th’ same mind -two days running. When I see Peggy wedded I shall believe ’at Peggy’s -wedded. Good night to ye. I’m fair clemmed wi’ all th’ day’s work, -while ye two were gadding ower to Linsall Fair.” - -Peggy went with Gaunt to the gate of the croft. “Ne’er heed mother,” -she whispered. “’Tis her way, Reuben. She’ll soften to ye by and by.” - -“I heed naught, lass, so long as ye’re lying lile and soft i’ my two -arms. What a fool I’ve been all these years--what a fool!” - -He was swept away by his passion, by the girl’s free, reckless beauty -and reckless tenderness. He pictured her down yonder in the lonely -house at Marshlands. The liberty he had cherished--liberty to come and -go as he listed, like the wind--was shorn of all attraction. There -would be warmth and well-doing about his house, and ties to keep him -safe from wandering. - -They stood looking down the moor. The moon outlined each smooth ridge; -her light was nestled in the misty vagueness of the hollows; away and -away to the grey-blue of the silent sky she touched the land with -witchery. And Peggy sighed. - -“Why, lass, you’re shivering,” said Gaunt, roused from his dreams of -what might be. - -“Oh, a goose walked over my grave,” she answered lightly. “A silly -goose, Reuben, to choose just to-day for wandering.” - -She did not tell him that she feared the day’s happiness, feared lest -all should be changed when she woke on the morrow. Hardship was more -easy to believe in, after all, and in her experience it followed -pleasure always. - -They watched the moor; and the tenderness, the mute, uncomplaining -sorrow of the land, came close to Peggy, as to one who had known the -heath from childhood. - -“Reuben,” she sobbed, “if only ye had one mind in a day, instead of -fifty--or if only I could care for ye less--” - -“Best care for me more instead of less,” laughed Reuben. “I’ve no -heed, myself, for geese walking over a grave.” - -“It was silly, I own. There, ye’ve had kisses enough and to last--” - -“Until to-morrow?” - -“Well--maybe--if ye come not too early, while I’m milking the cows--or -not overlate, when the house will need looking to, after all the work -I’ve given mother to-day. There, Reuben--oh, there and there, if ye -must better one good kiss. Good night, Reuben.” - -Gaunt swung down the moor. The moon stood silver-gold in the middle of -the blue sky. A sheep got up beneath his feet. He startled a grouse -from its bed among the heather. Far down below him he could see a light -set like a little star above the porch of Marshlands. - -“They’re used to late home-comings o’ nights,” he laughed. “There’ll be -fewer such when Peggy comes to Marshlands.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -Whatever doubt Widow Mathewson might have of Gaunt’s constancy, he -himself felt none. On the morning after Linsall Fair he summoned his -housekeeper, told her that Marshlands was to have a mistress at last, -and gave orders that the disused parlour, full of faded hangings and -rusty furniture unrenewed since his mother came here as a bride, should -be turned out in readiness for the purchases he meant to make this week -in Shepston. The best bedroom, disused, too, was to be treated in like -fashion. Now that his mind had found an anchorage, Reuben was eager, -businesslike, impatient of delays. - -His housekeeper said little; but she smiled often when his back was -turned, and shook her head with the foreboding that was her only luxury. - -“He’s like a lad going off to buy a gun, or a rod, or some such make -o’ toy,” was her thought “Oh, ay, he’s keen-set on t’ notion, but it -winnun’t last no more than a week. Niver met a man to tire as soon as -the master.” - -Gaunt did not tire, however. He was to and fro between Ghyll Farm and -Marshlands every other day, and in between was journeying to Shepston, -with Peggy beside him in the smart, high-wheeled gig which was known by -sight to all the dales-folk. - -Widow Mathewson said little these days, save to grumble that Peggy -left her three parts of the work to do; but at last she was losing her -distrust of Gaunt. His gaiety appealed to her, for she had known little -of it in her time; his forgetfulness of all past differences between -them was generous, though she only half admitted it; above all, her -headstrong lass showed likely to settle down at last with a decent roof -above her and the right to show that pride which was ingrained in her. - -“Maybe he’s as well as another man,” she would mutter, as she nursed -her pipe by the hearth and waited for Peggy to return, “though that’s -saying little enough. Come to think on’t there’s so few worth choosing -that a lass is a’most bound to make a lile fool of herseln when it -comes to marriage.” - -They were to be married at the end of two months. That was the utmost -Mrs. Mathewson would grant when Reuben pressed for an earlier day. - -“If your fancy lasts for two months, it’ll maybe last longer,” she said -drily, in answer to Gaunt’s pleading. “My lass shall be thrown at no -man’s head, Reuben, least of all at yours.” - -To Peggy the waiting-time seemed short. Her child’s dreams up among -the winding peat-ways of the moor, her woman’s yielding to the glamour -of this first and last romance which Gaunt embodied, were of the same -fibre. - -One day--it was a week after Linsall Fair--he did not take her with him -to Shepston. He had a fancy to buy a chestnut mare he knew of, and keep -it as a wedding-gift for her, letting her find it unexpectedly in the -stable when he brought her home to Marshlands. She could ride bareback -already; he would teach her afterwards to sit a side-saddle. - -Between Garth and Shepston he came face to face with Cilla round a -bend of the dusty road, and pulled his horse up. - -“You have heard the news?” he asked, feeling oddly ill at ease. - -“I hear so little. It is not father’s way nor mine.” Cilla’s glance -rested quietly on him, and she stood a little straighter than her wont, -with an air of withdrawal. “If ’tis the fever you mean, of course we’ve -heard of it. They talk of nothing else these days in Garth.” - -“It was not the fever I meant. Do you remember that you asked me months -ago to do something? We were standing at the porch-door at Good Intent.” - -Cilla flushed, and moved a pace or two away. “Yes, I remember. It was -you, Mr. Gaunt who seemed to have forgotten.” - -“We’re to be married in October,” he said bluntly. - -For a moment she hesitated, then held out her hand. “I wish you -well--indeed, I wish you both well. Though we hear so little gossip, -they told me Peggy was queen o’ the fair at Linsall. She deserved to -be, I think.” - -With a smile and a bend of the head in token of farewell, she had left -him. He turned in the saddle to watch her go down the road, with her -light, easy step, then plucked his horse into a trot. He was out of -temper with the day, though he had begun it light-heartedly enough. -His old infirmity had returned to him at sight of Priscilla; with the -best will in the world to be loyal, he was bewildered by the grace and -fragrance which Cilla had brought along this dusty road. His vanity was -hurt, moreover; there had been no sign of regret or sorrow in Cilla’s -voice; her friendliness and her unconcern were harder to bear than any -of Widow Mathewson’s downright attacks had been. - -Priscilla moved more slowly once she was out of sight. She was -lingering in fancy through that day of spring when she and Gaunt had -gone to Keta’s Well. And she laughed at herself because the tears in -her eyes were very near falling. Why should she grieve because he had -done what she asked of him? Since Keta’s Well and all the folly of the -spring there had been the merciless heat, the ruined hay-crop, the -fever that had not entered Garth as yet, though the shadow of it lay -constantly about the village. - -“Ah, now, there’s enough that is real to be thought of,” was Cilla’s -way of meeting the fresh heartache. “Father would tell me, I’m sure, -that ’tis no time at all to be playing with dreams and fancies.” - -Billy the Fool stood at the forge door as she passed--Billy, with the -air of great business and importance which had come to him since David -left him in sole charge of the forge. - -“Morning, Miss Good Intent!” he said, saluting gravely. “Terrible days -for pleasuring, now that David’s left me master-smith.” He nodded -toward the inside of the smithy, and a tranquil grin broke across his -face. “Dan Foster’s lad is blowing bellows in yonder. Te-he! I just -told him to get the fire all a-glowing an’ a-crackling, an’ the lile -chap’s doing on’t! ’Tis wonderful how some folk do sweat while others -go playing.” - -“Then what will you play at to-day?” asked Cilla, her smile made up of -rue and rosemary. - -“Well, there’s two score iron palings waiting to be hammered into -shape, like, and Fool Billy reckons he’ll make a start at yond same, -he will. Niver knew before what ’twas to have all this wonderful lot -of play to get through with. David will laugh when he comes back. He -always did say I was a queerish terrible chap when I settled to my -play.” - -Priscilla was apt to search deeper into life since the troubled days -arrived. She looked now at Billy, and remembered the scene last April -at time of rescuing the lambs; she recalled the struggle at the edge -of the pool, and Widow Mathewson’s tale of what had happened long ago -at Marshlands; she sought in Billy’s face, as older folk had done, -for some answer to the riddle of his character. She found no answer. -Unhurried, skilled at his work so long as a comrade named it play, his -blue, trusting eyes looked into hers, and, if they held a secret, kept -it well. - -He looked again to see if Dan Foster’s lad were plying the bellows -within doors; then, by force of habit, he drew out a blackened pipe, -and as quietly replaced it. - -“There now!” he chuckled. “What wi’ all this play about, I forgot my -manners. Fancied ye had a fill o’ baccy on ye, and maybe a match to go -wi’ that same baccy. Te-he, but Billy’s a fool!” - -“Not so big i’ that way as he looks,” came a voice that went roaming -down Garth street like pleasant thunder. “What, ye’re keeping Billy -from his playtime? Shame on ye, Cilla.” - -“Nay, she’s not keeping me,” said Billy, taking Hirst’s open pouch. -“Dan Foster’s lad is doing all the work these days, ye understand, and -’twould make your sides split to see him working at th’ old bellows.” - -“We’re not all as lucky as you,” said the yeoman, as he handed a match -to Billy. “Most of us have no play--and, by that token, I’m bringing a -horse to be shod to-morrow.” - -Billy lit his pipe, and drew quiet puffs before he answered. “Well -now, Mr. Hirst, I’m right set on shoeing a horse to-morrow. After -I’ve done wi’ yond iron palings, and after I’ve slept for a night in -green-field’s bed, as a body might say, I’ll be ready for ye. ’Tis -rare fun shoeing a lile horse, wi’ a daft lad doing all the bellows’ -work for ye.” - -Hirst passed on with a cheery laugh, and linked his arm in Cilla’s as -they went up to Good Intent. - -“Billy is like good pasture-land,” he said, with a backward glance at -the forge. “Soft on the crust, and firm underneath. Oh, ay, David did -well to leave Fool Billy in his place.” - -But Cilla did not answer. Her thoughts were half with David, who had -left Garth when she needed him, and half with Reuben Gaunt, who hoped -to keep a promise made to her. - -Reuben himself drove to Shepston; and he tried to get rid of the wish -that Cilla had not crossed his path to-day--Cilla, with her witchcraft -of dainty thoughts and comely living--Cilla, whose gift in life was to -make folk see glamour in unexpected corners. - -Shepston was busy when he reached the town. He stabled his horse at the -Norton Cross tavern, and walked down the High Street in search of the -mare he meant to get for Peggy. Half down the street he heard himself -hailed by name, and turned. He saw Mother Lambert’s weather-beaten -face, standing behind her stall as she had stood on the green at -Linsall Fair. - -“Morning,” said Gaunt, with the heedless nod of old acquaintance. - -He was passing on, but she checked him. “I saw ye last at Linsall, Mr. -Gaunt. D’ye mind the pedlar there?” - -“Why, yes.” He was impatient and anxious to move forward. “I bought a -fairing from him, and his face, I fancied, was more fiery with drink -than usual.” - -Mother Lambert looked gravely at him across the trumpery wares that -covered her stall. - -“Best speak no ill o’ the dead, sir. The pedlar’s dead--dead o’ the -fever three days ago. It was fever that mottled his face, an’ he said -to me as he stood on the green after ye’d bought your fairing for Peggy -o’ Mathewson’s--he owned, he did, that he couldn’t feel just hisseln, -like, though he meant to plod on and be merry.” - -Gaunt’s face was white. He had no thought of Cilla now, but remembered -only the lass who had watched him win a race, the lass who had been -tender to his failings and buoyant in her love for him. - -“Are you speaking truth?” he asked. - -“Well, yes. I mostly do, save when I’ve wares to sell; and business, -Mr. Gaunt, is another basket of eggs, as the saying goes.” - -“I’ve laughed at the fever-dread till now,” he said, after a troubled -silence. “For myself, I take chances of that sort of thing as they -come; but ’tis different when there’s a doubt that Peggy may have -caught it. Surely you’ve to come closer to it, and stay longer with it, -than we did that day at Linsall?” - -“What, for harm to come on’t? Nay! I’ve seen plenty o’ fever i’ my -time, an’ I tell ye that kerchief ye bought for Peggy o’ Mathewson’s -was enough in itself to gi’e it to her. Poor Peggy! They allus -said--those ’at were jealous--that her liking for bright colours would -bring her to grief one day.” - -Mother Lambert nodded sagely after Gaunt had left her. She had lived -a hard, roving life, had long since learned to look at her neighbours -with eyes unclouded by overmuch feeling; and she told herself now, with -a quiet, impersonal wonder, that there was a real change in the man. - -“Did ye see Reuben Gaunt go down street just now?” she asked a crony, -who came from a neighbouring stall for gossip. - -“Ay. Straight-set-up, as usual, and a bonnie lile figure to catch a -lass’s fancy. There’s never much change in Gaunt.” - -“Well, now, there is a change, and that’s th’ odd part on’t. He’s -learned to think for another first, ’stead of himself, and that means -a deal. Eh, but men are bothersome cattle! Ye think ye know ’em, -right to th’ back o’ their minds, an’ all of a sudden they turn just -contrary-like.” - -Gaunt bought the mare for Peggy, and gave orders that it should be -sent that day to Marshlands; but he had little heart either in the -bargaining or the purchase. As he walked up the High Street toward the -inn again, a hearse was moving slowly to the churchyard which fronted -and looked down upon the road. They told him that only one day of the -last fifteen had passed without a burial, and some days there had been -three or four. It was brought home to him at last that the Black Fever -was no boggart invented by mothers to frighten wayward bairns; he saw -the scourge now as it really was, as a pestilence unlike all others, -save the plague which many hundred years ago, folk said, had destroyed -whole villages, and had made thriving townships into wasted hamlets. - -Indeed, the fever, in a less degree, had that power to weaken men by -terror which the plague had had long since. It was market-day, and -a busy day, along the High Street; but uneasiness and gloom showed -plainly on all but the most reckless faces, and farmer-men, ashamed of -a weakness they could not control, would glance at farmer-men, seeking -for the telltale patches of mulberry-red which spelled infection. - -Gaunt opened his lungs to the breeze when he was clear of Shepston. He -knew that there was danger to himself, but had dismissed the thought; -his cowardice was all for Peggy. He was glad to be out among clean -fields again, with the open road in front of him, and none to talk of -the fever. - -He walked straight up to Ghyll Farm after reaching home, and Peggy -was standing at the gate of the croft, looking down the moor. She -half looked for him, and for that reason had fastened the crimson -handkerchief round her throat; she had tied and untied it before her -cracked mirror, with the honest coquetry which a woman finds when she -knows that one man only has a claim on it. - -Reuben saw the scarf, as soon almost as he caught sight of the waiting -figure. The sunlight, stark and dry as the fields it had scorched, -caught the warm colour of the kerchief. - -“You look tired, Reuben,” said Peggy o’ Mathewson’s, after a quiet -glance at his face. - -“Well, yes,” he answered carelessly. “It was a hot drive into Shepston, -and the fools would talk of nothing but their fever. I begin to think -they’re proud of it, Peggy.” - -“They’ve got used to it, you see,” said the girl, with something of her -mother’s tart knowledge of the world. “’Tis queer, Reuben, how soon -ye get used to a thing, even if ’tis bad, and seem to miss it when it -goes.” - -He scarcely heard her. His eyes were fixed on the crimson scarf, and -she smiled happily as she followed his glance. - -“Yes, I’m wearing your gift, lad. Mother chided me just now--said ’twas -no sort o’ fancy-stuff to wear, when there were cattle needed milking -by and by. I said you’d given it me at Linsall Fair and the lile, soft -beasts would milk no worse because I wore it.” - -Gaunt, though he did not know it, had caught something of the panic -that troubled all the folk of Shepston. “At the back of his mind,” as -he put it to himself, he was sure that Peggy would catch no harm from -the scarf at this late day; the harm was done already, or not done; yet -he could not rest so long as she was wearing it. - -“Peggy,” he said, “I want that kerchief you’re wearing.” - -Peggy o’ Mathewson’s laughed, though her eyes were full of disquiet. -“Best buy another, Reuben, if you’re fooling me again. I’ll not let -this one go to some lile fool who’s turned her blue eyes on ye and made -geese seem swans.” - -So then he told her--the sun lay low down to Windover Crag by this -time--that Pedlar Joe had the fever on him when he sold the kerchief; -and again she laughed. - -“Is that all, Reuben? I thought ’twas worse.” She looked down the moor, -and into his face again; and her voice was soft with trouble. “Reuben, -’tis ill when ye doubt the man ye care for. I never cared, save for -you; but you--” - -Gaunt forgot the scarf, forgot the sickness and the hearse and the -great distrust that had peopled the High Street at Shepston. - -“Well?” he asked. “What is amiss, then, if we’re both of the same mind? -Peggy, I’ve been fearing for you all the way home from market; I ought -to take shame that a parcel of Shepston folk can scare me.” - -Down below in Garth, Billy had done with his day’s play at the forge, -and had wandered out into what he named his green-field’s bed. He made -up the pastures and out into the open moor; and here, in a little -hollow deep with heather, he lay down, turned twice or thrice till he -had made a lair for himself, and breathed a sigh of sheer content. - -“’Tis a right queer matter to be born daft-witted,” he said to himself. -“There’s folk sleeping in Garth yonder at this minute ’twixt four -hot walls, and no breath o’ air to help them. Only Fool Billy knows, -’twould seem, what a terrible soft bed a body’s body can find right up -at the top o’ the world.” - -He lay there on his back, and watched the stars, the waning moon whose -colour was ivory tinged with saffron, the quiet blue of the sky. The -wise folk spoke of the moor as a lonely place, where none could sleep -without fear of the ghosts that were known to haunt it. To Billy it was -home. If grouse were lying near him in the heather, they were friends; -if the old dog-fox from Sharprise Wood chose this track for purposes -connected with his larder, Billy was well acquainted with him; as for -ghosts, there was only one that troubled him, and this had no dwelling -among the marshes and the ling. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -Peggy’s high spirits did not forsake her as the time for her wedding -drew near. Gaunt was eager, with a dash of haste and recklessness about -the matter that appealed to her gipsy temper. - -She knew that poor fools down in the valley were sick with the heat -and the fever-dread; for herself, she lived on the cooler moor, and a -glance at its clean acres, a touch of its heather-wind, were enough -to banish all thought of fever like an unclean ghost that had no -place here on the hill-tops. She did not know that a part at least -of Gaunt’s haste was due to Priscilla of the Good Intent. Since the -day when Cilla had met him on the Shepston Road, Reuben had found the -old disquiet return. Like his father before him, he had an instinct -toward a wife who was comely of speech and manner; he needed, as Mrs. -Mathewson had said bitterly in time of April snow, “a ladyish mistress -for Marshlands.” Do as he would these days, Gaunt saw constantly the -picture of Cilla in her lilac frock. She would fit the old house as the -well-ordered ivy which grew along its front. Her voice would sound cool -and low under the dark rafter-beams. There would be flowers about the -house again, and the spinet would awaken to life under Cilla’s fingers. - -Reuben was tormented by that picture, and each detail of it grew -clearer as the days went by. The man was to be pitied, maybe, for -he had the gift of fancy, and at times it bred in him a strange -irresolution. The one instinct in him longed for an orderly home, a -settled purpose in life; the other took him to the open lands, where -such as Peggy Mathewson, and the pedlar-folk, and the poachers, lived -free from all convention. Each attracted him, and he had not once been -taught, during his heedless and ungoverned boyhood, that it was idle to -pursue two whims at once. - -Peggy, keen-sighted as she was, had no inkling of Gaunt’s weakness. He -was eager, lover-like, full of plans for doing this and that about the -house to make it ready for her. Even Widow Mathewson, though she looked -for it, saw no hesitancy, no sign of withdrawal as the weeks drew on; -and, in her own wry fashion, she was proud of Reuben, as a mother is -proud of a weakling son when he shows stray glimpses of true manhood. -It was little satisfaction to her, or none at all, that Peggy would be -mistress of the biggest farm in Garth, would be wife to one of a yeoman -breed so old that the Gaunts were counted as a sort of gentry among -their farm-neighbours. The widow had her own pride of station, and not -for a moment would she admit that her lass “was bettering herself” by -marriage; she was simply glad that the girl, if she must needs set her -heart on Reuben, was likely to be treated well. - -For Peggy there was no shadow lying over these weeks. She had prayed, -in her haphazard way, that there should be no break following the -glamoured day at Linsall Fair; and her prayer was granted. It seemed -strange to her that she had ever found hard words for Reuben. He -was strong, and tender, and considerate; he asked only for a speedy -wedding, and Peggy chided her mother because the widow was obstinate in -her resolve. - -“Nay, lass,” Mrs. Mathewson would say. “Ye’ve bided long for Reuben, -and ’tis a lile biding-time enough I’ve set him, surely. There’s no -daughter o’ mine going to come pretty-come-quick to his call, just at -the minute he cares to whistle.” - -And Peggy would laugh, and tell herself that she was in no great -haste for wedlock, after all. She asked for nothing beyond the -present happiness. Strong at the churn, clear of vision, quick to -see shortcomings in her neighbours, Peggy o’ Mathewson’s had yielded -altogether to her love for Gaunt. He had put cobwebs over her eyes, as -the Garth folk said; for she heard the fairies sing, when at nights she -went up to the beck that trickled under the rowans, and looked down at -the lights of Marshlands, and pictured Reuben there. - -Towards the end of the waiting-time, Gaunt rode up to Ghyll and told -them that he had to be away in the Midlands for a week. His father, in -one of the buying fits that came on him at times, had bought property -down there, and he had to look to it. - -“’Twill be a wedding-gift for you, Peggy,” he said at parting. - -“My lad, I want no wedding-gifts. If ye must go, ye must go, an’ good -luck to ye; but, Reuben, never talk o’ gifts. The red kerchief ye -bought me at the Fair was enough for me--that, and what ye whispered on -the home-way walk.” - -They were standing at the moor’s edge, and peace was stealing up from -the hollows. After the sun’s heat and the weariness, the dusk had laid -gentle fingers on the land. There was no limit to the heath, seen by -this magical, soft light. Sharprise, crimson and gold and purple where -the last of the sunset caught his crest, seemed to bound it on one -side; but Peggy, looking out with practised eyes, could see further -hills, and hills beyond, each putting on its nightcap of saffron -haze. Light scents, stifled by the sun, began to creep abroad. It was -a gloaming such as few could see without a quickened sense of the big -life behind all frets and worries of the long day’s business. - -For Peggy o’ Mathewson’s it was home. These darkening hollows, the -rough, winding ridges reaching out to the spaces where, in some heathen -way of worship, she always sought her God, the cool, faint smell of -the bracken, and the ling, were all that spelled life and freedom for -Peggy. The gloaming’s quiet, Gaunt’s nearness, softened her reckless -spirits, but could not check her laughter. - -“Oh, Reuben, I am daft!” she said, putting both hands into his. -“Thought I could hold my own, I, and I’m thinking only o’ ye. Will ye -come back, or will ye not--and are ye true, or are ye not--and all -such moonshine nonsense. Reuben, I’ve been happy these last days. Ye -wouldn’t spoil it all?” - -“Not lightly,” said Reuben, as he kissed her good-by, and went down the -moor. - -The next day Peggy was listless and out of heart. She fancied the heat -ailed her, though until now she had been careless of all extremes of -weather. Widow Mathewson noticed the change, as she smoked her pipe by -the hearth that night. - -“Lile lass,” she said, “ye’re fretting for Reuben.” - -Peggy shivered, and crept nearer the peat-fire. “Oh, I’m thinking all -o’ ghosts, mother. He has to be away, and the fool I am to be needing -him so, and there’s many a mile ’twixt this and his home-coming.” - -The widow smiled, but her face was full of compassion. “I loved your -father i’ that way, Peggy. He was niver much to lean on, but I missed -him sorely when he went down kirkyard lane.” - -“You’re sneering at Reuben again, mother.” The girl’s temper was frayed -to-day and broken at the edges. - -“Nay, nay. I begin to think Reuben’s stauncher than your father iver -war. Happen ye’ve come to your own, Peggy, for a man as can win a -fell-race o’ the Linsall sort has summat behind it all. Ye’ll shape him -by and by. Oh, ay, ye’ll shape him. Men are all like a blunt bit o’ -millstone grit; they need a chisel, they.” - -Peggy o’ Mathewson’s crept nearer still to the peats. The light of the -one lamp shone on the pewter and the delftware that was Ghyll’s special -pride, and the fire-glow played bo-peep in corners of the living-room. - -“I scarce feel like a bride, mother,” said Peggy, after a long silence. - -“Tuts!” answered Widow Mathewson. “Few maidens do. Ye talk as if there -were no modesty left i’ the world.” - -“I’m so cold. All day it has been like a goose walking ower my -grave--just as I said to Reuben when we walked fro’ Linsall Fair.” - -The widow was easy in her mind to-night. Her hidden liking for Gaunt -need not be checked so much in future; only she knew how bitterly she -would miss Peggy in and about the house; but she knew, too, that it was -idle or worse, to keep her lass from a home of her own. A glance at the -girl’s face, white and pinched, might have startled Widow Mathewson; -but she smoked her pipe, and looked into the grate, and hugged her -self-content as a luxury seldom found at Ghyll. - -“Fiddle-me-ree,” she answered, with pleasant tartness. “Th’ only geese -as are walking abroad, to my knowledge, are ye an’ Reuben--an’ he’s a -gander. Oh, lass, Peggy, I’ve it all by heart! Niver sich a one i’ the -world as your man; an’ ye know his shortcomings plain as your own face -in a pool; an’ ye throw bits o’ pebble into th’ pool, just to stir his -proper likeness into pleasanter shape; an’ ye call it loving the lad. -Lord o’ mercy, there’s been many a woman at yond pool-edge afore your -time, and will be after. I war there myseln once. ’Tis only nature.” - -Peggy got up and went out through the porch, and stood looking out and -away across the moor. - -“I war there myseln once,” repeated Widow Mathewson, with a tolerant -smile. “I munnot forget what ’twas like--just the wee, lile fairies -dancing, an’ witchcraft ower the moor.” - -She knocked her pipe out on the grate, and youth touched her brown, -scarred face for a moment. - -“Good sakes,” she murmured, “I’d like to be young again like -that--cobwebs about my eyes or no. Better be a blithesome fool at -two-and-twenty than a wiser one at sixty.” - -Five days later Gaunt returned to Garth. He came by the morning -mail-coach, and sat by Will the Driver’s side, and asked as many -questions regarding the health of Garth folk as if he had been absent -for a year. - -“Oh, they’ve ’scaped fever right enough,” said Will, trying to answer -all his questions at once. “They’re a bit scared still, but forgetting -all such rubbish. Widow Lister’s hale and hearty--ay, just a shade too -hale and hearty. Billy is laking at the forge, an’ doing as much real -work as David did, an’ willun’t take a penny for ’t. Has made a box, -he, an’ tells all folk to put their silly money in through the slit -and let it bide there till David comes again. He has no use for money, -he--lile, wise lad as he is.” - -“And Widow Mathewson?” asked Gaunt. - -Driver Will knew well enough what news the other was seeking; it was -common knowledge now that Peggy o’ Mathewson’s and Gaunt had been -“asked” three times at church. For that reason Will concealed his -knowledge, as if it were a crime, and affected a fine ignorance as he -flicked his team with the whip. - -“Oh, she’s well enough, or was a few days since. Have not seen Peggy -or th’ widow since Monday last. Terrible home-bird folk, both on ’em. -I liken ’em always i’ my mind to a brace o’ nesting grouse, so shy an’ -fierce an’ prideful as they are.” - -Gaunt asked for no more news until the coach rounded the curve that -brought him within two miles of Garth. - -“And Miss Priscilla?” - -The driver gave him a shrewd, hasty glance. “Oh, well enough. She never -alters--a breath o’ rosemary along the dusty road. Wish I’d been born a -lile thought higher in station, and could cast my eyes that way. There -never were two made like Miss Good Intent. And there she is, by that -token, walking just ahead.” - -“You can put me down,” said Gaunt. - -Driver Will wasted little time in stopping and in starting off again. -He greeted Priscilla with a friendly, courteous salute when a moment -later he passed her on the road; and then he touched his horses’ ears -with a gentle whip that spoke of deep reflection on his part. Will had -leisure for reflection during those long drives between Shepston and -the remote hamlet that ended his twenty-mile journey, and it was second -nature to him now to piece together the life stories of those who dwelt -along the road. - -“It must feel odd to be one o’ Mr. Gaunt’s sort,” he was thinking. -“I mind yond day i’ spring when they drove out wi’ me, sweet as -kiss-me-quicks, to Keta’s Well. I mind the way they came home -again--she with the clover-pink in her cheeks, and Gaunt with a queer -look in his eyes I’d not seen there before. Get along, Captain, or -they’ll take ye for a tramp. Gee-up! And now he’s come home to wed -Peggy o’ Mathewson’s; and I fancied, when he was seeking news just now, -’twar Peggy he war asking for, until--well, until he named Miss Good -Intent. Eh, well--get along, Captain! The Queen doesn’t wait for her -mails while such as ye catch a sleep along the road.” - -Gaunt had overtaken Cilla long ago, and she had turned to meet his -greeting with the clover-pink in her cheeks that Will the Driver had -thought of. - -“Will you come to my wedding?” he asked, ill at ease after his journey -south, and all the brave thoughts that had kept him company on the -northward road. - -Priscilla laughed. It was the Garth way, when trouble must be met. “You -have asked me, Reuben--and father, too; of course we shall be at the -kirk.” - -They walked side by side in silence until the grey gable of Good Intent -showed near at hand. Reuben could not take his eyes from the girl’s -face, and presently she looked up, embarrassed by a feeling of shame -and unrest for which she could find no reason. - -“I wish you both well,” she said, halting at the gate. - -The voice was not Cilla’s; it was hesitating, cold. A random impulse -took Gaunt unawares. - -“Cilla,” he began eagerly. - -She withdrew, and her coldness disappeared. She was self-reliant again, -full of a dainty, half-mocking rebuke that would not stoop to anger. - -“Good-by,” she said. “They call you running-water, Reuben, but I’ve -better hopes of you.” - -Reuben stayed a moment, watching her, until the house-porch hid her. -For once he was troubled by the knowledge of his own weakness. An -hour ago he had been full of his wedding plans, full of his early -scamper out to Garth by the mail. Peggy did not expect him until -late afternoon, and he had looked forward, with a boy’s zest, to the -surprise of a morning visit to Ghyll. It was Thursday, and Peggy would -be busy at the churn; he would help her at the work; Widow Mathewson -would have her gibe, half tart, half friendly, when she put her head -round the door of the dairy and found him “doing real work for once in -a long journey.” That was the picture he had seen--until he overtook -Priscilla on the road. - -Gaunt set his face toward the moor and made his way up to Ghyll; -but the brightness of the picture had gone. He blamed himself for -that moment’s treason with Cilla; it seemed an ill beginning for his -wedding. The day was hot and garish, too, and the fierce summer had set -its mark on the pastures and the hedgerows. Such leaves as were left -unshrivelled showed lifeless and drab, and never a bird sang. Thirst -was walking like a spectre through the land, side by side with the -heat. The fields were gaping wide, entreating rain. Even the yarrow -flowers liking a lean and scanty soil, carried drooping heads. The -sheep stood staring up into the sky, for they were tired of cropping -grass that was tough and lifeless as ill-won hay. - -When he reached the moor, Gaunt looked for Ghyll Farm. Its roof was set -in the middle of waving lines of heat-haze, and no life stirred about -the house. Fancy had played Reuben many a surly trick, but it helped -him now to brace himself for coming trouble. Dalliance in sheltered -Garth was forgotten; he knew that ill news awaited him, and went -forward, preparing himself to meet it. With all his faults, Gaunt was -apt to meet an open danger in the face. - -Mrs. Mathewson, from the window of Peggy’s bedroom, had seen him come -up the moor, and ran down and out into the croft. She found him opening -the gate. - -“Don’t come nigh, Reuben,” she cried. “I tell you, don’t come nigh.” - -Her strong, lean arms were stretched towards him, motioning him away; -there was trouble in her face, and her eyes had the look which tired -folk wear when they have been awake throughout the night. - -He thought at first that her old distrust of him had returned and -laughed. “I’m not to be kept away from Ghyll these days, mother. Peggy -is pledged to marry me next week, and ’tis overlate for you to say no -to that.” - -As he came nearer Widow Mathewson withdrew. Gaunt could make nothing of -the look she gave him--tragical, and full of pity, and weary beyond all -belief. - -“Ye’ll not come in,” she said sharply. - -“And why shouldn’t I?” - -“Oh, Reuben, Reuben, the fever’s come to Ghyll. Peggy ligs yonder i’ -her bed, and her face is ill to look at. Ye’ll catch it, too, if ye -come nigh the house--for me ’tis no matter--I’m ower-old to care.” - -Gaunt paused for a moment, shocked by the news. Then he crossed the -garden-strip, and stood beside her in the porch. - -“Mother,” he said quietly, “it seems we’ve to know one another better. -D’ye think I’m feared o’ the fever, if Peggy has caught it?” - -She stood away from him. In the hour of fear she could not rid herself -of this habit of denying all courage in a man. - -“Fever means little to me,” she said drily. “I’m over and done with, -Reuben, and care niver at all whether I lig me down or no. But ye’re -young, lad--” - -“And a coward,” broke in Reuben. - -She glanced again at his face. “Well, no,” she said. “I was wrong -there, and I own it. But, Reuben--there’s one i’ five lives on to tell -on’t if they catch the fever.” - -“Then Peggy must be the one, that’s all, mother. We’ll save her yet -between us.” - -He had no thought of himself. His face, after he had heard her news, -was softened, yet full of quiet strength. The widow felt a grudging -admiration for this man, with whom she had fought so bitterly in days -gone by; she looked again at his trim, healthy body, at the young -health in his face, and she was filled with pity. - -“Reuben, lad, go back ower th’ moor,” she said, peremptorily. “If one’s -to die, there’s lile use killing two. I tell ye,” she broke off, with -a touch of her old bitterness, “the fever takes no more count o’ Mr. -Gaunt o’ Marshlands than it does o’ plain Peggy Mathewson. ’Tis not -just a risk ye’re taking; ’tis as near to certain as aught i’ this -life can be that ye’ll catch it, an’ die on’t, an’ no more o’ Gaunt o’ -Marshlands.” - -“Well, there’s not much to boast of as it is. If you put it that way, -I’m risking little.” - -Widow Mathewson, though she and Peggy had lived high up above the -peopled villages, had a sure instinct for truth or meanness in her -fellows. She could detect no sign of cowardice under Gaunt’s quiet -acceptance of his destiny. There was no bluster, covering a weak -purpose. He meant to share Peggy’s trouble. - -“Reuben, there’s few i’ Garth would be so daft,” she said, still -guarding the porch. “Think while! I’ve known what the fever means -longer than ye could know it. Thirty year back it came to Garth, -an’ good men o’ their hands--good men o’ their lives, too, an’ -honest--dared not come nigh a house that had the white cross on it.” - -“My father used to tell of it.” Reuben was indifferent, as if it were -no time to listen to bygone tales. He was thinking of Peggy, lying -helpless in the up-stairs room. - -“Did he tell you that the coffiners were found missing, when they were -needed to see bodies buried decently fro’ end to end o’ Garth? Did he -tell ye that men who’d faced storm on th’ moor, an’ danger o’ most -sorts, sat shivering by their fires, an’ dursn’t stir a finger to help -stricken folk? Oh, Reuben, lad, ’tis no game o’ kiss me by the stream, -this, and naught to bother ye after.” - -“Never said it was, mother,” said Gaunt drily. “I’m here to see we do -our best for Peggy.” - -The widow understood, somehow, that Reuben the despised was her master -in this time of stress. Weak as running water he might be afterwards, -when better days arrived; but now he had the strength of many a -likelier man. Her good man had been weak in all days, fair or foul, and -memory of him had hindered her outlook upon Gaunt. - -She stood in silence for awhile, her spare height framed against the -entry to this house of sickness. Far down the reaches of the moor, a -tired haze lay, and prayed for rain; from the blue of the weary sky the -sun shone fiercely. Again the mother-pity came to Widow Mathewson. For -herself, it did not matter; she could tend Peggy, and could die if her -time had come, and no tears wasted; but Gaunt had no need to die just -yet. She guarded the grey old porch as men, in the lawless times, had -fought for their wives and bairns at this same door. - -“’Tis the waiting-time will trouble ye, Reuben,” she said, in a matter -of fact, quiet voice. “Th’ men are cowards when th’ fever comes, for -that reason. If they could know i’ a day or so whether they’d caught it -or no, they’d niver heed the danger, like. Women are used to waiting, -and they’re bolder at these times.” - -“I’m coming in, mother.” - -“Nay, think ower it, lad! Think ower it! There’ll be six weeks o’ -waiting afore iver ye know whether ye’ve caught th’ fever. Six weeks, -Reuben! Plenty o’ men wouldn’t wait as long for a maid that was bonnie -and well.” - -Reuben took her by the arms, and made a way for himself. “There, -mother, ’tis done now, I take it. Lucky I told them down at Marshlands -that I might or might not be home to-day. They’ll not sit up for me -to-night, and to-morrow I must get a message down somehow.” - -Mrs. Mathewson and Gaunt stood facing each other in the living-room. If -there had been enmity between them, they did not remember it; a grave -silence held between them, for each knew that death lay very near, not -to Peggy only, but to themselves. - -“There’s still a chance to go back, Reuben,” she said at last. “Ye may -or may not have caught it by stepping into t’ house, and ye need say -naught to nobody; but, if ye once go up into th’ chamber--an’ I see -your eyes on th’ stair-door--there’ll be no return for ye.” - -A troubled moaning sounded from the room above, and Gaunt laid a hand -on the sneck of the staircase door. “Maybe ’twould ease the lass if she -knew I was near,” he said gently. - -“She willun’t know, she’s ower far gone, I tell ye! Reuben, my lad, -have just a thought for yourseln.” - -He glanced at her, with his curious, new look of gravity and -self-effacement, and went up the stair. The widow heard his step on the -boards overhead, then a startled cry. She knew what the cry meant. The -Peggy who had watched him win the fell-race, who had danced on Linsall -Green, was not the lass who lay on the bed up there; for the fever laid -ugly hands on the faces of its victims, and on their minds its hold was -still more cruel. There were no wild outbursts of delirium, followed -by intervals of sanity and hope; there was only the low, helpless -muttering, the sluggish apathy, the denial of all power or will to find -healing from any human ministry. - -Widow Mathewson paced up and down the living-room with her manlike -strides; and by and by she heard Gaunt pacing up and down the floor -above. It was Gaunt’s hour of bitterness, the first hour of his -heedless life that had found him ready to hearken to his lesson. If he -had dealt ill with Peggy o’ Mathewson’s in times past, he was paying -something of the penalty now. It was not so much the bodily change -in her that shocked and terrified him; it was the knowledge, brought -suddenly home to him, that she did not care whether he stood at her -bedside or not, that likely she would never care again in this world. -The incessant moaning maddened him; it seemed to tell of an anguish -that was beyond reach of his help. He could not believe that Peggy -herself felt nothing, knew nothing--that it was he, in full vigour of -mind and body, who suffered for her, just by looking on. - -He came down the stone stairway at last, and the widow ceased her -restless walk. She looked at his face. It was white and stern, but -there was no trace of personal fear on it. - -“It was as well I came,” he said. - -“As well you came,” she echoed. “You say that after--after going in -yond up-stairs room?” - -“Yes, mother. You may be tough, but ’twould drive ye mad to live alone -with what’s in the house here. Mother, is there naught at all we can do -to ease her?” he broke off. - -“Ay, but not mich. I’m skilled enough i’ nursing-work, so far as that -goes. But t’ fever shoves a body aside, an’ willun’t let nursing have -its say.” - -For the first time she let weakness overcome her. Her tears were few, -but full of passionate relief; and they were a tribute to the sense -that, for once in her stormy life, she had a man about her in time of -need. - -Gaunt patted her gently on the shoulder. All the hidden liking between -the oddly-assorted pair was patent to them both. - -“That’s better!” he said. “Wish Peggy up yonder could cry like that. -’Twould do her a power o’ good.” - -Toward gloaming of that day, as Reuben stood at the window after one -of his fruitless visits to the room above, he saw a lad come up the -slope of the moor. He ran out across the croft, and shouted to the -lad. Already he had learned the instinct of all who had seen the fever -close--the instinct to cry, like a leper of old, that none must come -too near. - -The lad ceased whistling, and halted in surprise; for Reuben, though -he did not know it, was waving his arms like one far gone in drink or -madness. - -“I war nobbut stepping up for a sitting of eggs fro’ th’ widow. Miss -Cilla o’ Good Intent telled me to come,” he said, half blubbering. -“’Twas promised, yond clutch of eggs, an’ Miss Good Intent wants t’ -chickens reared i’ good time for the winter.” - -Gaunt saw now that it was Dan Foster’s lad, whose delight, like that -of bigger men-folk, was to run errands for Priscilla when he was not -blowing the bellows for Fool Billy at the forge. - -“Bide where ye are!” he called sharply. “I want you to go back to -Marshlands, and tell them I shall not be home for weeks. Have you got -that message into your head, Dan?” - -“Ay,” said the lad, recovering from his bewilderment. - -“And then go to Good Intent, and tell Miss Cilla that for God’s sake -she is not to come nor send to Ghyll here.” Gaunt, with a backward -thought of Peggy lying in the up-stairs room, was ashamed of his -eagerness that Cilla should be saved. “You’ll not forget, Dan?” - -“No,” said the boy, his native curiosity conquering the last trace of -fear. “No, I’ll not forget, Mr. Gaunt; but what mun I say is t’ reason, -like, that Miss Good Intent can’t get her eggs? She’s main set on -getting that clutch, she is, an’ she’ll fancy it war me as disappointed -her.” - -Gaunt laughed harshly. “The reason? Tell her that the fever’s come to -Ghyll.” - -Like a wounded rabbit the lad sought cover. To him the fever meant all -that was terrible, mysterious; he had heard his elders talk of it these -months past beside the hearth; he feared that, even at this distance -and with the clean breath of the heath between himself and Ghyll, he -might be overtaken by the pestilence. Gaunt watched him run far down -the moor, and turn the shoulder of a hillock, and then he went indoors -again. Mrs. Mathewson was sitting by the hearth. - -“I’ve sent word to Marshlands,” he said, taking a seat in the -settle-corner, as if the widow and he were friends of long standing. -“They’ll not look for me till I come home again; and meanwhile the farm -and all that will be cared for.” - -The widow lifted her head and looked at Gaunt with the keen glance -which, until to-day, he had found disconcerting. No anxiety, no -brooding instinct of disaster, could check the tongue of this woman who -had seen life’s soft illusions leave her one by one. - -“You’re not likely to reach home again, Reuben.” - -“Likely not,” he answered, feeling for his pipe and filling it with -careful fingers. “There’s few would miss me, come to think of it, save -you and Peggy.” - -“I’d miss ye, Reuben Gaunt?” she snapped, with a tired effort to resist -her new outlook on the man. - -“Yes, you, mother. D’ye hear Peggy moaning up above us? ’Twas time that -I, or another, came to help ye to bear it.” - -Widow Mathewson reached out for her black clay pipe, and took a bit of -live peat from the fire, and lit the half-filled bowl. “We mun as weel -smoke in company, Reuben,” she said. - -They smoked in friendship for awhile. - -“Gaunt,” said the widow suddenly, “d’ye know what fear means or what -death means, or are ye a likelier lad than I thought ye?” - -“I know what death means, mother,” said Reuben, as he moved from the -settle-corner to stir the peat-fire into life. “I’ve learned to-day.” - -Again a silence fell between them. Then the widow lit her pipe afresh, -and her voice was gentler than Gaunt had known it hitherto. - -“You’ve fooled a good few women i’ your time, Reuben; but I fancy ye’re -not by way o’ fooling now.” - -“No,” said Gaunt, “I’m not by way of fooling now.” - -Outside there was no breath of ease to hint that rain might come -to-morrow, or the next day after that. In the red of a stagnant sunset -the day had ceased, and night brought only a sultry heat that taxed -man’s endurance to the breaking point. - -“Reuben,” said Widow Mathewson, “I wish th’ wind would ding the -house-door down, if only to stifle yond moaning up above us. She’s all -I’ve got, an’ I can do naught at all.” - -“Bide and see, mother. All’s not over yet. There, let me fill your pipe -again for you, mother. ’Twill never do to let you go handling an empty -bowl.” - -Their vigil had begun. Widow Mathewson stole quiet glances now and then -at the other’s face. She was wondering if the fever had been sent, -after all, to make a man of Gaunt of Marshlands. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -Dan Foster’s lad lost no time in delivering Gaunt’s message at -Marshlands. Fright lent speed to his legs, and he was glad to pass on -his terror to older folk, with a boy’s faith that they would be able, -in their wisdom, to relieve him of it. - -He got little comfort, however, from Gaunt’s housekeeper. Her face was -scared as his own, and she half-closed the door against him. - -“’Tis just like a trick o’ yond Mathewsons,” she snapped. “Keep -themselves apart, they, and reckon to wear a mucky sort o’ pride o’ -their own. Contrairy folk, I allus did say; and now they’ve brought -fever into Garth. Oh, ay, ’tis like ’em.” - -With that she closed the door outright on Dan Foster’s lad, just as her -master had done upon the stranger-woman long ago. She and old Gaunt -suffered from terror of different kinds, but the result in action was -the same. - -The lad whimpered afresh, just as Billy the Fool had done in that same -long ago, as he found himself lonely in the cutting wind. Then he set -off again for Good Intent. Miss Cilla would be there; and there was -healing wherever Miss Cilla was. - -He found her throwing corn to her pigeons. - -“Where is your clutch of eggs, Dan?” she asked, looking at the empty -basket on his arm. - -A boy who has had one rebuff fears twenty afterwards to follow, and Dan -kept his distance. - -“Please, Mr. Gaunt wouldn’t let me come nigh.” - -“Why, Dan?” - -“I dursn’t tell.” - -Cilla came to the gate of the croft. “You’re no coward, Dan. Never say -‘daren’t’ again in my hearing.” - -“They’ve fever up at Ghyll,” he said, and turned half about, as if -expecting to be driven away. - -Priscilla lost her courage, as Dan Foster’s lad had done, but her -excuse was cowardice for another. Personal fear she had none; and -throughout the long reign of terror, whenever her father had gone in -dread of fever at times, Cilla had never yielded to panic. She had -met the danger as she had faced the heart-sickness which Gaunt had -caused her in the spring; for Cilla’s slimness, the charm which all -acknowledged, were made up of strength, not weakness. - -“Tell me, Dan--tell me quickly--is it at Ghyll the fever is? It is not -Mr. Gaunt who has it? That cannot be, for I saw him only a few hours -since.” - -“Nay,” the lad answered bluntly. “Mr. Gaunt he hasn’t got it yet, but -he’ll have it soon, I reckon. Seems he’s helping up yonder at Ghyll. -Said he wouldn’t be home for weeks, he did, and bade me carry a message -for him to Marshlands.” - -“Lord help us!” broke in Widow Lister’s soft, kittenish voice. “I said -’twould come, an’ what’s a poor widow-body to do if she catches it, and -her living all by her lone without chick nor child to help her.” - -The widow had a keen scent for disaster. She had seen Dan come down -the road with a look of fright, had followed him, and now was standing -close to Cilla’s elbow. As of old, her first thought was for herself; -that was why, as she stood in the sunlight, no line or wrinkle showed -on her babyish face, though other women of her age would have earned -such marks of righteousness long since. - -Cilla turned, and her smile was quick and eager. She was glad just now -for a respite from her thoughts. “Lord help other folk, Mrs. Lister,” -she answered briskly. “Have you ever tried that medicine?” - -The widow sighed and her eyes sought the ground meekly. “Chit of a -girl,” she was thinking, “to go lecturing me. As if I didn’t spend all -my days i’ worriting about other folks’ troubles. Am always the first, -I, to find troubles out. But, then, she doesn’t know what the fever -means, the lile, daft lass.” - -Dan had taken a look at the sun, his only timepiece, and had grown -alert on the sudden. - -“Will bid you good day, Miss Cilla,” he said, touching his cap. “’Tis -five of the clock, or thereabouts, an’ I promised Billy the Fool to -bellows-blow for him. He gets terrible short i’ the temper, does Billy, -if I’m not there to a minute.” - -Widow Lister followed him down the road. “Oh, Dan, my lad!” she called -after him. “Tell Billy he’s never mended my bit of a window-fastener -yet. David promised to do it, an’ went overseas; then Billy said he’d -do the job; but men are all of a pattern, so ’twould seem.” - -Cilla watched the two of them out of sight. Well as she knew the widow, -there was something unexpected, ludicrous almost, in her remembrance of -the window-fastener. The fever had come to Ghyll, it might steal down -to Garth before the month was out; yet Widow Lister, in the midst of -childish fright, could remember that David had left one job undone when -he set sail for Canada. - -“What’s amiss, lile lass?” asked her father, coming down the highway -and seeing the troubled look on her face. - -“Oh, nothing, father. The day has been overwarm, and I’m feeling it, -maybe--” - -“Now, don’t go blaming the weather,” roared Yeoman Hirst, admitting -all the parish into his confidence. “Weather comes, and it goes. There -needs be more than that to shake you, Cilla.” - -She told her news and Yeoman Hirst stood very still for a moment. He -was afraid, and he was conquering his fear. - -“’Twas bound to reach us soon or late,” he said, in a steady voice. -“Fancied it might leave bonnie Garth alone, but ’twas not to be. We mun -just look it straight i’ the face, lass, an’ get on with our day’s work -as if naught had happened.” - -Cilla put an arm through her father’s. There was something vastly -clean, and strong, and childlike in the yeoman’s faith; he was a man to -lean upon, as Widow Mathewson would have put it. - -“It’s at Ghyll, you say?” went on the farmer, after a pause. “Which of -the two has caught it--the mother, or Peggy?” - -“Dan didn’t say. He was so scared, poor lad, that he seemed glad to be -rid of his message and away. But Reuben Gaunt is there and means to -bide.” - -Hirst’s temper was ruffled by his fear and the need to check it, -as a strong man’s way is. “Can understand his being there--but, as -for biding, Gaunt was never one to bide two minutes i’ one place, -’specially if there happened to be danger to his durned, soft body.” - -“You’re wrong, father.” Cilla’s voice was warm in defence of the man -who had slighted her. “He may be this and that, but not a coward. If -he’d found all well at Ghyll, he might have roamed abroad; as it was, -he stayed.” - -“Oh, the snod ways o’ reasoning ye women have!” growled Hirst. “Dan -brought false news, if he said Gaunt stayed in a fever-house. I -wouldn’t do it myself, lass, and I should reckon myself a prudent man -for taking to my heels. There, there! I never could bear to wrangle, -least of all wi’ ye, Cilla. Come away in, and get my tea ready. I’m -droughty and dry, like the roads that clem ye up wi’ dust these days.” - -At Ghyll, up on the lonely moor, the hot day ended in weariness and -hardship. Widow Mathewson had crept often up the stair, to see if she -could help her lass. Now she and Reuben were smoking together beside -the hearth. If courage needed proof, these two were finding the best -gift of life--bravery won from fear. The fever was no fanciful scourge, -to be tempted by encouragement into building foul nests about a house. -It came like a sword that did not kill with a clean blade at once, but -hacked its victims with a blunt rusty edge until the end came; and -strength or weakness of the folk who met it mattered little, as with -other plagues. - -The widow and Reuben Gaunt smoked tranquilly by the hearth; and the -quiet, hot silence lay about two folk who were learning to approve each -other. The woman, after the moorland fashion, was passing the time -with tales of the last visitation. It seemed to give her some relief, -just as the sleepy fire of peats served, in some odd way, to cheer the -sultriness which it intensified. - -“Ye were in your cradle then,” she said, “an’ knew naught on’t, though -it carried your mother off. Reuben, if ye ever want to know what flimsy -stuff we’re made of, high and low, good ’uns an’ bad--ye’ve got to -look on at a fever-time. Th’ fear seems more catching than th’ fever -itseln, an’ always th’ big, hearty men catches it worst. Oh, the sights -that come back to mind! Thirty-and-four year ago it war, and all comes -back as plain as Peggy’s moanings up aboon us yonder.” - -Gaunt saw that it eased her to talk of olden days. The man had grown -gentle, considerate. He was full of this new experience of thinking for -others, rather than himself. - -“Tell me about them, mother,” he said. - -“Oh, there’s no use i’ telling. Ye need to have seen it--as ye will -do, happen, if ye’re spared--to know the muckiness o’ fright. Ivery -house war a island to itseln. Men who’d faced bulls run mad at Shepston -market-day, men who’d risked crossing the bogland at dark o’ neet, to -bring comfort to a friend,--where were they, Reuben? Hugging their own -firesides. Not a drop o’ milk could the poorer sort get--and milk was -needed, ye’ll be sure, i’ the stricken cottages--for a watch was kept -at th’ farm-gate, an’ they were fended off afore they could bring their -pitchers nigh.” - -The widow talked of things she had seen long ago with clear -unfrightened eyes. She would pause to light her pipe, and then would -fall into a friendly silence, taking up the tale again at leisure. For -she knew that, however it went with Peggy, there would be time and to -spare for talk with Reuben. - -“I’ve heard young folks shiver an’ shake when small-pox was so much -as named. Bless ye, I’ve seen worse nor small-pox. It may spoil -your face--an’ what day of a hard life doesn’t help to spoil your -looks?--but there’s a chance of living on. There’s the rub, lad! ’Tis -when ye set folk face to face wi’ what’s all but certain death, that -ye know what they’re made of. There’s rum i’ the cupboard, Reuben. I’m -forgetting what manners I iver had.” - -“No, and thank you, mother. Not just to-night.” - -The widow got up and set glasses and a bottle on the table, and took -down the kettle from the crane hanging over the peat-fire. - -“Don’t you go too far wi’ godliness all at once, Reuben,” she said, -with a flash of her old tartness. “Ye’re not going to save Peggy by -keeping a drop o’ liquor out o’ ye, but happen ye’ll let the fever in -by playing the miser that way.” - -Gaunt had been right when he said that the widow could never have borne -her loneliness without a man to help her. Already she was gentler than -he had known her. She jested about the measure of rum she shared with -him, saying that he led her into bad ways. She had found that interval -of peace which sometimes comes to folk in the bitterest of their -trouble; and those who have lived long, and suffered long, say that it -is God’s breathing-space, granted to brave folk lest their courage fail -them at the pinch. - -Down at Garth, the stars lay tranquil over David’s forge. Dan Foster’s -lad was sweating at the bellows, while Billy the Fool played at getting -the day’s work done. Billy had finished the last of the job, when soon -afterwards Yeoman Hirst came by, and, seeing the fire-glow across the -road, stepped in to ask if his fence-rails were ready for the morrow. - -“Te-he!” chuckled Billy. “Said they’d be done right fair in time, I -did, and Billy keeps his word. Ye’d have nigh split your sides, Yeoman, -to see Dan yonder a-blowing and a-blowing till I fancied he was going -to burst his lile self and the bellows, too. You’re stepping up to -Good Intent? Well, now, I’ll stretch my legs a bit, I will, after all -this marlaking.” - -He walked in silence beside Hirst, after accepting his customary match -and pipeful of tobacco. It was not till they had reached Good Intent -that the workings of the natural’s mind showed plainly. - -“Dan tells me fever’s come to Ghyll,” he said, in the low, -dispassionate voice which was always a sign, to those who knew him, of -some troubled reaching-out to his blurred past. - -“Ay, but don’t you go fearing it, lad Billy. ’Twould never hurt such as -ye.” - -“Was thinking of Mr. Gaunt, I. Dan says he’s up yonder. Now, ’twould be -terrible pranksome if he happened to die on’t himself. There’d be such -a clearing o’ the air, as a body might say.” - -Hirst little as he cared for Reuben Gaunt was shocked by the quietness -with which Billy uttered the wish. This lad, who was peaceable and -kindly of face as Garth street itself, was asking a terrible punishment -for his one enemy. - -“Oh, tuts, lad!” said the yeoman, patting him roughly on the shoulder. -“We don’t pray fever on any man, surely, whether we like him or no.” - -“Well, now, I don’t pray fever. Couldn’t if I were minded to. I just -think long o’ what I want--as hard as my daft-wits can be driven, -Yeoman--and then I bide till it comes.” - -Yeoman Hirst had no insight into the by-ways of prayer; he said his -own on Sabbaths, while Billy was roaming wide across the moors, and he -said them with the simple faith that was a part of his dealings with -this and with the next world. He was non-plussed, for the natural at -these times was self-possessed, and his quiet statements, as of fact, -unsettled wiser men. - -“Come in, lad,” said Hirst, pushing the other into the porchway. “I’ll -tell Cilla to draw ye a sup of home-brewed ale, and we’ll talk o’ -likelier things than fever.” - -“Thank ye, but nay,” said Billy, after a pause. “I’ve a mind to shut -down the forge, and then get home to bed among the heather. Terrible -chap is Billy for playing all day, like. Then he needs his snug bed -under sky-blankets, Yeoman. I’ll be bidding ye good night, I. There’s -a laverock calls me up with the dawn, and he’ll miss me if I oversleep -myself.” - -“Cilla, is Billy a fool, or are ye and me?” asked Hirst, coming into -the living-room and finding Priscilla tending the geraniums that lined -the window-sill. - -“Ye and me, father,” answered Cilla, with a queer little laugh. “I was -thinking o’ Reuben Gaunt when you came in, and that was foolishness, -you’ve always told me.” - -Hirst settled himself in the hooded chair and stirred the peat-fire -into a warmth that was no way needed. “So was Fool Billy. He wished the -fever might take him up yonder at Ghyll.” - -Cilla had been thinking her own thoughts; and she came and stood by the -hearth, one hand on the mantel with its tea canisters and its china -dogs. Through the heat, and the work of the farm, and the fever-dread, -Priscilla was still the coolest and the bravest thing in Garth. She -had something about her at all times of that starlight strength and -constancy which Fool Billy courted as he slept among the heather-beds. - -“I’ve wished better things for Reuben,” she said. “I was thinking, when -you stepped in, father, that he’s done what few in Garth would do.” - -“Won a fell-race, eh? To be sure, there’s summat i’ doing that; but, -Cilla, there’s harder races i’ this life, and ye’re daft to think o’ -Reuben.” - -“Oh, father no! It was more than the fell-race I was thinking of. -From what Dan said, he is staying at Ghyll. You need have no doubt of -that, as you had this morning. How many would have done as much--how -many, of all the folk we know? To run a race, father, and hear them -clapping hands, and know your feet are going nimble underneath ye--that -seems easy, and soon over, win it or lose it--but to wait beside a -fever-bed--” - -Hirst stirred uneasily in his chair. “Now, Cilla, you’re letting fancy -play the dangment with you, same as Gaunt always did. Fancies are well -enough, lass, but I’m for the day’s work, and beef and ale in between -to prop up all the chancy-come-quick notions.” - -“Reuben is for the day’s work,” said Cilla quietly. “A harder working -day than I’ve had yet.” - -Hirst reached for his pipe and sat in silence. Priscilla rested both -hands lightly on the mantel, and stooped to the smouldering peats, and -saw fire-pictures there. All her love for Gaunt had found resurrection. -The shame that had followed the green, soft ways of spring went out -and away from her. If he could run with the best of those who ran -at Linsall Fair, if afterwards he could face the quietness of that -dread which few met bravely, he had shown courage of two kinds. His -faults--were they not all on the surface? He had found little chance as -yet to show his strength. - -It was so that Cilla went excusing him; and presently, as she looked -deeper into the peats, she grew angry with herself for thinking that -excuse of any kind was needed. She remembered Widow Mathewson’s tale, -her picture of Reuben’s motherless, untended boyhood. Her heart went -out to him; and suddenly she flushed with keen dismay. Under all other -thoughts was the question whether it were Peggy who had caught the -fever. She had come near to making a dream picture of what might -follow if Gaunt were free--if Gaunt were free-- - -She checked herself. “Father, there’s nothing so idle as thoughts,” she -said, standing straight to her comely height, and seeking wisdom from -the other’s bigness and look of well-being. “’Tis time I got to bed, if -I’m to be fit for any work in the morning. Good night, father.” - -She lingered on the last words, and Hirst, who was no fool so far as -observation went, laughed quietly over his pipe when she had gone. - -“She’s tender, she, with the old man,” he muttered. “Bless me, if the -lile fool hasn’t been thinking o’ Gaunt again. I know that note i’ her -voice. She had it i’ spring, and it put me in mind of a blackbird’s -when she’s all about building her nest. Well, I’ve known queer cattle -i’ my time, but the queerest of all is women. I like ’em, for all that.” - -He tried to banish Gaunt from his thoughts, as a man of no account, and -could not. Like Cilla, he was just--and for that reason was laughed at -now and then by his neighbours--and he knew that Gaunt, if it were true -that he had stayed by choice at Ghyll, was a better man to-day than he. - -“Mind ye, I don’t believe the tale,” he said stubbornly, stirring the -peats with needless vigour. “Dan Foster’s lad is like others--light o’ -feet, and light o’ thought. He brought a wrong tale down to Garth; but -we shall know, I reckon, by the morning.” - -Cilla, in her room above, was less anxious to get to bed betimes than -she had seemed. She leaned at the open casement, and watched the half -moon ride the sky. Not a breath of air came from the steaming night; -it was cooler within doors than without. The apple-tree whose branches -had lit the window-panes with tender green in spring, showed dry and -drooping leaves; its sickly fruit lay shrivelled, asking only for a -breeze to come and snap the withered stalks. Even the hills, ranging -out and out across the clearness of the night, suggested weariness -instead of strength. It was weather to help no man’s crops; but the -fever throve on it. - -Cilla had no thought of heat. She had returned to the cool days of -spring, when Gaunt had made her feel the beauty of this land which she -had known from childhood. She cared less for the man, maybe, than for -the glamour he had brought her; and each proof that he was strong, was -proof, too, that the glamour had not lied to her. - -When at last she got to bed, it was only to fall asleep and dream of -Keta’s Well, and of saunters by the stream, and softer golds and deeper -crimsons than she had ever seen in the skies at Garth, until Reuben -came to teach her what the homeland meant. - -Once she stirred in her sleep. “David, dreams cannot last,” she -murmured. “You know they cannot. David, come home again to Garth!” - -Then afterwards she dreamed quiet thoughts of Reuben; and they were -wandering up the streamway that led to Keta’s Well. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -At ten of the next morning Widow Mathewson crept down the stairway at -Ghyll Farm. Gaunt had snatched what sleep he could on the settle in the -living-room. - -“You’re needed, Reuben,” she said, touching him on the shoulder. - -He was on his feet at once; and to the widow it was restful to find a -man who answered so quickly to the call of need. - -“Well?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. - -“She’s all but gone. I thought, like, ye might care--” - -He went up the stair and she followed him. Gaunt, in days past, had -needed the whip across his back; he found it now. There was no lifting -of Peggy’s eyes to his, no word to bridge the passage. He took her -hands in his, but they were dumb. There was a stifled breath, as of one -who seeks for air in an overcrowded room and that was all. Peggy o’ -Mathewson’s had gone out along the black, hot fever-road. - -The widow looked at Gaunt, and pushed him gently from the room. “Poor -lad,” was all she said. “’Tis one more trouble added to the peck for -me--but ye’re not used to it.” - -Gaunt went out through the porch, and across to the gate of the croft, -and stood there, leaning over the top bar, just as Peggy had when she -said good-by to him. A great stillness lay over the lands; there was no -movement of bird, or sheep, or cattle; no breeze stirred, and the sun, -stark in the everlasting blue, seemed the one unwearied thing in nature. - -A stillness lay, too, over Reuben Gaunt. He was groping toward the -future. A few days since, Peggy had kissed him at the gate here, had -bidden him return as quickly as he could. After that there was silence. -Though he had seen her, watched beside her bed, no word had passed -between them. Not a sign of recognition had come to soften the blow. He -could only recall the girl’s vigour, her glowing health, and contrast -them with what lay behind him at the farm. - -Gradually the numbness left him, and the first sharp sense of grief -intruded. He dwelt unduly on the ugliness and horror of Peggy’s death, -as though they mattered, now that the soul had passed. He thought, in -a vague, haphazard fashion, of many ways in which he might have dealt -better with her. He had a senseless longing to have back that day at -Linsall Fair, when he had tempted her to meet the fever. They might -have chosen twenty other roads than that to Linsall. Mrs. Mathewson, -with her creed that was old and pagan as the moor itself, would have -told him that he was not to blame in this--that the road to Linsall -Fair was planned out before ever Peggy lay in her cradle. - -Gaunt had known pain of body; but this anguish that grew keener every -moment was new to him. He had no knowledge of the way to meet it, and -such ignorance makes all men cowardly. - -He had lost all sense of time, until a glance at the sun showed that it -was lying over Dingle Nook. He had spent two hours here at the gate, it -seemed. Again he blamed himself, and thought of Widow Mathewson, and -went back to the farm. - -She met him at the door. “’Twas kind o’ ye, Reuben, to leave me to my -work; but, then, ye’re always kind these days.” - -“Thought I had left you in the lurch, mother.” - -“Nay! There was summat to be done, and ye’d have been i’ the way.” - -They looked at each other, the man who had suffered and the woman who -had suffered much. On their faces was that light, steady, quiet and -full of wonder, which touches those who have just stood near to death. - -“Have you been--” he began, with quick intuition, and could not put his -question into words. - -“Ay, getting th’ poor lass ready.” The widow’s lips trembled. She -reached out for Gaunt’s hand impulsively. “I should have been readying -her for her wedding instead, Reuben! Oh, my lad, ’tis a queer make o’ -business, this o’ living and dying--but ’specially the living.” - -Gaunt knew that he was needed, and answered the call. “There, mother, -you’re not left alone.” - -The words were few, but the tone of them gave new strength to Mrs. -Mathewson. “You can call me mother often--never too often; it’s only -fro’ your lips I shall iver hear the name again.” - -Throughout the watch which these two had shared, no moment had been -so full of unexpected tenderness. The widow was leaning on Reuben as -on a trusted son, and he was standing to her--not in promise, but in -deed--as a stay-by in her latter years. The grip of his hands helped -her to face what had to come; the steady ring of his voice relieved a -solitude whose silence might otherwise have broken down her spirit. - -“I must get word down to the coffiner at Garth,” said Reuben, knowing -how the thought of work to be done would steady Mrs. Mathewson. “I’ll -look for a farm-lad to pass up the fields, and shout to him.” - -“Nay, but ye willun’t! I’ve planned it all out i’ my mind these last -two hours. Nathan, the coffiner, wouldn’t come within a mile o’ Ghyll; -I know Nathan, an’ he’s frightened o’ smaller things nor fever. See -ye, Reuben! She was always full o’ fancies, an’ often she’d say to me, -sitting beside the hearth o’ nights, ‘Mother,’ she’d say, ‘if ever I -happen to die, like, I’d like to be buried clean i’ the peat, not down -i’ a wet churchyard.’ She lived lonely, ye see, like myseln, an’ I -fancy she’d no liking for many neighbours, even i’ th’ kirkyard.” - -Reuben was ill at ease. He had made no pretence of godliness in years -past, but at a time such as this old memories revived. - -“Mother, you’d have the parson--you’ll laugh at me, maybe--but surely -you’d have the parson say a prayer above her?” - -Widow Mathewson had always been fearless in her outlook, whether it -were true or false, and she did not yield. “I don’t laugh at ye, lad, -but such softnesses were never meant for Peggy and me. ’Tis all very -weel i’ the tamer lands, but not up here. She lived as she lived, an’ -she died as she died, and naught alters that. God rest her soul, say -I--but that’s as she made her bed i’ this life. Reuben,” she went on, -abandoning all her hardness again, “I’ve done a deal o’ thinking about -religion i’ my time, an’ never come much nearer aught. Ye might tell -me that Peggy did as weel i’ this life as could be expected of a body? -Now, there, I’m growing old, or I’d not give way to whimsies. Reach -down my pipe for me, Reuben; ’baccy alwus helps me to get right sides -up wi’ the world again.” - -Gaunt, the ne’er-do-weel, felt an odd thrill of comfort in ministering -to this hard-faced woman who depended on him. He filled her pipe for -her, and he lit a spill at the fire. - -“That’s better,” she said, drawing long puffs of smoke. “There’s a deal -to be done, and there was never use i’ blinking work. For myseln, it -matters naught either way; but for ye, Reuben--well, ’tis best to get -fever out of a house as quick as may be. It wouldn’t help a living soul -if silly Nathan stepped up and caught th’ fever, or if parson came, and -he’s one o’ the few i’ Garth who would. Parson is staunch, for all he -thinks me heathenish. Ye’ve faced a good deal, Reuben; surely, ye’ll -help me to keep fever out o’ Garth?” - -Gaunt moved uneasily about the room. He would have had another kind of -burial, but there was no gainsaying the other’s wisdom. The village, so -far, had escaped contagion; his own feelings must stand aside, surely, -when measured by the terrible price which Garth might have to pay for -them. - -“We have no right to do aught else,” he said, turning to meet the -widow’s glance. “See, mother, she always had a liking for the spot -where the rowan hangs over the stream. I’ve been thinking she might -wish to be laid there.” - -The widow nodded. “Get to your work, Reuben,” was all she said. “It -doesn’t do to sit idle at such-like times.” - -Something near to peace came to Gaunt when he reached the little ghyll -and stood watching the stream, all but dry now, trickle down the rocky -slope under the rowan. It seemed that, after all, Peggy would sleep -more soundly in her own homeland than in another place. - -The peat lay soft and deep almost down to the edge of the stream, and -there was little trouble in the digging. With a touch of that fugitive -poetry which was part of the man, he conquered his horror of the work. -He told himself that she would like to have the stream-song close -beside her, day and night. Death would not be a sleep and a forgetting, -but a sleep that remembered all the pleasant moorland haunts. And the -rowan-leaves would shelter her from heat in summer, and in winter-time -the peat would lie between Peggy and the wildest storms that blew. - -Fancies crowded round Reuben, as he worked in the pitiless heat. It was -well that they came to his relief, for stauncher men than he might have -yielded, without shame, to the misery of this task. - -He looked up at last, and dashed the sweat from his eyes. The grave was -ready. The heat-waves, running from end to end of the open moor, danced -giddily before him; he felt the body-sickness which had caught him at -the end of the fell-race which had ended with an over-moor walk home, -and a halt under the rowan here while Peggy and he talked of their -coming marriage. - -When he recovered, and could see the moor again in proper outline, -he saw Billy the Fool standing on the spur of rising ground behind. -Billy’s face showed no trace of feeling; he stood motionless as some -stone landmark reared to guide travellers across the heath. - -“Digging a grave, Mr. Gaunt?” he said quietly. - -Reuben was too deep in sorrow to be startled. He had not known that -there was a looker-on while he worked, and Billy was the last of all -Garth folk he would have wished to see just now; but it mattered little. - -“Yes, digging a grave, Billy.” His voice was tired. “I would not come -overnear, if I were you, for there’s fever come to Ghyll.” - -“Te-he!” answered Billy gravely. “Fever doesn’t take lile fools such as -me. ’Tis the sensible, wise folk, such as ye, Mr. Gaunt, that it takes -a fancy to.” - -He was not afraid. So much was sure. But he turned, and went down the -moor with his easy, loping strides; and Reuben wondered for a moment, -in the midst of his weariness, what Billy was doing here. - -Billy could have given him no answer. He had heard of the trouble at -Ghyll, and instinct had brought him up the moor to learn if it were -Gaunt who was likely to die. Instinct took him, now that he had seen -Reuben alive and well, down to the forge where much work awaited him. - -Gaunt forgot that he had come. He went heavily across the strip of moor -to Ghyll, leaving his spade at the graveside. - -They were strong of body, Widow Mathewson and he, and it was only a -little way from the farm to the rowan-tree. When all was done, and -the kindly peat lay smooth above Gaunt’s first dream of wedlock, a -curlew came flapping down the moor, and paused above the rowan-tree, -and wheeled about it in wide circles. Sometimes it drew nearer, and -sometimes it roamed wide; but it did not leave them, and its wail was -piteous. - -The widow’s face was drawn and lined, as Gaunt’s was, but she held -herself bravely, and her voice was quiet. - -“Happen the curlew’s her parson, Reuben. Would she be happier, think -ye, down yonder i’ Garth kirkyard?” - -“’Tis strange, mother. I’ve heard few birds call since I came to Ghyll, -and now--” - -“Strange? There’s naught stranger than life, Reuben--than life, and -what we’ve put to bed under th’ rowan-tree. Folk get mazed wi’ chatter, -seems to me, down i’ the valleys; they fancy life’s made up o’ gossip, -an’ borrowing tin kettles one fro’ t’ other, an’ quarrelling when one -here an’ there has burned th’ bottom through.” - -The curlew drew nearer to them, wheeled above their heads. Its cry was -Ishmael’s, and the undernote of it was loneliness. - -“Yond’s Peggy’s mate,” said the widow. “She was allus a wild bird, -she, and she never would have settled down at Marshlands. Reuben, lad, -cannot ye comfort yourself wi’ that thought?” - -He smiled gravely. “Had I no wildness, then?” he asked. “That used to -be your trouble, surely, in the old days.” - -“Ay, but ’twas a different sort o’ wildness. See yond curlew. ’Twill -go down to th’ lowlands to feed, Reuben, an’ to have a frolic, like; -but tell it that it’s got to bide there for life, and ’twould die o’ -homesickness. Oh, it’s hard to say it, an’ harder to believe it, but -maybe all’s for the best.” - -She turned for a last look at the grave; then, with a firmer tread than -Gaunt’s, she moved down the moor. As they reached the croft, they saw a -burly horseman unfastening the gate with his crop. - -“Nay, doctor, if ye please!” cried the widow, lifting a warning hand. - -“Oh, I know you’ve fever in the house,” he said impatiently. “That’s -why I came. I only heard of it an hour since, as I passed through -Garth. How’s the patient?” - -“Past your caring for--but thank ye all th’ same, doctor.” - -“Oh, bless me--Peggy dead? I can’t believe it. Mrs. Mathewson, I wish -to God I’d heard the news sooner. I might have saved her.” - -“I fancy not. She niver had th’ look o’ one as war going to mend, an’ -I’ve seen many a case i’ my time. Now, doctor, turn about. There’s the -rest o’ the dale to think of, an’ ye’ll not better aught by seeking -risks.” - -She told him of the burial, of Reuben’s help, of their resolve to save -Garth, so far as their own endurance went, from the scourge that lay so -close about it. She spoke of these matters as of such usual tasks as -cattle-milking or taking corn to the poultry-yard; there was no sense -of heroism behind her quiet statement of the facts. - -The doctor ceased fumbling with the rusty gate-catch. “I always thought -you had sense enough for three, and now I know it. Of course, I should -be a fool--a bit of a knave, too--to go in when there’s nothing to be -done.” - -Widow Mathewson could not restrain the pride--grim enough, but clean -and honest--which had given her strength to meet the years of trouble. -There was no malice in her tone, no unfriendliness. “They allus said i’ -Garth that we kept ourselves to ourselves up here. Well, we did while -we were i’ health, doctor; tell them we’ll do no less, now we’re i’ -trouble.” - -The doctor nodded, gave a quick inquiring glance at Reuben from under -his shaggy eyebrows, and rode forward along the ridge of the moor. - -“I must notify the death for them,” he thought, as he jogged along. -“They’ll never think of the need for it, so I must. Well, I’ve not seen -the lass, and it will be irregular, to be sure; but Lord knows they ask -few questions when it’s a fever case. Soonest hidden away out of sight, -the better folk are pleased these days.” - -Then he fell to thinking of Reuben Gaunt. Mrs. Mathewson had made it -plain that Reuben entered the farm with knowledge of the danger, and -that he chose to stay rather than leave her friendless. The doctor, -during his years of rough intercourse with many people, had found less -courage in the face of death than he cared to admit; he himself was as -hardened against fear, as he was against exposure and fatigue, and he -grew impatient when weaker men showed signs of panic. - -“He knew what it meant when he stepped into Ghyll,” he muttered. “Well, -well, I’ve been mistaken in Gaunt, it seems.” - -At the end of his day’s round he was riding slowly down the -village--his stout nag as wearied with the heat as himself--when he met -Cilla of the Good Intent, and reined up. - -“You’re the only cool thing I’ve seen to-day,” he declared, with bluff -gallantry. “Bless me, Cilla, how d’ye contrive it? I was never one -to flatter, but you put me in mind of a spring flower peeping out of -a hedgerow. It is not spring, child, and primroses are over for this -year, and the heat, I tell you, is appalling.” - -He wagged his head fiercely, but Cilla only laughed; and the laugh was -cool and dainty as her person. Then suddenly her face clouded. - -“We ought not to be jesting, doctor. Indeed we ought not. I cannot keep -my thoughts away from those poor folk up at Ghyll.” - -The doctor halted, irresolute for once. He knew more of the history of -the countryside than even Will the Driver did, and now he remembered -many rumours, earlier in the year, that Gaunt would carry off Priscilla -after all the rest of Garth had failed. He had been sorry to hear the -news then; but his feelings had changed since morning. - -“Best tell you at once,” he said, “for you’re bound to hear it soon or -late. Peggy o’ Mathewson’s died this morning.” - -He regretted his impulsiveness, when he saw Cilla move unsteadily -across the road, and rest her hand on his saddle, as if she could not -stand without support. He should have let another break the news that -Gaunt was free, so he told himself. - -Cilla’s pride was of different texture from Widow Mathewson’s; but it -was as strong in its own way, and it did not fail her when need came. -She was pale, and her eyes were overbright, but she stood upright again -and looked the doctor in the face. - -“Tell me,” she said, “did Mr. Gaunt go there--and did he stay in the -house--of his own free will?” - -“What else should have kept him, lassie? I had all the tale from Mrs. -Mathewson, and I tell you she’s lucky to have such a man about her. -Pride may be fine enough, Cilla, but not when you’re alone in a house, -with one death to cry over and another--your own--to look forward to.” - -Cilla’s face clouded again. “Is--is the risk so great as they would -have us believe?” - -“Well, maybe not; there’s always hope--always hope, Cilla. And there -are two of them to help keep the boggarts away.” - -Yet Cilla knew that the old doctor took a grave view of the matter; -his praise of Gaunt, praise such as he rarely gave, was proof that he -thought Reuben guilty of foolhardiness. All Garth would learn now that -its judgment of Gaunt had been wrong; but there would be little use in -that, if he died in proving it. - -Then suddenly she thought of Peggy, and pity drove away her -selfishness. She recalled the fine, careless swing of the gipsy figure, -as “Mathewson’s lass” had passed her on the moors or going to market. -There seemed something harsh, uncalled-for, in the passing of so brave -a soul. And it was she who had persuaded Reuben to be true to a -promise earlier than she could claim, in those near yet far-off days of -spring. - -Priscilla returned, tired out, to Good Intent. The world of Garth -might be small, but the girl’s heart was big as the limits of human -compassion and human searching after happiness. The two instincts were -so mingled, since hearing the doctor’s news, that Cilla could not -disentangle them. - -“Come ye in, now,” said her father, who was smoking the after-work pipe -of evening, which was the sweetest of the day to him. - -“Ye’re looking bothered, like. It all comes o’ gadding about i’ this -heat overmuch. Grown men can bear it, but not lile hazel saplings such -as ye.” - -Cilla only smiled, and went up to her own room. She could not bear to -talk just now even with Yeoman Hirst, the best of all her friends. - -“Let a maid alone when she wears that look,” Hirst muttered sagely. -“I was never much of a hand at tackling whimsies. I’d liefer have a -thorn-hedge any day.” - -The doctor, meanwhile, had passed down Garth street. He was thinking -mainly of the good meal and the ease that he had earned, and he frowned -as he saw Widow Lister watering her strip of garden-front. He knew the -little woman by heart, and indeed reined up before she had darted into -the roadway. - -“Oh, doctor, I’ve been trying to catch ye these two days back,” she -said. - -“Well? D’ye want to consult me? Shouldn’t say much ailed you, by the -plump look o’ your cheeks.” - -The widow simpered a little, and cast down her eyes. “’Tisn’t what ails -me, doctor; ’tis what might ail me.” - -“Now, now!” The other was impatient but like all men he was weak in -face of the little body’s helplessness. “I’ll be getting home, Mrs. -Lister. What might ail you, only heaven in its wisdom knows. Let me get -supper and an hour’s smoke until the ailment reaches you; then call me -in. I’ve had nothing since a bite of bread and cheese at noon.” - -“Ay, but ’tis th’ fever; ye munnot jest about it. Bide a wee while, -doctor. A few minutes more will mak’ lile difference to ye.” - -“Won’t they?” growled the doctor to himself. “It’s just those odd -wasted minutes at the day’s end, little fool, that break a man up, come -to reckon the total at a year’s end.” - -But he waited with some show of patience, and listened to this woman -who had scarcely had an ache, or done a day’s hard work in all her life. - -“’Tis this way, ye see, doctor. I’m not like folk who have cheerful -company about me all my time. When I sit by my lone self o’ nights, -I’ve allus the dread o’ fever for company, and I take it to my lone bed -wi’ me. What I want to know is this--suppose I passed a tramping-man -i’ the road, as I did awhile since, an’ suppose he looked as if he was -sickening, like, an’ suppose--” - -The doctor cut her short “Now I catch your drift. You want to know how -long ’twill be before the mulberry spots come out,” he said, with a -cheerfulness that shocked Widow Lister. “Something between a week and a -fortnight; but I shouldn’t be troubled, Widow. Fever doesn’t take the -plump little women; it has overmuch respect for ’em.” - -“Is that truth, doctor?” - -“Ay, as true as that I’m due home for supper. Good night to you. She’ll -have another worrit before to-morrow’s ended,” he added, as he jogged -down the street. “There’s a use for the widow of course--there’s a use -for everything created--but it puzzles a man at times to find out what -’tis.” - -At Ghyll the sleepy dusk had settled into slumber. The day had been -tired with its own heat, and the night was wearier still. Gaunt had -stretched himself on the long settle, after seeing the widow go up -to bed. He slept with that death-in-life which comes from sheer -exhaustion, and did not hear Mrs. Mathewson creep, like a thief, down -her own stair, did not know that the sneck of the door was lifted -quietly. - -The widow passed up through the croft and into the moor. The new moon, -a sickle of silver-grey, lay over the rowan-tree. Mrs. Mathewson, from -old habit, curtseyed to it seven times, not knowing that she did so. -Then she sought the ghyll, and the stream that was too little and too -dry to be heard at all if the faintest breeze had stirred about the -heath. - -Gaunt had wondered at the widow’s strength throughout the day. It was -well that he did not see her in her weakness now. All restraint was -gone, as she knelt by the grave that was not a day old as yet. - -“Peggy, my lass! Peggy, ye’re all I have i’ this world. Reuben’s -staunch, I know, an’ I’m fond o’ the lad, but ’tis ye I want--’tis ye.” - -The weakness of the strong, when at last they are compelled to yield to -it takes its own revenge. Mrs. Mathewson was bewildered, helpless. Then -a blind fury seized her, and she cried out on God because He had robbed -her, who had so little, of the one thing she prized. And then there -came a darkness, a reaching-out for help, such as Gaunt had known not -long ago at the gate of the croft. - -After that a counterfeit of peace stole over her. She was on the -borderland between this world and another, and she seemed to reach -across and take the girl’s hands in her own. - -“Ye’ve strayed, lile lass. Come away back wi’ me to Ghyll,” she said, -grasping the new hope. “Ah, now, ye’d come--surely ye’d come if your -old mother asked ye.” - -Throughout the night she lay beside the grave, sleeping fitfully at -times, but oftener lying awake, listening to the trickle of the stream -and watching the Milky Way that streaked the sky with jewelled dust. -For these few hours she had let weakness have its way with her; but, -when the pink fingers of the dawn began to touch the hills, she rose. -Old habit taught her that the day was meant for work. She was dizzy; -her limbs trembled under her; grief had left her stricken in soul and -body. She must conquer the trouble, that was all, as she had done at -many a long-past dawn. - -There had been no freshness, no movement of the breeze, through the -night hours; but now the moor seemed to breathe at last, as a little -wind got up and rustled lightly among the heather. Not the fingers -only, but the broad hands of the dawn were on the hills. The pink -lights had deepened into crimson, and stretched like beacon fires -across the eastern moor. The grey darkness receded from the dingles. -Out to the west, a sky of tenderest sapphire brushed the rough edges of -the heath. - -Widow Mathewson, again from habit, halted to look at the glory of her -homeland. She scarcely knew that the well-known pageant was spread out -before her; but she gathered heart again, and went bravely down to -Ghyll. She walked with a man’s stride, a man’s straight back, and none -would have guessed that she was a broken woman, asking no more than to -keep her pride until the end. - -Gaunt, too, was astir soon after dawn. He stepped out on tiptoe, glad -that the widow slept so long, and fearing to awaken her. They met in -the mistal-yard. - -“Why, mother, I fancied you were sleeping,” said Reuben. - -“Fancies are well enough for night-time, Reuben, but they don’t last -long after dawn. I stretched i’ my sleep, I did, an’ I saw th’ light -twinkling on the panes, an’ I bethought me like, that th’ farm work -needed looking to. So I stepped down an’ out.” - -“You might have waked me.” - -“Nay, ye were sleeping oversound. Mathewson was niver much of a man, -but even he was snappish when I wakened him from his sleep.” - -It was in this way that she chose to meet the future. There would be no -more stolen vigils under the rowan-tree, no undermining of her courage. -With a sudden gust of feeling, she understood that Gaunt was the only -living hope she had to rest upon--and there was danger to him. - -“Reuben,” she said gravely, “th’ long watch has begun. The days will -seem long i’ passing afore we know we’re safe.” - -“We’ll weather them, never fear. Best not think of to-morrow at all, -but get on with our work.” - -The widow glanced at him with keen scrutiny. “There’s a deal o’ sense -hidden somewhere about ye, Reuben. Seems ye’ve been feared to let it -peep out till now.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -Neither Gaunt nor Widow Mathewson was prepared for the quiet and -temperate beauty that crept into their waiting-time at Ghyll. If Gaunt -had neglected his farm work in old days, it was through idleness, not -from lack of knowledge. Acquaintance with all details of field and -stable had been bred in him, and the widow watched him go about the -usual round of work with growing wonder. - -“A hired man would have done half as much i’ the day, and done it -badly,” she said, finding him milking the cows one evening. - -“Oh, ’tis only the old proverb, mother, the master-man always works the -better if he has the will. ’Tis not often that he has the will, ye see.” - -She watched him persuade the last of the cows to be friendly with -the milking pail, listened awhile to the pleasant splash-splash of -the milk. “Reuben,” she said, with a touch of jealousy, “yond’s the -sauciest beast o’ them all, and ye seem to have her at a word. She -wouldn’t let any but me milk her--not even Peggy, though she’d deft -hands at the udders. And, Reuben, ye’re doing too much. Leave some bit -o’ work for me to do, lest I get thinking o’ what’s past and done with.” - -“We’ll share and share alike,” said Gaunt, looking over shoulder from -his seat on the milking-stool. - -“Some folk have queer notions o’ sharing. I tell ye, I’ve not been so -idle o’ my hands sin’ I war a girl.” - -“All the better, mother. You’ve earned a rest by this time, while -I--perhaps I’ve earned a spell of work,” he broke off, with something -of the widow’s own grim humour. - -The busy needs of the farm were already helping these two to forget -their burden. To Gaunt it seemed strange, profane almost, that sorrow -for the dead should give place to workaday anxieties; to the widow, who -was older in experience, it was plain that such work brought with it -the gift of healing. - -All the routine at Ghyll was interrupted. It had thrived on its trade -in milk, and cheeses, and butter. Now Widow Mathewson, and Gaunt, and -the three pigs fattening in the stye at the far side of the mistal, -were left to drink what they could of milk that once had supplied half -Garth’s needs; the rest, save what was needed for their own week’s -butter-making, had to be poured out into the parched and thirsty croft. - -“It seems a waste,” said Gaunt at night, after they had filled the bowl -in the dairy, and fed the pigs, and stood watching the rest of the milk -run down the croft in a narrow stream. - -“That’s the good farmer cropping out again in ye, Reuben. Of course -’tis wasteful, but there’s a deal of waste i’ life, as I’ve found it. -’Tis one o’ the things we hev to put up with, like. Was never good at -a riddle, I; parson down yonder, maybe, could tell us why bairns are -crying out i’ Garth for this milk we’re spilling--milk their mothers -willun’t fetch, or send for, though I’d no way risk letting them have -it, if they came.” - -Reuben watched the streamlet die down, a dirty white across the -sun-scorched brown of the grass. Then he linked his arm in hers, and -drew her toward the farm, and set her down in the hooded chair by the -hearth while he found her pipe for her. - -“Good sakes!” said the widow softly. “To be waited on at my time o’ -life, and by ye of all men, Reuben.” - -“That’s the queerness of things again,” he answered, lighting his own -pipe. - -In other days there had been between them the silence of would-be -enmity; now there was that lack of speech which friends use when they -wish to talk together. Once Gaunt stirred the peats with his foot, and -glanced at the widow’s face when the fire-glow lit it. - -“Seeking for signs o’ fever, Reuben?” she asked drily, turning her -sharp old eyes to his. - -“Well, yes, I was, as you’ve caught me at it. I should miss you, if--if -aught happened, mother.” - -“Naught happens to me, Reuben lad, save wear and tear. Would ye say -that again--that ye’d miss me, if I went out along Peggy’s road?” - -“There’s none else to care for me since Peggy died. I’d had little -care, and little love, i’ my short life, mother; that’s why they call -me ‘running-water’ maybe.” - -Her memory went back to the days when she had been housekeeper to -Reuben’s father. She recalled the hard-riding, hard-drinking master who -had reared his son to the like gospel. She remembered the night when -Billy the Fool was brought to Marshlands, and was afterwards turned -out into the cold to answer for the sins of other folk. Many a bygone -incident of Reuben’s boyhood stole out from those corners of the mind, -which hide things half forgotten. And again she told herself, as she -had told Priscilla on a day of April snow, that Reuben Gaunt had his -father to thank for Marshlands and the money, but for no other chance -in life. - -“Reuben,” she said, blowing quiet puffs of smoke across the hearth, -“have ye no thought for yourself these days? Naught matters much for me -either way, but fear o’ death comes natural to younger folk.” - -“There’s you and the farm to think of, mother. That’s enough to carry -me forward.” - -Then he led her on to talk of olden times, for he had learned already -that this was her surest road to peace. He mixed her rum and milk, -and set it down on the ledge at the right hand of the hooded chair, -and coaxed a smile from her and a crisp assurance, that “living wi’ -ne’er-do-weels was sure to bring ye into loosish ways.” She talked of -Peggy’s childhood, recounted a score of escapades, with a mother’s -pitiful and tender regard for detail. She spoke of her husband, and -laughed slily at his weaknesses. It is in this way that bereaved folk -find shelter sometimes, for their little hour, from the bleak face of -death. - -“Mathewson war as he war made,” she finished, “an’ I munnot say naught -agen them as has gone--but he war shammocky, Reuben. If it war no -bigger job than sticking a row o’ peas, he war shammocky still. He’d -start th’ job after breakfast, and put in happen a dozen sticks; then -he’s sit on th’ wall, an’ light his pipe, an’ look at what he’d done -till I came out, an’ flicked him off o’ th’ wall-top; and somewhere -about nightfall, if I war lucky and could get away fro’ my work often -enough to stir him up, he’d have finished yond row o’ peas. Then he’d -step indoors, an’ draw hisseln a mug of ale, an’ say he’d allus known -there was naught like good, honest work for making a body enjoy his -sup o’ beer. Poor Mathewson! He war made as he war made, an’ he niver -varied mich. Now, Peggy was a different breed--” - -And Gaunt listened to her praise of Peggy, putting in a word here, or a -question there, till it was bedtime. The widow rose at last, and took a -rush candle from the mantel. - -“Well, we’d best be getting to sleep, Reuben. Ye’ll lig on th’ settle, -as on other nights? I’ve had many a watch-dog i’ my time, lad, but -ye’re th’ best o’ th’ lot, I fancy. I sleep sounder when I know that -you’re below stairs.” - -There was affection in the glance she gave him; and Reuben, when he lay -down to sleep an hour later, found no ill dreams to trouble him. - -Yet these two had not been open the one with the other. The widow had -concealed her visit to the grave, three nights ago. Gaunt had concealed -the dread that beset him through the daytime. - -The dread awoke with him the next morning, and dogged his footsteps as -he went across the croft. It kept close beside him until noon, when -he came home across the burned-up fields in search of dinner. He had -known no fear until Peggy died. There had been the hope that she would -recover, the need of constant listening for a call to the bedside. Hope -and the urgent need were gone, and life for its own sake was sweet -again to Gaunt. Fever, and the all but certain death, had grown to the -shape of Barguest, the brown dog. - -He halted now at the gate where Peggy had kissed him for the last time. -He looked at the sun, set high in a sky of blue that had no soul behind -it--a sky as hard as beaten metal that seemed to press upon the earth -and keep in the suffocating heat. If ever a man prayed for rain, Gaunt -prayed for it now with a whole heart. He sought for one wisp of cloud -to break the fierce monotony of blue; there was none. Each undulation -of the hill-tops showed strangely clear, as if cut by a keen-edged -knife. The silence was unbearable. - -Gaunt’s courage, when he chose to enter Ghyll and share its dangers, -was child’s play to the pluck that now was asked of him. There was no -longer any warmth of impulse, of zest in sacrifice for its own fine -sake; fear had reached him, and the shelterless heat weakened every -effort at resistance, till there were times when dread merged into -outright panic and set him trembling like a child. He would recover, -win back his manhood with the dogged perseverance that had won him the -fell-race; then, and not before, he would seek out the widow, and day -by day she found him stronger, more considerate, more bent on naming -her “mother” and on proving himself a real son. - -This morning, as he leaned over the gate and searched for rain-clouds, -he went through one of these battles with despair. When it was nearly -ended, and the colour was returning to his face, the doctor’s big, -fiddle-head nag came up the slope, and Gaunt started when the rider’s -voice broke the silence. - -“What news, Mr. Gaunt?” he asked, reining in and giving Reuben a quick, -professional glance. - -“No news,” Gaunt answered, with a touch of dry humour. “We’re penned -like birds in a cage, doctor, and have nothing to listen to, save this -cursed stillness. If you could give us a promise of rain, now--” - -“Well, I can help you there,” put in the other briskly. “I ought to -have learned something from the weather by this time, for I’ve been -plagued enough by it. The hot spell is nearly done with; and now you -may call me a fool for prophesying in face of such a sky as that.” - -It was curious to see how eagerly Reuben caught at the hope. This -conspiracy of sun and stark, blue sky against him had grown to be in -sober fact a menace; a few more days of the strain, and fear might give -an easy inroad to the fever. - -“There’s not a sign of it,” he said, anxious to have his word -disproved. - -“Wait till you’ve had twenty years more of this queer climate, Mr. -Gaunt, and then you may be just beginning to know it. I’ve seen a dozen -little signs of rain as I came up the moor, but I trust more to what -old Lamach of High Farm calls a feeling in his bones.” - -Gaunt remembered the doctor’s reputation as a weather seer. “I hope to -God you’re in the right, doctor.” - -“Of course I’m in the right! ’Tis a habit of mine. Only a fool puts -himself in the wrong. I’m right, too--under Providence, of course, d’ye -understand--in saying that you and the widow will win through. Tough, -both of you--not cowards--plenty of fresh air inside your bodies. Oh, -ye’ll weather it. Well, good day, Mr. Gaunt. I’ve a long round before -me.” - -Gaunt would not let him go just yet. It was a relief to exchange any -sort of talk with another man. “We’ve noticed that you ride past the -gate once every day, doctor, since you knew fever had come.” - -“What of that?” said the other testily. - -“Only that ’tis kindly of you. We’re a bit lonesome, I own, though we -make the best of it.” - -“Never heard such nonsense! Doctoring is my trade, Mr. Gaunt, not -riding up and down the country doing good works. I leave those and the -credit of ’em to the Parson. I’m no poacher. I’ve a bothersome case two -miles further on, and this is my shortest cut.” - -Gaunt knew that there was no short cut in this direction, except to the -empty moor. He knew that the doctor lengthened his round each day to -halt for a word at the gate, and to learn if his services were needed. -“Which farm are you bound for, then?” he asked, with gentle banter. - -“Which farm? Good day, Mr. Gaunt, good day. I’m too busy a man to -answer idle questions.” - -Gaunt went slowly up to the house, feeling more at peace with this -world of heat and toil, and martyrdom. The doctor’s boast had not been -idly made, for instinct was apt to lead him right. He had been right -in thinking that they needed physic here at Ghyll. It was no physic -carried in his pocket, to be taken three times a day and put on the -shelf after a dose or two had been swallowed; it was the medicine -carried by all men who have faced life in the open, that of forward -hope and a call to look up to the hill-tops rather than down to the -misty valleys. - -“The doctor has ridden by again,” said Reuben, as he stepped into the -living-room to find dinner waiting for him. “I had a talk with him.” - -“Ay, ’tis his way,” answered the widow. “If aught happens, like to ye -or me, he’ll not ride by. He’ll walk in, Reuben, same as ye did when -Peggy war ta’en wi’ th’ fever. Men are terrible folk for pranks, an’ -so I allus said. Now, ye’ll sit down, an’ eat what I set before ye. A -roast o’ mutton, Reuben, done to a turn. It’s fool’s policy to keep -your body underfed at these times.” - -Of all the details that hampered Widow Mathewson and Gaunt, none -pressed on them more heavily than this need to sit at meat together. -The reek of the hot joint, the loss of appetite engendered by the long, -persistent drought, made such a meal seem loathsome. Each ate for the -other’s sake, and maybe the meat, for that reason, helped them to go -forward. - -“Niver smoked so mich i’ my life,” said the widow, reaching up for her -pipe after dinner. “I’ve no knowledge o’ the lad that first brought -’baccy into Garth, but he did a service to us weak, human-folk. Fill up -your mug, Reuben, and come and sit i’ th’ front o’ th’ fire, an’ talk -to a body, like. I’m fair clemmed wi’ weariness.” - -At dusk of the same day the doctor finished his round and rode into -Garth. It happened, as it had happened for three days past, that -Priscilla was loitering in the roadway fronting Good Intent; it was a -habit of hers, and the doctor guessed her motive, and responded to it, -with the quiet, charitable humour that marked all his dealings with the -dales-folk. - -“I’m in rare good humour, Miss Cilla,” he said, drawing rein. “D’ye see -those bits of fleecy clouds coming up across the moon?” - -“I had not looked at the sky,” she answered absently. “It is ever the -same these days, and one grows tired of it.” - -“Ay, but ’twill not be the same when you wake to-morrow. I was up at -Ghyll this morning--” - -“Yes,” put in Cilla, with sudden interest. - -“And I pitted my weather lore against Gaunt’s. He said it couldn’t rain -if it tried, and I said it was bound to.” - -He saw Cilla’s hand go to her heart for a moment, saw the brightness -creep into her face. He had known all along that she needed to be told -that Gaunt, so far, was well, and it had pleased him to wrap up the -news in this talk about the weather. - -“They--they are both well at Ghyll?” she asked. - -“As sound as can be. I’ve an interest in those two, Miss Cilla. They -deserve to come through it all, and somehow I fancy that they will.” - -“They say the chances are against it--” - -“Oh, they say a good deal of nonsense, time and time. There’s naught -like pluck for winning a fight. Good night to ye, and pray that I miss -Widow Lister as I ride by. Three days ago she was afraid of fever; this -morning she caught me on the outward journey and, ‘Doctor,’ she said, -‘I’ve caught a chill that may well bring me to my grave.’ I laughed--as -I do, Miss Cilla, in season or out, and ‘you’re lucky,’ I said. ‘If -I could find a touch o’ chill under this brazen sky, I’d be glad of -the relief, and so would my sweating horse.’ Good night again, little -Cilla. Gaunt’s not going to die just yet, and I begin to think he might -be worth your taking one day.” - -Cilla listened to the pitapat of hoofs as it grew fainter and fainter -down the dusty road. The doctor had earned his right-of-way to -folk’s hearts after many an up-hill climb, and his power to help his -neighbours was not limited to their bodies’ needs. Whenever he felt -that death was certain, he told his patient bluntly that the next -world, not this, was his concern. While there was doubt, he thrust down -his throat, willy-nilly, the physic of hope and sweetened the draught, -so far as he could, with some racy, village jest. - -“There’s a good man goes down Garth Street,” thought Cilla, following -the other’s sturdy figure as it disappeared among the shadows. - -The moon lay young, slender as a sickle, over the parched lands of -Garth. Cilla herself, as she stood in the roadway, looked cool and -slender, too, in her white gown, though she was full of strange -disquiet. Her modesty had taken fright. It was well enough to be -anxious for Reuben’s safety, well enough to seek news of him as often -as she could; but she knew that it was more than friendship, this -restless eagerness for news. And Peggy o’ Mathewson’s should have been -a bride by now; and the peat was scarcely smoothed above her grave. - -Cilla, for all her daintiness, her love of clean thinking and clean -doing, was human as her neighbours, and subject to those gusts of -warm and reckless feeling which are apt to scatter the habits of a -lifetime. If she had been told of another who waited, as she had done, -for news of a bridegroom widowed before his wedding-day, she would have -thought lightly of her. Yet she could only picture Reuben up at the -lonely, hill-top farm; could only pray for his safety and know that her -prayers came from a warmer heart than she ought to carry. - -She turned instinctively to Good Intent. Her father would be sitting -by the hearth, big of his body, big in charity. She would step in, and -have a talk with him. - -The yeoman was sitting in his chair, as she had pictured him. But -his pipe lay cold in his hand, and he motioned her to a seat in the -settle-corner opposite. - -“Cilla, I’ve had a talk or two with the doctor,” he began. - -She waited, suppressing a quiet laugh that he, too, had gone out for -stolen interviews with the lay priest at Garth. - -“It seems Gaunt chose to go in to Ghyll Farm and to stay there. He knew -what it meant before he crossed the door-stone. I wouldn’t believe it, -until the doctor told me it was so.” - -“Yes, father.” - -“Well, be durned if I’d have done it.” - -“Oh, yes; oh, indeed, you would have done it, father; ’tis the sort of -call you’d have answered, but it was not asked of you.” - -“Fiddle-de-dee,” said the yeoman. “Black Fever would always scare me. -Give me a runaway horse, and I’ll handle the reins--but the fever--’tis -a waiting game, lile Cilla, and I could never play such. I’ve a sort of -envy, like, for men who can.” - -Priscilla lit a spill for his pipe. She filled his glass for him, and -set it by his side. And then she waited. - -“Seems I’ve treated Gaunt amiss,” said her father by and by. - -“All folk do in Garth.” - -“Ay, they did; but I was down i’ Shepston to-day, and they had the -news, and folk were puzzled. They fancied that Gaunt was better nor -like--in fact, Cilla, they seemed minded to turn their faces about and -overdo their praising of him.” - -Cilla spread her hands to the peat-glow, and her face was full of -tenderness. “I told you so i’ the spring, father, but you would not -listen.” - -The yeoman was uneasy. Praise was due to Gaunt, and yet he distrusted -the man. “He comes of a bad breed, Cilla, and I’m farmer enough to know -that ye don’t rear good stock from such.” - -Cilla was quiet, but eager. “We all know his father’s story--but what -of his mother? Has she no say in the matter?” - -“Why, yes, she was well enough, and a long way too good for old Gaunt; -but she died when Reuben was a bairn. She never had a chance to better -his wild upbringing.” - -And then, at last, after an uneasy silence, the yeoman got to the heart -of the matter. His fondness for Cilla was embarrassing at times; it -gave him too keen an insight into any change of mood in her, and he had -guessed the secret of this restlessness which had fallen on her since -the news of fever came from Ghyll. - -“Lile lass,” he said, “I’ve been thinking a deal to-night, and I wish -more than ever that ye’d persuaded David the Smith to stay on i’ Garth. -Whether ye wouldn’t have him, or whether his big hulking shyness stood -up between the two o’ ye and wouldn’t let him ask ye, ’tis not for me -to say; but I’m more than ever sorry, lass, as things have turned out.” - -“Why, father?” A delicate colour had crept into Cilla’s face, but there -was that steady light in her eyes which the yeoman feared. - -“Well, Reuben is free to go wandering again--” - -“No, no!” Her treason to the dead seemed baser than it had in the -silence of the road outside. This outspoken hint of it from another -showed all its meanness to the girl’s sensitive fancy. “No, father! We -must not talk of such--of such foolishness. Reuben may be dead before -the month is out.” - -“Well, yes,” said Hirst, soberly. “Maybe I spoke out o’ season, Cilla. -There, lass! Gaunt has done what I dursn’t, and I’m shamed to own to -it, and I’m hoping he’ll come through it, as he deserves.” - -So then Cilla came and sat at his knee, for the intimacy between these -two was full of understanding. Her father was quick to blame himself -for the few ungenerous thoughts that came his way, and she knew how -hard it was for him at any time to speak well of Reuben Gaunt. - -“And not only that,” she went on. “Reuben may be this or that, -father--but he has seen Peggy o’ Mathewson’s die, and he has helped to -bury her, so the doctor tells me, and--and, father, I think we ought to -leave him with his thoughts; they’ll be sad ones.” - -Cilla was diffident, as a good woman is when she must run counter to -a well-loved father. The yeoman looked at her for a moment, then laid -down his pipe and lifted her to the arm of his big chair. - -“Seems to me I’m a child i’ your hands at times, Cilla. Oh, ye’re -right, lile lass. There were better and bigger men than Gaunt i’ -Shepston to-day, but not one o’ them has done what he did--not to my -knowledge.” - -The sickle moon climbed up that night till it lay over Ghyll Farm, -that sheltered tired folk who slept. It lay, too, over the rowan that -sheltered one whose weariness was over and done with. On the moor, -where the thin stream trickled down, whispering a prayer of peace -to Peggy as it passed her grave, there was the keen breath of life -again. First, the moon was shrouded; then clouds as grey and slight as -gossamer came drifting up the breeze; and after that a little wind got -up, piping thin and high like a plover tired with the long day’s flight. - -It was very still on the moor, save for the soft, insistent crying of -the wind. A wayfarer, had he been crossing the untilled acres, might -have heard God walking in this sweet and untamed wilderness. The -wind, slight as it was, was full of perseverance, and it began now to -shepherd running vanguards of the mist across the heath. - -At three of the morning there was neither moon nor sky to be seen. A -wide sheet of mist, wet to the touch, hid every landmark of the moor, -which, until an hour ago, had shown plainly all its jagged hillocks, -its raking hill-top lines. And dawn, when it came, could do no more -than thread the mist-banks through with tints of silver-grey. - -Gaunt, soon after daybreak, woke from his sleep on the long settle, -with instinctive knowledge that another day’s glare had to be faced, -and crossed to the window. At first he thought himself mistaken in the -hour, so dark the room was. Then he unbarred the door, and went out -into the mist. He felt its fingers wet about his face and hands; he -drew deep breaths of it as men drink in the first spring warmth after a -hard winter. Then he laughed, not knowing why, and leaned against the -house-wall, and was glad to rest awhile, with this sense of peace and -freedom sheltering him closely as the mist itself. - -The physical relief, the sense of damp and freshness after long heat, -were part only of a deeper change. His fever-dread had left him; he no -longer felt the wearing need to hold his courage tightly, step by step -through the day’s up-hill climb, lest it fail him at the pinch. - -“Oh, God be thanked,” he murmured, and went indoors, and called up the -stone stairway: “Mother, I’ve news for you!” - -The widow had slept later than her wont, but she was awake in a moment. -“What is it, Reuben?” she answered, fearing disaster always when an -urgent summons came. - -“The blessed rain is coming. We’ll have cloudy skies again.” - -“Now, there’s a ha-porth o’ nonsense to fetch a body out of her bed -with,” grumbled the other. “’Tisn’t dawn, Reuben, surely; winter-dark, -I call it.” - -“Come down and see, mother.” - -She was soon at the porch-door beside him, and Gaunt, watching her -face, could see the lines of strain grow softer, as if the moist air -had filled their hollows in with kindly fingers. They stood there, the -two of them, as if they could never have too much of the grey, cool -air; and the heat of the past weeks, as they looked back upon it from -this sanctuary, seemed like that of the burning, fiery furnace which -both remembered from teachings of a far-off childhood. - -There was nothing fanciful about this change of theirs from fear to -strength. Bred in a country which knows more of cloudy skies than blue, -they needed rain after long abstention from it; and the mist was a sure -herald of grace to come. - -“’Tis queer how the weather has ye at a word, Reuben,” said the widow -presently. “I’m keen-set already for my breakfast, an’ that’s more nor -I could say honestly for a week o’ days.” - -She would not have the door closed while they fried the rashers and the -eggs, though the mist stole in and lay like smoke about the room. - -“Now, don’t ye go shutting the door against a friend,” she said, when -Reuben made a movement to close it. “I’m only too thankful, lad, to -have the right smell o’ food i’ my nostrils once again.” - -Later that day--a little past noon--the mist found its proper shape and -fell in drops as quiet and as persistent as the breeze that pushed it -forward. By sundown it was raining steadily, and, for the first time -since their watch began, these two slept with no dreams to trouble them. - -When Gaunt woke late the next morning, the rain was lapping at the -windows still, with a gentle, greedy patience that promised more to -come. The clouds were lifting when he went out into the croft, and -there was a blur of sunshine through the rain. The thirsty ground -sucked in the moisture, and asked for more, and still showed riven -cracks as dry as the molten heaven of two days ago; and from the -pastures a ground-mist rose, as thick and smoky as the reek from the -smithy down at Garth when Fool Billy’s fire was being coaxed into a -blaze. - -Out of the rain, and the under moisture that reached up above his -horse’s hocks, the doctor came to Ghyll. - -“All well, Mr. Gaunt?” he asked, with a note of strict routine in his -voice. - -“Better for this God-sent weather, doctor.” - -“Oh, that’s your view, is it? I’m wet to the skin, and am like to be -wetter before I’ve done. This quiet sort of rain goes deeper than your -quick-come, quick-go storms. Still, it will clear the air, maybe, and -you’ll remember that I prophesied it? Mr. Gaunt,” he broke off, with -one of his sudden glances, as if he were probing a patient with the -knife, “d’ye feel any lassitude; well, to put it plainly, d’ye feel the -world is slipping from under you, like a crazy, limestone wall when you -try to climb it?” - -“Well, no,” said Gaunt, the new hope and the fresh colour showing in -his cheeks. “I did, till the rain came; and I was as near to fright -as ever I’ve been in my life; but that’s all gone. Mrs. Mathewson has -taken heart, too.” - -The doctor looked him over once more. “I’m not here to play -Providence,” he said, with an air of quiet relief. “This horse of -mine, with his fiddle-head, could never carry so heavy a burden as -Providence; but I think, Mr. Gaunt, you may let me take word to -Marshlands that they can begin to get ready for you, air the sheets and -dust the rooms, and all the nonsense women like.” - -“I shall be needed here for awhile,” said Reuben. - -“That’s as you please.” - -The two men stood looking at each other with great friendliness, though -in years past their intercourse, on the doctor’s side at least, had had -more than a touch of chill in it. Gaunt had not given that side of the -matter a thought; yet these weeks at Ghyll had divided, like a deep -gulf, the old days and the new; whatever lightness he showed in future, -his neighbours would look behind it, and would see a stricken farmstead -instead, and a man entering it of his own free will to succour others. -The folk of Garth were slow, maybe, to form new opinions of men, or -crops, or weather; but in the long run they were just, and they did not -forget. - -The doctor read a good deal in Reuben’s face just now. There was a -light of happiness in it--unquestioning, childlike happiness, dimmed -just a little by awe and some bewilderment. He had seen the look often -when one or other of his patients had lain near to death and had lived -on to watch another spring spread magic fingers over a world that now -was doubly sweet to them. - -“’Tis not so easy to die as I thought,” said Reuben, breaking the -silence unexpectedly. “You never know how fond you are of being chained -to this daft world, until--well, till you begin to listen for the -snapping of the chains.” - -“I’d be sorry to leave it myself,” said the doctor, with his big, -heathen laugh. “They work me to death, and I’ve seldom an hour to call -my own, and first I’m baked with sun-heat, and then I’m chilled by -this mist-rain ye’re so fond of, till I scarce know whether I’m dead -or alive, but, bless ye, Mr. Gaunt, there’s some queer sort of joy in -life, after all. Besides,” he added, with his own grim pleasantry, -“there’s a certain doubt as to what comes after.” - -“There is,” murmured Gaunt, though he would have been slow to confess -as much at another time. “I fancy ’twas the doubt troubled me, when I -looked up at the sky, and felt the brazen heat.” - -“Just my feeling,” said the other cheerily. “It might be hotter out -Beyond--or again it might be damper--I never liked extremes.” - -Again there fell a silence between them, and still the doctor lingered -for the sake of lingering, and because he knew that Gaunt was weak -after long strain and needed a man’s chatter in his ears. - -“Undoubtedly I’m a lost soul,” he went on. “Widow Lister told me as -much last night, when she caught me riding home, and got me to poultice -a boil the size of a pin-head, and then gave me a sermon because I -hadn’t the fear o’ the Lord in me. ‘If I’d as much fear of the Lord, -Widow, as you have of your body,’ I said, ‘they’d count me righteous in -Garth.’” - -Reuben laughed. He knew Widow Lister, and the doctor’s racy tongue had -brought the picture clearly to his mind. And somehow neither wished to -get on with the business of the day, for each knew at last that, in -their separate ways, they had faced adversity with some show of courage. - -“I’ve a weakness for Widow Mathewson myself; I’d the same feeling for -poor Peggy,” said the doctor presently. “I begin to have the like -feeling for you, Mr. Gaunt.” - -“What sort of feeling, doctor?” - -“Well, a ‘birds-of-a-feather’ feeling. We’re up on the same moor-top, -we. There’s little of the heathen in me, I’ve seen too much of human -sorrow to feel aught but fear o’ God. But my God’s different--yours is, -and the widow’s is, and poor Peggy’s was--and I catch a sight of Him -when I’m riding over the moor, Mr. Gaunt, at the end of a long day’s -work, and the hills get up in front of my fiddle-headed horse, and the -wind blows low through the heather, and I listen to the fairies. Oh, we -doctor-folk learn a thing or two, when we ride with tired bodies and -clear eyes, over the moor-top home to supper.” - -Gaunt had not been permitted to see this side of the man before; and -his surprise showed in his face, perhaps, for the doctor gathered up -his reins and laughed shamefacedly. - -“No, no, Mr. Gaunt,” he said in his gruffest voice, “I’m not going to -enter any ministry. Foolish thoughts _will_ slip out at times. Now, -you mean to stay here awhile longer? I think I’ll ride home by way of -Marshlands, all the same. Scared as they are, they’ll be glad of my -news. I shall tell that hulking hind of yours, Peter Wood, to bring -you up a change of clothes and linen. It was useless before, but now -you can burn all you stand up in, and put on something that doesn’t -carry any memory of the fever with it. You’ve burned all the sick-room -things, by the way--bedding, and hangings, and what not?” - -Gaunt nodded. “And whitewashed every corner afterwards. Mrs. Mathewson -would have it so.” - -“Bless me, a couple of sensible folk seem to be living up at Ghyll -Farm! All as practical and trim as if I’d had the overlooking of it -myself.” - -“Well, you see, doctor,” said the other, with a smile that had no mirth -in it, “it was a big job we’d undertaken, and big jobs are worth doing -thoroughly, once you take them up. There was no need for us to help -Ghyll become a plague spot for the whole of Garth.” - -“Oh, the world’s standing on her head, Mr. Gaunt! The tough old -doctor suspected of leanings towards the ministry, and you preaching -thoroughness. There, there, I must have my jest. There’s no offence, I -hope?” - -With a cheery nod and a jerk of the reins, the doctor was trotting up -the moor, leaving the wholesome crispness of a northwest wind behind -him. - -At ten of the next morning Reuben heard a shout as he crossed from the -mistal-yard. Peter Wood, the hind at Marshlands, stood midway up the -croft. He carried a bundle in his arms, and his knees were shaking. - -“I dursn’t come no farther, sir, I dursn’t.” The big, ungainly lad was -almost blubbering as he stood, a figure of woe, in the drenching sheets -of rain. “Doctor said I’d to bring these, an’ I’ve brought ’em, but -niver a stride nearer Ghyll will I come. Couldn’t, sir, if I tried; my -feet willun’t let me.” - -“Nobody asked you to. Set your bundle down, Peter, and I’ll fetch it -when you’ve taken your precious body out of harm’s way. Is all right -with the farm, Peter?” - -“Ay, the farm’s all right, an’ th’ folk in it are all right so far; -but--” - -“Oh, knock all that nonsense out of your head, lad! You’ll not take -fever, if that is what’s troubling you. Tell them I may be home in a -week, to stir you all out o’ your laziness, or it may be a fortnight; -it depends on whether I’m needed here.” - -Peter’s wits were never overstrong, and terror had not sharpened them; -yet even he was conscious of a new note in the master’s voice--a note -less easy-going than of old, and fuller of authority. The lad glanced -down the croft, then up at Reuben, but still held his ground; it was -plain that he wished to get as far away from Ghyll as possible, and yet -that he was held by some counter fear. - -“Is’t true what they say, sir,” he blurted out, “that a body can catch -th’ fever by looking at another body as has been nigh it?” - -“No,” said Reuben, with a laugh that heartened Peter a little, “it’s a -lie. Most fears are lies, my lad, and you can tell them so from me down -at Marshlands yonder.” - -“Thank ye, sir,” said Peter, laying down his bundle in the wet, and -making off with a speed that recalled the haste of Dan Foster’s lad not -long ago. - -When Gaunt stepped into the farm, carrying his dripping bundle, Widow -Mathewson looked up from her baking board. - -“What have ye there, Reuben?” - -“Clean linen and a change of clothes. It sounds naught much, mother, -but, Lord, how I need to get into them! Seems the doctor knew how I’d -needed them, for ’twas his thought to send them up.” - -The widow laid down her rolling-pin, rubbed some of the flour from her -arms, then looked at Gaunt with her steady, hazel eyes. “That means -ye’re ready for flitting. Well, I mustn’t grumble, though I’ll miss -you sorely. Life’s made up of settlings in an’ flittings out, as the -throstle said when she watched her fledged brood fly.” - -“But I’m not flitting, mother, not for a week or two yet.” He was -touched by the loneliness, the independence and the pride of her -appeal. “I’m needed here, ye see--you alone in the house and farm work -to be seen to--and, besides, they’d be scared to death at Marshlands if -I gave them no time to get used to the notion of my coming back. They’d -all be down with fever the next day, or think they were.” - -“You’re a good lad, Reuben,” she said, after a pause. “Give me your -bundle, and let me set your things to the fire. ’Twill be rheumatiz -ye’ll catch if ye put them on as they are.” - -In the afternoon the sun got out for an hour, for the rain was tired of -its own vehemence. Gaunt put the clothes, warm and with the peat-smell -of the fire on them, under his arm, and went up into the moor, past -Peggy’s grave, past the little, grey bridge where the harebells were -reviving from the drought. Just above the bridge was a loop known to -him of old; it had dwindled during the hot months, and the rains had -scarcely helped it yet. The land, for all the steady downpour, had not -slaked its thirst; and had let only the shallowest of streamlets run -off its surface to feed the larger brooks. For all that, the pool was -deep enough for a bath, and Gaunt stripped, and plunged into the water. - -The glare and misery of the past weeks seemed to yield to this gentle -lapping of the peat-brown water. He had done his work rightly, for once -in his heedless life, and knew it; and the way of Peggy’s death, the -squalor and the terror of it, were washed clean by the stream that -sucked, and laughed, and gurgled round the edges of the pool. - -A curlew came and looked at him, as he splashed in the brown water. -A burn-trout finned its way upstream in fright when it found a -four-limbed monster in its favourite pool. For the rest, he had no -company and needed none. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - -Reuben was home again at Marshlands. His housekeeper still watched him -carefully when she brought in his meals, and Peter, the farm-lad, stood -at least ten feet away when the master came out into the yard to give -his orders. Only Michael, the head man about the farm, showed common -sense. - -“Fever’s like a turnip lanthorn,” said Michael, a few days after the -master’s return. “Ye’ve only to light the bogie, an’ set it up i’ a -dark corner, an’ watch ’em running for dear life. Oh, by th’ Heart, -sir, I’d liefer face it any day as ye did, than go running into my -burrow like a rabbit every time a kitty-call sounded over the pastures.” - -Little by little, however, memory of the panic grew dulled. Ten days of -rain, with scarcely an hour’s cessation now and then, were followed by -exquisite, crisp sunshine, till Yeoman Hirst declared that the face of -the land “looked as clean-washed as a babby’s.” The breeze was sweet -and nutty to the smell. Flowers, checked till now by the drought, began -to show out of their proper season, while September’s natural brood -stirred into blossom in every field and hedgerow. It was a season such -as puts new heart into men, whether they admit the weather’s influence -or make pretence of denial. - -The fever, too, had spent itself. In Shepston there was a case here and -there, at longer and longer intervals, but none further up the dale. - -“Oh, I don’t want to boast,” said Hirst to Cilla, on one of these -clean autumn evenings, as they watched the sun go down, “but it seems -like as if th’ fever couldn’t bid to touch bonnie Garth. ’Twas afraid -to spoil her face, I reckon.” - -“There, father!” laughed Cilla, with that pleasant linking of her arm -in his which was full of comradeship. “I believe ye love Garth village -better than any soul that lives in it.” - -“Well, no,” answered the yeoman, his voice rising to a roar of -affectionate good-will. “There’s ye, Cilla, lass--but Garth runs a good -second, I should say.” - -Cilla was quietly happy these days, though she would admit no reason -for it. On every side she heard guarded praise of Reuben; for the -doctor, who seldom spoke ill of a man, was fond of spreading good -reports abroad when honesty allowed it. It was known now in Garth, not -only that Reuben had chosen to go into Ghyll and share its troubles, -but that afterwards they had done all they could, he and the widow, to -keep the plague from spreading down to the valley. - -Priscilla did not ask herself why praise of Reuben was so welcome. -She simply let the gold, September days drift by, and sometimes cried -o’ nights when she thought of Peggy o’ Mathewson, sleeping beside -the moorland burn. It was Cilla’s way to cry for others when her own -happiness took shape. - -At Marshlands, maybe, the servants, all save Michael, the head man, -relished the changed outlook upon Gaunt less than their neighbours did. -They found the master more intent on details of the farm and house than -he had been; he went roaming, for a day or two, or a week, less often, -and they were not free to drive Michael wild with their taunt of: -“Well, th’ master idles all his time; why shouldn’t such as us?” - -“The fever’s gone to his head, though he thought he’d ’scaped it,” -said the housekeeper sagely to Rachel, the dairymaid, as she watched -the butter-making. “I was allus telled it left its marks on a man, did -fever.” - -She was right. The fever had gone, not only to Reuben’s head, but -to the heart of the man. He had never been trusted before, as Widow -Mathewson had trusted him. He had not been asked--save when he ran the -Linsall fell-races so gallantly--whether his courage were sound as his -wind. No one had taught him the way of his manhood until the time of -stress at Ghyll; but now he was moving with uncertain steps, like a -child first finding its feet, along his proper road. - -Cilla met him one forenoon on the bridle-path that ran through -Raindrift Wood. For once in a way he was on foot, like herself, and not -on horseback; and they stood looking at each other, startled by the -sudden meeting. - -“We--we have heard pleasant things about you, Mr. Gaunt,” said the -girl, trying to break down their disquiet, “and--and, indeed, we are -glad that--that nothing happened to you up at Ghyll.” - -“I did what was needed, and was glad to be needed,” he answered simply. -“There was nothing at all to talk about, though you know how folk build -up a mole-hill and swear ’tis a mountain.” - -Cilla glanced quietly at him. He had come out a changed man from the -furnace of those weeks at Ghyll. The easy, self-assertive jauntiness -was gone; his small affectations of speech and manner were lost; and -he spoke and carried himself as a yeoman should. The restless glitter, -too, had gone from his grey eyes, and the look in them was of a man who -had lately met life face to face. He was thin and haggard; yet Cilla -was conscious only of some new strength in him. - -“Tell me of--of Peggy,” she said softly. “I was grieved when the news -came down to Garth.” - -“She died without a good-by. That was the hardest thing to bear. If -there’d been a half-hour given to us for talk before she went, it would -have seemed easier. I was in need of forgiveness, maybe--” - -He stopped, and his eyes sought hers gravely. Cilla could feel nothing -but a great tenderness, a sudden rush of pity. He was so quiet under -punishment, so ready to admit that it was well-deserved. - -“You were always fond of seeing fresh places,” she said. “Leave Garth -for awhile, will you not, until--until the memory of it all grows -softened?” - -For the first time Gaunt smiled. “I’ve taken just the opposite notion -into my head. Marshlands is a biggish place, and needs a master over -it. They will tell you in Garth that it has not known much of a master -these last years.” - -Generous always in compassion, she could not check herself, but laid -her hand on his arm impulsively. “Never think that again! They tell -different stories of you now in Garth.” - -“Yes, yes,” put in Reuben, with a touch of the weariness that would -keep him company for many a day. “They’re full of praise I haven’t a -need for. By and by they’ll forget, and I shall be ‘Mr. Running-Water’ -to them once again. ’Tis well to know one’s by-name.” - -“Oh, you must not be bitter! I tell you, they have changed--” - -“Just so.” His pride was touched in some unexpected way. “They call a -fresh fiddle-tune, but are they sure I’ll dance to it?” - -Cilla liked his stubbornness, liked the gravity which was so far remote -from her earlier knowledge of him. They said good-by in Raindrift -Wood, and Gaunt went slowly home, wondering that Cilla and he could -meet, not like lovers who had walked the field-ways when spring was -warm and urgent, but like friends who were old and tranquil as this -month of gold September. - -At Marshlands, only Michael had faith in the master’s purpose; the -others said that he would tire of farming in a week or two more, -because it stood to reason that running water must be gadding off -somewhere or another. - -Michael’s face grew cheerier as the days went on. He saw the master -keeping close at home; he saw the dairy-work grow cleanlier, the maids -and the farm-lads doing a day’s work in a day, instead of taking two to -it. Michael felt no jealousy. He had always had the farm’s interests at -heart, and had known that he could not rule the house until the master -set his own back to the work of supervision and ceased from wandering. - -Reuben went his own way, as he had always done; but the new way, he -admitted to himself, rang more crisply underfoot than the old had done. -Folk were anxious in Garth village to show him that they knew and -understood what he had done at Ghyll; they were met by an easy courtesy -that was cold as an east wind, a courtesy that halted for a moment to -talk of the weather, and then passed by without a wish for friendship. -Reuben was plainly minded not to dance to their new tune as yet, and -they liked him the better for it. - -He had found self-confidence. His father’s history, remembrance of that -bitter night, when, a lad of fifteen, he had seen Billy and his mother -driven out into the wind, had haunted him persistently, had lain always -in the background of his thoughts. He had grown used to the belief that -his by-name fitted him well enough, that he was infirm of will and must -be so to the end. There was no claim upon him, save the farm’s; and -that claim had been too abstract and impersonal until now to move his -fancy. - -“’Twill not last,” he would think, coming home at nightfall from some -journey over the pastures. “But at the worst, it can do no harm, and -keeps me busy.” - -As the days went by, he grew more full of wonder at the change in -himself. Little by little the lands, and the smaller of the farms, and -his own big house of Marshlands, crept into his heart, as a child might -creep to the knee of a lonely man and bring him soft companionship. He -had neither wife nor child of his own; and, lacking these, a man’s best -solace is love of the acres left him by many generations. - -It was no ’prentice hand he turned to farming matters, after all. The -routine of it he knew by training; but the instinct toward it lay -deeper than one man’s life could ever sound. And the faces of the lazy -hinds grew longer day by day, and Michael went whistling about his work. - -It was soon after Cilla’s meeting with him in Raindrift Wood that she -was caught by Widow Lister, passing down Garth’s highway. - -“Oh, good day, Miss Cilla,” she said briskly. “Ye look lile an’ bonnie, -if a plain cottage-body might say so without offence. See my bit of a -garden here, an’ how the rain has watered it.” - -Cilla halted, as all good-natured people did who accepted Widow -Lister as a load added by habit to the day’s work. She praised the -snapdragons, the asters, the marigolds, which, thanks to constant -watering through the drought, reared gallant heads to the quiet -September sunlight. Then she waited, knowing that this was the prelude -to some plea for help, or to some need for gossip. - -“I hear queer news o’ Mr. Gaunt these days,” said the widow, with a -stolen glance at Cilla. “They tell me he’s a changed man, since he was -daft enough to step into Ghyll when he hadn’t any need to.” - -“Man enough, you meant?” put in Cilla quietly. - -“Ay, well, ’twas like him, anyway, to go seeking a spot where trouble -was, an’ then to run his head straight into ’t--though, of course,” she -added with a sigh of demure resignation, “’tis not for me to judge my -betters.” - -Cilla smiled impatiently, for it was useless to be angry with this -woman who eluded censure as she had eluded all life’s sharp edges. -“Then why judge them, Mrs. Lister?” she asked briskly. - -“Oh, I only say what I hear, and I niver have no faith myseln i’ sudden -conversions. When my man war alive, I war most frightened when he had -his serious, sober fits on him. I knew he’d break out worse nor iver -when he made a fresh start for th’ Elm Tree Inn. Mr. Gaunt, ye see, -is as God made him--an’ his father’s training no way bettered a poor -job--an’ that’s where ’tis.” - -Cilla turned after a farewell that was colder than her wont, and saw -the widow stooping tranquilly over her flower-beds. Mrs. Lister, -indeed, seemed the incarnation of peaceful Garth--a trim, little figure -tending a trim, little garden-patch that fronted the roadway, with -the sun finding auburn streaks in the smooth, well-ordered hair that -should have shown a grey patch or two by now. And, in spite of herself, -Priscilla smiled; the widow was so gentle a wasp to look at, and yet -her sting was always at Garth’s service. - -Fever and the dread which had made strong farmer-men ashamed, grew -half-forgotten by the village as September neared its end. Gaunt still -overlooked the work at Marshlands, still wondered that this love o’ -land grew dearer to him day by day. And sometimes he met Cilla in the -fields, or on the roadway; and their friendship was quiet and sunny as -the light that lay about the hazel copses. - -He was often up at Ghyll these days, and Widow Mathewson’s smile, when -she met him in the doorway, or saw him coming across the croft, was -his reward. She was doing the farm work alone, stubborn in her pride -of isolation. Reuben helped her so far as he could, but he had bigger -lands to see to; and one quiet noontide he walked up, with a strapping -farm-lad at his side. - -“Who’s this ye’ve brought, Reuben?” said the widow, standing stiff at -her own porch. - -“Only a lazy hound I can’t lick into shape, mother. Teach him to help -you about the farm, and send him back as soon as you’ve trained him. He -can be spared from Marshlands, now there’s less to be done about the -fields.” - -“Nay, now, Reuben--I’m not one to go borrowing--I war niver that -sort--an’ I’m used to work.” - -“The lad has his orders--from me,” said Reuben. “See that he does his -full share of the work, mother, and a little over.” - -Mrs. Mathewson, to her surprise, found herself yielding to this new -air of Gaunt’s, half persuasive and half masterful. Indeed, she was -beginning more and more to lean on him, and would tell herself, as she -smoked by the hearth at nights, that she had earned a little luxury, -maybe, in her old age. This morning she was slow to yield. The work was -too much for one pair of hands, and she was “bone-weary;” but better -work till she dropped than let it be said that they had needed outside -help at Ghyll. - -At last she consented grudgingly. “’Tis only a loan o’ th’ lad, mind -ye,” she hastened to assure him. “I suppose I mun hire one soon, like -it or no; ’specially now they begin to ask for milk again down i’ -Garth. They ask i’ a whisper, though,” she added, with her old, tart -humour. “A shout would bring fever out of its kennel, so they fancy -still.” - -So the farm-lad was left at Ghyll; and the look on his face was -laughable to watch when Reuben left him to the mercies of Widow -Mathewson. The master might be harder these days than of old; but the -widow’s hardness, and the strength of her fist to back it if need be, -were renowned throughout the dale. - -September passed, and still the clear, gold magic made Paradise of -fields and copse. It was now that magic walked across the fells. The -dales-folk had seen the mystery in other years, but never as they saw -it now; for no man could remember such a spell of drought; and such a -fall rain to follow it. - -The pastures, sloping to the blue and amber sky, had been smoking hot -before the rain came; the first day’s moisture had been lost, for it -was turned to the steam which men had named a ground-mist. The second -day’s fall had been lapped up, greedily as a cat laps milk, and the -third day’s, too, had gone to feed the soil. It was only on the fourth -day that the streams had begun to brawl and chatter, as if they had -claimed all the mercy of the skies. Like most folk who make noise, the -brooks were spreading an empty boast abroad; they were idlers for the -most part, dawdling down a field-way here, a glen there, until some -miller stayed their course and bade them turn his mill-wheel for him; -but it was the thrifty, working pastures that caught the first fruits, -and turned them to good uses. - -Gaunt, as he rode about his lands, could see the miracle take shape -before his eyes. Sharp Fell, away to the southwest, had been as -grey-brown as a hazelnut, withered before it comes to ripeness; now -it showed a tinge of green, and each day the green lay deeper, richer -across the burnt-up pastures. He had watched this uprising of the -grass in far-off countries when the wet season followed extreme heat; -but never before in Garth. - -Yeoman Hirst overtook him one of these days, when both were riding to -Shepston market. “Seems there’s going to be a hay-crop, after all, -though a lile bit late in the year,” he laughed, pointing to the -pastures with his switch. “They say Garth weather’s queer, but I niver -yet made hay at Kirstmas-time.” - -“Let’s say there’ll be good grazing by and by, and that’s something to -be thankful for, before the winter drives the beasts indoors.” - -Gaunt was shy of his fellow men, remembering past coldness; but with -Cilla’s father he was himself. The yeoman’s big, hearty outlook on the -world inspired confidence in all who met him; his friendship, not to be -bought at a price, was counted a privilege; moreover, he was master of -the house that sheltered Cilla. - -They rode into Shepston together, and stabled at the same inn; and -Hirst, before he went about his business, turned to Reuben. - -“We might as well jog home in company, we,” he said. “What time d’ye -start out for Garth?” - -“Four o’ the clock, or thereabouts.” - -“Well, we can meet here, then. I shall have done by that time and a -lonely ride does no man good, they say.” - -They rode home together through the enchanted land. Old tradition -told of witchcraft here in Strathgarth Dale. Witchcraft there was, -of a kindly sort, and it came from the hills that raked the sky, the -hollows that caught the farewell music of the day, and softened it, -and went unwillingly to bed, to dream of fairies’ songs. The farmers -who lived in amongst this glamour said little about it; they were -scarcely conscious that they saw it, for they seldom asked themselves -any question that intruded into the day’s work; but the beauty at -their hills and hollows, the music of their gloaming, were as real an -influence in their lives as the breath o’ God that stirred their acres -into life. - -“A grand evening,” was all that Yeoman Hirst found to say. - -“Ay, grand,” Reuben answered. - -They came to the door of Good Intent. “Ye’ll step in, and drink a cup -o’ tea?” said Hirst. - -Gaunt was taken by surprise. He hesitated, and flushed hotly as he -recalled his last visit to Good Intent and the end of it. “Thank you, -but I must be getting home,” he answered quietly. - -The yeoman looked him in the face, and his smile broadened. “Now, Mr. -Gaunt, I know what ye’re thinking of. Bygones are bygones, surely, if -we’ll let them be. Say I was wrong if ye like, though I shouldn’t like -to own to it. Step in, step in!” - -Reuben could not fight against this bluff, hearty courtesy. The yeoman -whistled a farm-lad round to take their horses, then broke into the -house with a tread that shook the rafters. Cilla looked up from the -table which she was laying for tea. - -“I’ve brought a guest wi’ me, lile lass,” he said, with a genial roar. -“He was a bit loth to enter, till I persuaded him he’d find a welcome.” - -Priscilla was startled, and could not check the sudden flush of -pleasure with which she greeted Reuben. All three were silent and ill -at ease for a moment. The yeoman, seeing the look that passed between -them, wondered if he had done well, after all, to bring Gaunt under his -roof. - -“The kettle is boiling, father,” said Cilla, quietly putting an end to -their constraint. “See the cracknels I’ve baked for you to-day--” - -Hirst interrupted her by taking one of the crisp bits of pastry between -a thumb and forefinger. “I always had a soft tooth for sweetstuff,” he -said. “Mr. Gaunt, there’s your seat. Cilla, don’t be long in mashing -the tea; we’re a thirsty couple after the ride from Shepston.” - -When tea was over, and they settled round the hearth, Gaunt felt a -sense of well-being and content for which there seemed to be no clear -reason. So many details went to the making of his comfort--Cilla’s -face, as she sat half in the firelight, half in the dancing -shadows--the yeoman’s ready laugh--even the lingering scent of buttered -toast which carried homely memories with it. He had a bigger house -at Marshlands, but had never found this fireside glamour there; and -always, as they talked, he kept glancing toward Cilla, wondering that -so slim a lass could bring so much peace about a hearth. - -Hirst followed him out when at last he got to saddle. “First visits -mean second ones, eh?” he said. “Step in any time ye’re passing Good -Intent, and good night to ye, Mr. Gaunt.” - -He listened to the hoof beats as they grew fainter up the road; then -he went indoors with a sigh, and sat him down in the hooded chair, and -beckoned Cilla to his knee. - -“We’re most of us as big fools as we look, and some of us bigger,” he -said. “Ye’re wondering why I asked Gaunt to the farm. Well, ’twas to -pay a debt, if you must have the truth. I’ve reckoned it up all ways, -Cilla, and I’ve fought agen it, but I like to be just--when I can. -I’ve been hard on the lad, and he went where I wouldn’t have gone if -I’d been paid i’ gold for ’t.” His face broke into broad wrinkles, -full of charity and humour. “Ye see, lile Cilla, a father’s never i’ -the wrong to his lass--’twouldn’t do to own up to ’t--but when I see -Gaunt framing like a farmer, and settling down to th’ only good work -God ever put into man’s hands--well, I war not exactly i’ the wrong, ye -understand, but happen I misjudged him, like.” - -It was pleasant to Cilla, this sitting at her father’s knee and -listening while the big, child’s heart of the man found voice. She -understood the battle with his pride, the surrender to a finer impulse. - -“Not that he’s fit for ye--” - -“Father, ’tis early days to talk of that,” she broke in, with sudden -fright. - -“Ay, and early days are best, if ye want to get your land ready for a -good crop to follow. Mind ye, Cilla, I’ve an old dislike of the man.” - -“Or of his father?” asked Cilla shrewdly. - -“Well, both, maybe; but I’m talking of to-morrow, not o’ yesterday. I -saw the look that passed between ye when Gaunt came in, and I’ve seen -other glances o’ the kind. Now, sit down, lass. I’ve earned a fairly -plain glimpse o’ life, after trying for five-and-fifty years to get a -lile bit nearer to ’t. If ye wed Gaunt, I shall be lone and sorry, but -I’ll make the best of a bad job.” - -“Father, cannot you understand that Peggy is scarce buried yet?” she -murmured, afraid of herself and of all things. - -He met her glance frankly, for he had something in his mind, and meant -to find speech for it. It was in times of stress that Hirst showed all -the common sense and strength that underlay his boisterous good humour. -“Buried is hidden, as they say, and that’s what I’m telling ye. It’s -the lesson men have to learn as lads--and women after they’ve had a -bairn or two.” - -Cilla sat looking into, the peat-fire. “Well, then, father?” she asked -by and by. “What is it you want to say?” - -“Just this, my lass,” said Hirst, blurting it out like a school lad. -“When I asked Gaunt to come in, it was because I owed him a debt, like, -and wanted to pay it. When I asked him at the door to come a second -time, ’twas for a different reason.” - -“Yes, father,” said Cilla, still looking at the peats. - -“Ye’re bound to meet each other, ye two, and I’d rather ye met -here---well, as often as in the pastures or the bridle-ways. I think -ye’re a fool for your heartache, Cilla, but I’d liefer watch Reuben -courting ye under my roof than the sky’s.” - -Cilla flushed, and her voice was piteous. “We’ve no thought of -that kind, father; we’re friendly, he and I, and I’m sorry for his -trouble---there is no more than that.” - -“Ay, ye’re friendly, and ye’re sorry; and I should know by this time, -Cilla, what that means between a man and a maid. Get me my pipe, lass, -and say good night, and think ower what I’ve said.” - -Gaunt, meanwhile, rode slowly home to Marshlands. The moon was -softening all the outlines of the hills, and owls were calling here -and there, making the silence of the land more friendly, if that were -needed. - -The man was bewildered by the peace of it all---peace of the -hearth at Good Intent, with Cilla dainty and her father full of -comradeship---peace of the night, that was cool and fragrant, and at -ease. He had stood too near, till now, to the drought and trouble of -the days at Ghyll to meet well-being without distrust. Whenever a cool -breeze had met him, with a touch of moisture in it, he had recalled -the heat and the naked furnace-sky that had shut the moorland in while -Widow Mathewson and he held out against the adversary. Whenever an owl -had called, he had started, thinking Peggy o’ Mathewson’s was waking -from her fever and needed him in a little up-stairs room. - -All was changed to-night. The soft, September scents were abroad, quiet -ghosts that promised immortality to the summer which had seemed to die; -the clouds about the moon were light as thistle-down; the two at Good -Intent, father and daughter, had given him a new hold on life. - -He did not know it--men seldom grasp at once these hands reached out -to them from the bigger sky above--but he rode down to Marshlands a -likelier man to-night, a man more brave to meet the future. All that -he could think of, as he slipped from saddle, and gave the reins -to a farm-lad, and went indoors, was the peace that lay about Good -Intent. Cilla’s clean, homely daintiness, like lavender; her father’s -uprightness, and the smell of honest cattle and good horses about him; -the peat-glow stealing ruddy across the yellow candle-light at Good -Intent and tricking the grave rows of pewter, china and delft mugs into -a show of warmth; these fireside matters were full of meaning to him. - -When he went up to bed, and opened his window to the September night, -it was the same tale. A throstle was whistling a note or two, as if -getting ready for the spring. - -“Silly lad, yond throstle,” was Reuben’s thought. “Thinks he’s going -to find a mate to-morrow, and then set to work nest-building. Summer’s -dead, I reckon, and there’s a lile, cold snap o’ winter to come before -he builds his nest.” - -Outside the house at Marshlands, as Gaunt went to sleep, Billy the Fool -watched the darkened windows. He was not homeless, because he had the -open air about him, and a bed all ready in the crisp dry bracken up -above. He had no lack of friends; the birds and the four-footed folk -saw to that. Yet to-night he was restless and ill at ease. - -“Billy could never sort out his thoughts, like,” as his neighbours said -of him; but he could feel, and could remember, and his griefs and joys, -because they were instinctive, were poignant and keen. - -To-night he did not grudge Gaunt his house, his cosy bed, his riches; -he pitied him for such barren wealth. It was Cilla’s welfare that -troubled him. Whenever he was free of his “play” at the smithy, he had -shadowed these two of late, always with the sense that harm might come -to Cilla if she were unprotected in Gaunt’s company. At the lad’s heart -to-night, as he stood under Reuben’s window, were rage and pity for -the scene ended long ago at Marshlands here. He saw Reuben’s father -send his mother out from the grey porch on his left--the porch, whose -limestone white and lichen grey were limned clearly by the light of the -full moon--and he heard her sobs as she leaned against the closed door -of the house. He could not disentangle the dead Gaunt from the living, -and Reuben was a standing menace, answering for his father’s sins. - -Billy, at this moment, was a menace, and one not fanciful at all. He -was content to wait till dawn, to watch for Gaunt’s coming out from the -grey porch. He knew his strength, and meant to use it. - -A bridle-way ran close to the Marshlands fence, and the doctor, riding -home from a late round, glanced at the moonlit front of the house. He -saw Billy’s fat hulk, and from long experience knew that there was -danger in the set of the man’s figure, his big head lifted to the -casement up above. - -“Give ye good e’en, Billy,” he said, reining up. “You’re growing fond -of Reuben Gaunt, it seems.” - -Billy turned with his accustomed quiet. “Not just so fond; rather t’ -other way, doctor, as a body’s body might say.” - -“Well, then, come catch my stirrup, Billy, and ’twill be play for ye to -ride home beside me.” - -Fool Billy paused, as a dog does when he is divided between duty to his -pleasure and duty to his master. It was the word “play” that enticed -him, as the doctor knew it would. He laughed abroad to the blue-grey -face of the moonlight, and vaulted the fence and clutched a stirrup. -The madness had gone from him, and left him a child again. - -“Well, then,” he said, “well, then, doctor, and as a body might say, I -was always one for playing.” - -The exquisite, cool night lay like God’s blessing over the Strathgarth -lands. Gaunt, too sound asleep to hear the doctor’s voice, or Billy’s -slow answer, dreamed quietly of Cilla in her lilac frock--of Cilla, -who carried scent o’ lilac with her, summertide or winter. There was -no memory troubled him to-night of Peggy, and a grave high up the -moor-face which he himself had dug for her; nor would he ever know, -unless the doctor lost his habit of keeping his own counsel, how near -the shadow of death had come to-night to Marshlands. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -Widow Mathewson, up at Ghyll Farm, was prepared to find Reuben’s visits -grow fewer and fewer, until they ceased altogether. - -“Stands to reason,” she told herself, with her half grim, half humorous -outlook upon life, “stands to reason he’ll slacken now, when there’s no -Peggy to ’tice him up the moor. ’Tis no way likely he’ll come for th’ -pleasure of seeing my wry face.” - -Her judgment was wrong for once. Through the gold September days and -the russet glory of October, Reuben snatched every opportunity to -ride or walk to Ghyll. He persuaded Mrs. Mathewson to replace his -own farm-hind lent to her, and sorely needed now in the busy life at -Marshlands, with a steady, hard-working man-of-all-jobs of his own -choosing. He helped her with the in-gathering of the bracken. He took -pains to set the new man in his place at once; to teach him that his -work here was to save the mistress every trouble. All this Gaunt did, -and more, though he could ill spare the time; and in between he would -steal to the little glen and the rowan-tree that sheltered the stream -and Peggy’s grave of peat. - -The widow could not read his motive in all this, and he himself at -no time halted to probe into his methods. Remorse for his light -playing with the love that Peggy had given him, pity for her end, -self-condemnation because he missed her so little, however hard he -tried to feel the decency of grief, all played their part in urging -him to come often up to Ghyll. But there was more than this. Those -weeks of heat and fever had taught him to see life with clearer eyes, -to understand the worth of the affection shown him, in a grim, half -ashamed fashion, by the lonely woman who had nothing else except her -farm to love. - -“Seems I’ve gotten a son in my old age,” she said drily, when Gaunt had -taken some special pains on her behalf one morning of November. - -“Shouldn’t wonder, mother,” he answered cheerily. - -“Well, now, there’s a daft thing for a tough old woman to be doing. -Seems scarce modest, Reuben--almost flighty-like--” - -She broke off with a laugh. Her dear, brave eyes were twinkling with -mischief, with a spice of that wholesome devilry which no healthy woman -loses till her death. - -“How does your man-of-all-jobs frame?” asked Gaunt. - -“Oh, as well as men ever do--naught to boast of at the best.” - -“Then I’ll give him a piece of my mind before I ride down.” - -“Nay, that you won’t! The lad’s well enough, Reuben. His big fault, -if I must own to ’t, is that he willun’t let me do my share o’ the -work. ’Tis all the grand lady he’s making me, and I was never reared -to idleness. Shall be furnishing a parlour, I, if all this mak o’ -nonsense goes on, and sitting wi’ a bit of fancy-work i’ my lazy lap, -and thinking how many ailments I’ve gotten, like Widow Lister down at -Garth.” - -Gaunt rode home that day, as on many others, with a pleasant memory of -Mrs. Mathewson’s laughter, the smoothing of the deeper lines about her -face, the power he had of drawing her mind away from griefs buried long -ago. - -This luxury of bringing comfort to other folk was growing dearer to -him. It had been left to him to find out, unaided, that he had the -gift; he had had no help when first he blundered into the knowledge. -He was the stronger now for this lack of aid, and a quiet, yet buoyant -confidence was replacing his old, haphazard jauntiness. - -He was often at Good Intent, when work about the farm was done and he -had leisure to stroll down for a pipe with Yeoman Hirst. Cilla would -move about the house at these times, doing little, needless work of -setting things to rights against the morrow; or she would sit beside -the hearth, and intercept grave glances from Reuben--glances which -she answered with the same look of question and of hope. It was their -waiting-time, just as it was waiting-time for the frozen pastures; -spring would have to step in before they found the answer to their -riddle. - -“Gaunt grows shapelier,” the yeoman would say, after one of these -fireside evenings. - -And Cilla would laugh. “He was always shapely enough,” she would reply -demurely. - -“Oh, ay! I was not thinking o’ come-kiss-me-quick shapeliness, and all -that light make o’ moonshine. He’s showing his true breed at last, and -I’m glad. His father--well, he’s under sod, and I oughtn’t to say it, -but he was as near the devil’s likeness as I’ve seen yet. ’Twas a pity, -lile Cilla, for the Gaunts go back to Norman William or thereabouts, -and there have been few black sheep i’ the flock. Now, get to bed wi’ -your fancies, lass. I’ve said as much as a cautious man ever dare say -i’ praise o’ Wastrel Reuben; but I’ve seen your daft looks--yours and -his across the hearth, all as if there’s never been a couple wanted to -wed before--and you must gang your own gait, for Lord help the man who -tries to stop ye, slim as ye are.” - -Exhausted by his eloquence, Hirst would reach out for his mug of ale, -and Cilla would go softly up the stair, with shame in her cheeks and -peace at her heart. She would lean at the open window, not knowing that -the night wind blew cold, and would see new beauties in the moonlit -street, the moonlit, hazy fields beyond. - -It was to be the bitterest winter known for fifty years in Strathgarth. -Yet, when December came, and the frost strengthened its grip, and all -the land began to wear a pinched and sullen look, Gaunt felt the warmth -of life increase. He lost his dogged recollection of former slights -when meeting his neighbours at market or along the highways, just as -they had long been willing to admit that their settled judgment of a -man might, for once, be wrong. They heard his laugh less often now, but -it was heartier when it came, and one they liked to hear. By gradual -stages he was settling into his true position as master of the biggest -and the oldest farm in Garth. - -Hard work was asked of him that winter. Before Christmas there was a -three days’ snow that drifted over every sheep ungathered from the -higher lands. When his own ewes were recovered--and he took more than -his share of a labour asking great patience and endurance--he made his -way as best he could to Ghyll Farm, getting along by the wall-tops -mostly, to see how Widow Mathewson was faring. - -He found her helping the man to clear the last fall of snow away -from the space between the house-front and the well; her cheeks were -ruddy, and her voice rang crisp and almost merry, when she saw Reuben -struggling through the croft. - -“Bless me, but this has been what parson would call a visitation!” she -cried. “’Tis sweeping we’ve been, an’ sweeping all ower again an hour -or two after; we’d have lost our way to the well-spring if we hadn’t. -It was kind o’ ye to come, Reuben. You’d no easy journey, I reckon, up -th’ moor. It must hev been like climbing a feather-bed set on end.” - -“So it was, mother, when the walls didn’t help me; but I’d a fancy you -might need me.” - -“Now had ye?” said the widow crisply. She was always apt to lose ten -years of her sorrow when fighting one day’s inclement weather. “Because -o’ my sheep all overblown up the moor? Ye should never waste pity, -Reuben; there’s little enough about, and ’tis precious, like.” - -“You have them safe, then?” - -“Safe? I learned farming while ye were i’ your cradle, and that means I -learned weather, too. We’d a lile soft spell o’ warmth last week? And -ye never dreamed it meant snow to come?” - -“I didn’t,” Gaunt admitted. “I fancied an open spell was coming.” - -“And you bred i’ Strathgarth, and to know so little of her whimsies! -That’s how she fools ye every winter--a bout o’ cold that starves the -marrow i’ your bones, and then a week o’ softness just to ’tice ye on. -Oh, I’m old to Strathgarth, lad; and soon as ever the warm snap came, -I says to lad Michael here: ‘Michael,’ I says, ‘we’ll gather the ewes -under shelter.’ And Michael, being young and a man, and a bit daft, -says ‘no.’ And I says ‘yes,’ and had to threaten to clout his lugs -before he found persuasion. A few folk find religion, Reuben; but ’tis -persuasion finds the many.” - -Michael, the man-of-all-jobs, had been standing discreetly in the rear. -The bravest folk had a trick of standing out of the widow’s reach. And -suddenly he gave a great, loutish laugh. - -“’Tis this way, Mr. Gaunt,” he explained, with some show of haste. -“Couldn’t help laughing, I. You told me, first you found me a job -here, I was to look after missus. Well, durned if I haven’t a fancy, -like, that the boot’s on t’ other leg. _She’s looking after me_, and -I can’t help myseln. But she’s good at the weather, she is, I own,” -he added reflectively. “She’s saved me a lot o’ trouble, all through -in-gathering them ewes afore she’d right or sense in thinking it war -going to snow.” - -“There’s the shippon to be cleared, soon as ye’ve done idling wi’ your -broom, Michael,” said the widow. “Ye’ll take cold, in this weather, -lad, if ye don’t bustle about a bit.” - -Michael slouched off shamefacedly; and Mrs. Mathewson, as she made -Gaunt welcome in the living-room, surprised him by her cheeriness. It -was only when he stood at the porch, to find his way down the moor -again--through hazard of the snowdrifts, as he had come--that the widow -reached out to him for help. She had gathered in her sheep; she was -wise enough to know the look of the sky, and the way of a Strathgarth -winter; but she was lonely and forlorn, for all that. - -“Reuben,” she said, gently, “the snow’s three feet or more over Peggy’s -grave. It has drifted into the little glen, and the rowan-tree’s half -hidden. I can’t thole the thought o’ my lass lying up yonder i’ the -cold.” - -“Snow covers warm, mother, so they say.” - -“Ay, so they say; but I can’t believe it, when I see th’ glen. I could -bear it better when th’ days were soft and pleasant, and maybe a -throstle whistling i’ the rowan, or a starling plucking at the berries -just ower Peggy’s head; it seemed friendly-like--Reuben, I war never -one for prayer,” she broke off, with sudden passion, “but I tell ye -I’ve worn my knees raw wi’ asking God to gi’e me back my lass. There -war no answer; stands to reason there couldn’t be. One silly old woman -bleating like a ewe that’s lost her lamb, bleating right up into th’ -big, empty sky, Reuben, and thinking she’d get an answer. ’Twould be -enough to make me laugh, if I didn’t cry, instead.” - -Gaunt was dismayed by this glimpse allowed him of the strong, tireless -tragedy underlying the woman’s mask of tartness and half humorous -self-control. And the widow, seeing his trouble, passed a hand across -her eyes; her smile was like a break of sunlight, that can brighten the -wintry fields but not thaw them. - -“Though to be sure, ’tis outrageous for a tough old bit of bog-thorn -like me to be reckoning to have feelings o’ my own. Why, ’tis near as -foolish as to find a son i’ my old age--a son all ready-made, so to -say, like Moses in the bulrushes. Ye’d best be getting down to the -moor, for it wouldn’t do to let dark overtake ye. Good-by, Reuben; -ye’re a good lad to me these days.” - -She left him abruptly to have her cry out indoors and get done with -it. Gaunt watched her out of sight, then turned the shoulder of the -farmstead and made his way, not down but up the moor. The track to -Peggy’s grave was marked plainly by Widow Mathewson’s big, manlike -boots. - -There was something strangely sad and lonely in this path of sorrow, -in the look of the regular, deep footprints, limned sharply, even to -the impress of the nails, by the bitter, east wind frost. There was -something lonelier still in the look of the glen above, which now lay -almost level with the moor. The upper branches of the rowan were all -that broke the white, unending spaces, reaching out to a grey-black sky -that showed dirty by contrast with the virgin white beneath. - -Gaunt understood how hard it was to believe the country saying that -“snow covers warm.” An incongruous memory came to him of the evening, -little more than four months ago, when Peggy and he had crossed from -Linsall Fair, and had been glad of the rowan’s shelter, the cool -tinkle-tankle of the stream, after the parched heat of the uplands. -He saw the girl’s look of splendid vigour and high spirits, the light -in her eyes, as he stooped to kiss her and she reached up her lips -with reckless zest in life and laughed: “Yes, Reuben, with a will and -a half, if only because you won the fell-race to-day.” He could see -the red scarf at her breast, setting off, as she knew well enough, her -gipsy beauty. He could feel his heart beat with eagerness as he asked -her to marry him, thinking, in the moment’s overmastering passion, that -he could be faithful to any but Priscilla of the Good Intent. - -And this was the end of it all. The stream frozen down to the pebbles -that lined its bed; three feet of snow lay over the spot where they had -kissed in the cool of a summer’s evening; and Peggy--Peggy, with her -gipsy eyes, and her flaunting, crimson scarf and her wild, unstinting -love for him--lay under a shroud of the moor’s making. - -There comes an end to a man’s power to feel further grief, at these -times of martyrdom self-imposed. The wise God has seen to that. Reuben -turned at last, his shoulders bent, and went down the track which -Peggy’s mother had made for him. Then he made his way home, as he had -come, along the wall-tops, or across the higher spits of land which -the wind had cleared, or by any way that served. His housekeeper, when -he came into the house at dusk, said to herself that he looked like a -broken man, and wondered at the cause. - -As for Reuben, he was no way broken. The fierce, cold wind of remorse -and grief for others had bent him level with the ground, but could not -break him; for a man’s character rides always high, as the stars do, -above the moment’s weather. To-morrow he would take up his work, with -a still firmer hand, maybe, than before; to-morrow he would find his -way again to Ghyll, enticed there by a face not young at all, a face on -which grief and weather between them had traced strange patterns. There -was real tenderness at the heart of this man who had shown so many -faces to the world, and Widow Mathewson had chosen a good son, after -all, on whom to lean. - -At dusk of the same day, as Gaunt was dragging his tired feet through -the drift that lay between the road and his own garden fence, the -evening mail came into Garth. Instead of three horses, there were four, -and they were sending clouds of steam down the tracks of the frosty -wind. Will the Driver pulled up at the cottage which served Garth as -post-office and shop of all trades. His hands were chilled stiff as -the beads of foam on the harness, but his laugh was warm as ever when -Daniel, the postmaster, came out from selling a penn’orth of toffee to -receive Her Majesty’s mail. - -“Not snowed up yet?” asked Daniel, shivering a little in the wind. - -“No. No, Daniel. Not just yet. You’re the ninety-and-ninth that has -asked me that question along the road, and I’m fair tired of answering. -We’ve kept a way open somehow, but durned if we can hold out against -another fall. Gee-up, Captain! Your hoofs are balled under with snow, -and my hands and feet are as cold as a jilted lass, but Her Majesty -wouldn’t like us to be much later than we are already. Gee-up, Captain!” - -His cattle were getting fairly under way by the time he reached Widow -Lister’s door. He had hoped for once to escape the plump little woman -whose only business in life was to stop busy men on the highway; yet he -pulled up, with weary deference to habit, as he saw her lying in wait. - -“So you’re not snowed in yet?” she asked. - -Her slanting glance, over-coy for her years, the sleek, well-fed look -of the woman, found the secret corner where Will kept his temper -hidden. “You’re the hundredth,” he snapped, “and I knew I’d find the -last straw nigh your door, or thereabouts. Seems to me you keep a stack -of such-like straws. What is it, Widow? We’re late, and Captain is as -cross as ever I saw a horse in my long time of driving.” - -“Nay, ’tis the Captain’s master that’s cross. Shame on ye, Will, to be -grumbling at such weather as God sends. Who are we to grumble?” - -Will waited in exasperation. The widow was “nimble as a weathercock,” -as he put it to himself, “and could always place a right-thinking man -in the wrong.” - -“What is it now?” he repeated. - -“Oh, don’t be getting impatient. I only asked if ye were snowed up, or -not. Surely a civil body can ask a civil question.” - -“Well, I shouldn’t be here if I was, but to-morrow I may be,” he added, -with cheerful malice. “I doubt, as it is, if I can get as far as Keta’s -Well to-night. The drifts were six feet high up the road, so they tell -me.” - -“There now! If ever I want a thing, and must have it, there’s sure to -be a cross. Ay, just another cross. Widows, living lonely like and -helpless, were meant to bear ’em, I reckon. I was going to ask you to -bring--” - -For the first time in the history of Will, he did not wait for a -wayside command. His feet and hands were half frozen; that mattered -little; but his horses were in risk of catching a chill. - -“Gee-up, Captain,” he said. “I’ll bring it, bird cage, or eight-day -clock, or what not, Widow, when the weather’s a shade milder.” - -Cilla heard the running shuffle of hoofs on frozen snow as the mail -went past Good Intent. She was sitting in the firelight, and Hirst, -just returned from bringing sheep down to the fold, was dozing by the -hearth. - -“There’s the mail, father. ’Tis time we had a letter between us, -surely.” - -“Eh, lile lass?” he asked, rousing himself, as he always did, at the -sound of Cilla’s voice. - -“The mail has just passed. I was thinking a letter of some kind would -be welcome.” - -“Were ye, now? I could have understood that better if--well, if -somebody had been away fro’ Garth instead of biding at home.” - -Cilla winced under her father’s jovial pleasantry. She knew that he -referred to Gaunt, and during these days of waiting and uncertainty she -was sensitive to the least hint that they were free to care for each -other. - -“Oh, it is only that news from outside is pleasant, father, when the -snow shuts us in for so long together.” - -“Well, ye’ve got your wish,” said Hirst, rising lazily as a knock -sounded on the outer door of the porch. “That’s Harry the Post, if I -know a knock when I hear it.” - -Cilla waited with a pleasant feeling of expectancy, as her father -opened the door. - -“Evening!” came Postman Harry’s gruff voice. “Just a lile letter fro’ -Canada. ’Twill be fro’ David, as I said to myseln soon as ever I saw -the writing and the mark. I’ll step in, after my round’s finished, and -hear what news he gi’es ye.” - -This easy handling of the mail’s privacy, was one of Garth’s usual -customs, and Hirst assented. “Ay, step in, Harry. News and a cup o’ -summat warm--ye’ll need it, with all the snow ye’ve got to trudge -through.” - -“All i’ the year’s work! I’ll be glad to hear news o’ David, I own. -Terrible pitiful thing, as I says to Daniel just now while sorting -my mail--terrible daft thing to think of a steady, straight set-up -Garth man choosing to waste his time i’ them furrin parts. Garth’s -good enough for me, though plague take her weather. Well, I must be -trudging.” - -Cilla was standing at the table, a puzzled frown on her face. She -scarcely heard Harry’s chatter. The wished-for letter had come; -it happened to be from David; and her only feeling was one of -indifference. It had been different not many months since in the early -weeks of her shame and loneliness, after bidding Reuben keep faith with -Peggy o’ Mathewson’s. She had welcomed the first letter from Canada, -had read and reread it, had taken courage from the strength underlying -David’s crude sentences and simple penmanship. She had needed him then. -And now? - -“Art in a day-dream, lass,” roared Hirst, tearing the letter open as he -came in again. “Here’s news from an old friend o’ yours. Sit down by -the hearth, Cilla, and let’s see what’s doing out i’ Canada.” - -Hirst read the scrawled pages with some difficulty, laid them down on -the settle, and glanced across at Cilla. - -“There’s news with a vengeance. David’s coming home i’ the spring.” - -“So soon?” asked Cilla, with sudden disquiet. “It seems a far journey -for so short a stay.” - -“So he thinks, too. He’s never what you would call bitter, isn’t lad -David, but he comes near to ’t this time. His aunt Joanna, it seems, -has found a man to her liking, and is going to be wed before long. She -wants David about her till the wedding-day--trust Joanna for that--but -not a minute later. The only thing David finds pleasant in the business -is his longing to be home in Garth again.” - -Cilla’s interest was roused, as it always was by injustice. “But, -father, she might have thought of that before sending in such haste -for David. It was not as if she asked him to step across to the next -parish. He left his work here, to--” - -“But Joanna never did think, save for herself. Bless me, I can see her -smile and her easeful way of asking other folk to do her work--just -such another as Widow Lister. Ye can’t argue about such women, Cilla; -ye can only laugh, as ye would at a babby. So David’s coming home! -Well! ’tis good news, say I. What say ye, Cilla?” he added, with a -shrewd glance across the hearth. - -“Of course, father. Who would not be glad to see him again? He’s so -kind, and steady, and ready to help everybody foolishly.” - -“Just so,” said the yeoman, with a laugh that was half a sigh. “He’s -all that never i’ this world could tempt a lass. Male birds should wear -brighter colours, eh? Read what he says there,” he added, reaching out -for the letter, and putting his finger on the scrawled postscript. - -Cilla read the few words, then sat with the letter in her lap. The -message was so brief, so clumsily put in its dumb appeal; yet it -brought a sudden rush of tears to the girl’s eyes. - -“Tell Cilla”--she could almost hear the man’s slow voice speaking to -her from away in Canada--“tell Cilla I’ve seen a deal that she used to -want to see, what she called ‘all beyond Garth hills.’ I can tell her -about strange lands now, if I can bring my slow tongue to it. Maybe -she’ll find me polished up a bit, not just so sleepy, like. And anyway, -if she’s free, it stands to sense I haven’t changed, any more than I’ve -altered i’ my wish to see Garth village again.” - -That was all; but the message brought many memories to Priscilla. It -painted for her every joy, and heartache, each bewilderment, that had -followed Reuben Gaunt’s return to Garth last spring. She remembered -how Reuben had first caught her fancy by talk of “all beyond Garth -hills”; she recalled David’s dogged persistence in his faith that the -old homeland was better than the new countries he had never seen, -his jealousy of Gaunt’s glib speech and wider experience. So much -had been possible to David then, if only he had known it; he could -have pitted his strength and sturdiness against the other’s debonair -persuasiveness; he might have appealed to the trust and comradeship -that had held between them since the days when she was a lass in -pinafores, and David a hulking lad of twenty who had eyes for no one -else. - -Yet Cilla knew that it could never have been. In some instinctive -way, without thinking it in so many words, she knew that David was -not meant to have a wife of his own and--and all that followed, if -God willed. Looking into the sleepy peat-glow, Cilla sat aloof for a -moment from her own perplexities. She saw David clearly, as we seldom -find opportunity or leisure to view our neighbours, saw him with the -grey, soft light of renunciation about him. It was David who had made -Billy the Fool a working member of the busy hive at Garth, simply by -persuading him that work was play. It was David who had mended Widow -Lister’s clocks, and bird cages, and window-fasteners, long after the -patience of other men had been exhausted. It was David who loved -Garth, and all Garth’s ways, and all Garth’s frets and whimsies, who -had gone overseas to help a kinswoman in fanciful distress. - -Cilla turned to the letter, and read the postscript again; and she was -surprised when her father, rising with great noise from the hooded -chair opposite, told her she was crying. He patted her roughly on her -head, as if she were a sheep-dog, and stamped up and down the room, and -returned to ask her what was the matter. - -“Nothing, father, nothing. I’m tired of this snow, maybe--” - -“Well, then, I’ll just go and tell Garth folk that David’s coming back. -They’ll like to hear it,” said Hirst, who, like all men, had a secret -cupboard where he hid his one, favourite cowardice. “Could never abide -tears myself, lile Cilla. Live and let live, I allus did say. Men -were made for work, and they’d best leave women alone while tears are -brewing up.” - -Widow Lister was patrolling her door-front when he went by. “There’s -luck for a body,” muttered Hirst, ruefully, as he caught sight of the -plump little figure. “Enjoying a walk i’ the snow?” he asked, as he -went by. “Well, I’ve had enough of it myself, trapesing all up and down -the pastures since dawn.” - -“A lone body must do something,” answered the widow plaintively. “I get -weary-like o’ my thoughts, sitting wi’ the firelight only for company.” - -“I dare say, I dare say,” assented Hirst, his big, foolish heart melted -at once by this deftly suggested picture of the lonely hearth. “Cilla -must come in oftener, to chat wi’ ye at nights.” - -“Or perhaps ye’d find time now and then to step in yourself?” murmured -the other, her eyes lifted “kitten-soft” to his in the moonlight. -“There’s something in the way a man sits in his chair an’ the smell of -his pipe smoke that’s cheering to a body.” - -Hirst was as free from vanity as most hearty, well-set-up men, but he -had felt more than one doubt of the widow’s friendliness in years gone -by; and to-night he took a hasty step or two away from her, like a bird -that sees the snare being set. “Why, yes!” he roared. “To be sure, I’ll -step in some night, and bring Cilla with me--and bring Cilla with me. -Ye’ll have David back in Garth, too, in the spring.” - -“I’m glad of that,” said the widow. “There’s that little job still -waiting to be done, and it’s rankled a bit, as I told ye; and now I can -give him a piece o’ my mind.” - -“Humph,” growled Hirst, as he moved down the street. “Good night to ye. -I’d thought ye might like to see David back for his own sake, not for -what he can do for ye.” - -As he neared the forge, a broad shaft of crimson lay across the -blue-white, moonlit road, a vivid splash of colour that flickered in -long, waving lines. - -“So Billy’s at play. Never knew such a lad for playing early and -playing late. He’ll be glad o’ my news, I reckon,” thought Hirst, as he -moved to the smithy door and stood looking in. - -Dan Foster’s lad was busy at the bellows, and Billy was standing at his -anvil. He looked a huge, heroic figure as he brought the hammer down, -his arms thick and brawny, his head throwing out a fantastic shadow of -itself on the wall behind. A cheerful scent came from within the forge, -an odour made up of red-hot iron, and fire heat, and hoof parings -from recent shoeing. The yeoman would know that smell of Garth forge, -bringing memories of other days with it, if you set him blindfold, -after years of absence, at the door. The contrast, too, between the -nipping frost one side the threshold, the royal warmth on the other, -was pleasant, like a spring day found unexpectedly at Christmas time. - -“Billy, my lad, David comes back with the spring,” said Hirst, his -natural voice striking easily across the uproar of the bellows and the -anvil. - -Billy, as befitted one who was short of wit, went on with the work in -hand and finished it before he turned about. He was none of your wise -fellows who drop a tool at the first hint of gossip, and afterwards -return reluctantly to the unfinished job. - -“Te-he! There’ll be terrible pranksome doings when David comes back,” -said Billy, leaning on his hammer. “He’s like the swallows in a manner -of speaking, this same man David--off for the winter, and home when -Garth has got nicely warmed up again. When will he be coming, like? The -first swallow’s nest I mind last year began a-building when the ousel -hatched out her clutch of five up in Winnybrook Wood. Seems a long -while to wait,” he added, glancing at the ribbon of firelit snow across -the highway. - -“Oh, ’twill soon pass. Time does for busy folk,” said Hirst, warming -his hands at the smithy fire and thinking, with some compunction, of -the daughter he had left at Good Intent “to have her cry out, like.” - -Billy was silent for awhile, his massiveness and air of detachment from -the world suggesting some impersonal figure of destiny. Then suddenly, -as his way was, he returned to extreme childishness. - -“David will be bringing a lile pipeful o’ baccy; and, if he can no way -find a match, I’ve got the fire to light it at right soon.” - -The yeoman laughed, rattling the horseshoes on the walls, and handed -his pouch to Billy. When the clay pipe was loaded, and the quiet puffs -of smoke were going up to the blackened rafter-beams, Billy laughed -foolishly. - -“Seems I’m in a terrible puzzlement, like a hen with an addled egg.” - -“Are ye, now, and why?” - -“Well, soon as ever David comes back wi’ the swallows, blessed if he -won’t want a daft body to go working all at bellows-blowing. Look at -Dan Foster’s lad, and say by yond same token if bellows-blowing isn’t -work.” - -Foster’s lad was wiping the sweat from his forehead, and he grinned at -them both with friendly acquiescence in Billy’s logic. - -“That’s soon put right,” said Hirst “What’s work i’ winter, Billy, is -play when spring comes in.” - -The fool smoked the matter over with tranquil disregard of time. “I -believe ye,” he said at last. “Have watched the birds to some purpose, -I. They’ll be hopping i’ search o’ crumbs all winter-time, as lean as a -bare-boughed tree; but see ’em in spring, wi’ the gloss on their wings, -and their bonnie, bright eyes, and their calls when they’re all by way -o’ mating, ye’d scarce know which was work, or which play, to these -same scatter wits. So David’s coming swallow-fashion home, is he, to -make me play at bellows’ blowing? I’ll be glad to see the man’s right, -proper face again.” - -Cilla was still sitting by the hearth at Good Intent, and was still -thinking of David’s letter, of the postscript which she understood so -well. She was aware of a childish wonder that the message should have -reached her with all its freshness after so long a sea voyage. The -man’s unswerving loyalty, his dumb acceptance of any treatment she -might give him, brought a pang of real suffering. She had no weight of -remorse to battle with, as Gaunt had when he thought of the moorland -grave; and yet, in spite of logic, she blamed herself. Overstrung -as she was to-night, she could picture David’s return, the pathetic -hopefulness that his new power of talking about foreign lands would -bring him nearer to his desire, his ignorance that there was any bond -between herself and Reuben Gaunt. - -“But then, there is none,” she would finish weakly, and would find -little comfort in the thought, and the tears would fill her eyes once -more, because David was so constant, and she so weak to help him. - -Cilla of the Good Intent stood in the middle of her own winter-tide, -just as Garth village did; and the spring, as Billy had said, would -seem long in coming. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - -There’s no resisting Strathgarth Dale when her true spring arrives. -She has many ambushes, many a sportive deceit, between winter and -the breaking of the leaf-buds. It will please her mood to let -woodbine leaf in March, to throw a wealth of saffron sunlight into -sheltered corners of the fields, so that a man may sit and bask, and -tell himself--knowing it a pleasant self-deceit, if he be bred in -Strathgarth--that spring this year is coming early and is staying late. -The next day a northwest gale will bring sleet and snow with it. And so -through April--and half of May, perhaps--the weather teases folk, till -their tempers grow brittle, and they hint darkly that it is a fool’s -job to go on living in such bleak lands. - -Then suddenly the real spring comes, and the warm, keen joy of it, -the eagerness of nesting birds and growing green-stuff, sweep memory -of the winter’s bitterness away. It is spring and summer in one, this -wonder-season that takes hold of Strathgarth Dale. The cattle, from -sheer lust of life and liberty, throw foolish heads abroad and chase -each other up and down the primrose pastures. Stern men unbend, and -frail people grow frolicsome. It is sure, at this season of the leafing -trees, that there’s no place else in which to live save the long dale -of Garth. - -On one of these days Gaunt walked up to Ghyll Farm. All up the fields -the cowslips curtsied to him, or primroses ventured maidish glances -from their nooks. The larks rose high, and sang of courage and -well-being. The plovers moved sedately, two by two, about the fields, -and pretended, each pair of them, that the world did not know them at -sight for nesting mates. A score of unconsidered flowers were budding -eagerly. - -Reuben found Widow Mathewson at the gate of the croft, as if she looked -for him. - -“I somehow fancied ye’d come, Reuben,” she said, with as pleasant a -glance of trust and welcome as though she were forty years younger, and -he a lover bustling up with spring glamour in his eyes. - -“Well, it was this way, mother. You told me your man was to be off -for a day’s holiday, and I thought there might be an odd job here and -there--” - -“Just so,” put in the other, with a quiet laugh of content. “That’s why -I knew ye’d be stepping up the fields.” - -There was a good deal to be done, as it chanced, and it was evening -before all was finished. After they had supped together, Mrs. Mathewson -led Reuben out into the croft and turned toward the moor. - -“We might as well enjoy the cool o’ the day, now we’ve earned it,” she -said. - -Reuben glanced at her inquiringly. Her voice was gentler than he had -known it; her shrewd grey eyes were soft and kindly as they met his -own. It seemed that spring had touched her weather-beaten life with -fingers light and tender. - -She was taking the track to Peggy’s grave, for all that; and Gaunt -wondered why she chose just this one way to-night. - -“Oh, I laugh often at you folk who live smothered down in the valley -yonder,” said the widow, turning for a glance at the dipping moor, -the green pastures, the hills whose jagged tops were ruddy with the -afterglow. “When ’tis cold, ye’re colder than us; when ’tis hot, ye’ve -never a breath o’ clean moor-air to cool ye. I’d have died o’ my -troubles long since, Reuben, if it hadn’t been for the moor.” - -With curious tenderness, she pointed out to him the landmarks, and -named them all. Behind that spur of hill lay Dene hamlet. Just under -the pole-star, showing bright green-blue in a strip of sky, stood the -little farm where she had lived as a lass when Mathewson came courting -her. The points of the compass were so many guides to memory--to -memory, which is all the old folk have to warm them when spring calls -up the pastures and demands an answer to his insolent, young note. - -She almost forgot her errand, in this love she had for the moor and -the encircling hills. There was a story to tell of Heyward’s lass, -who lived just where the pine wood showed dark below them in the -evening light; of Daft Will, who lived under Sharprise yonder, and -was the wildest and friendliest squire who ever rode the Strathgarth -bridle-ways; of Bachelor Royd, who always said that he’d never cared -to buy a wife by flattery, because pigs were easier come by and more -profitable at the cost of open bargain in the market. - -And then she turned to him, still with the smile that smoothed out -so many furrows from her tired old face. “All this is old wives’ -talk!” she said. “I was allus a lile bit daft, like poor Peggy, but it -heartens me to talk now and again o’ days gone by. Maybe they’d their -own share o’ crosses an’ whimsies, yond old times, but they have a -trick o’ smelling sweeter than the new days, Reuben.” - -She grew silent when they reached the glen, but the peace did not -leave her face. It was a pleasant bed, she felt, they had made for -Peggy here, now that the snow and the east wind had gone, and the -stream was free to sing its litanies. The rowan was in its first leaf, -rippling under the least touch of the breeze; from the moor came the -strong, eager scent of ling and greening bilberry; above them the -stars showed one by one, while all along the western rises a wisp of -afterglow lay like a saffron mantle over the sleepy hill-tops. - -“Reuben,” she said by and by, “I want to talk to ye, and I fancied -we could best find words up here. Ye’ll need a mistress soon for -Marshlands.” - -Well as Gaunt knew her liking for abrupt, plain speech, he was -startled. His thoughts had been all of the past year’s heedlessness and -tragedy; he could not rid himself of the figure that seemed to stand -beside the grave--a radiant ghost, with gipsy eyes and straight, lithe -figure, and a crimson kerchief knotted at the breast. There was no -looking forward, here where the wind and the sky were quiet, and the -still moor watched its dead. - -“Nay, not that look, Reuben!” said Mrs. Mathewson, laying a gentle hand -on his arm. “I never was one for back reckonings. It’s all well enough, -while the grief’s on ye, to look behind; but there comes a time to look -forward.” - -“It was only last autumn she died, mother.” - -“Just so, but there’s been fire and torment for ye in between--oh, I -know, Reuben!--and the clock ticks very slow at such times. Would ye -listen once in a way while I talk to ye? There’s decency i’ grief; and, -after that, there’s a man’s need to look at the track ahead. We’re here -for this world’s business, Reuben, till we die.” - -He was looking at her with a puzzled question in his eyes, as if she -had roused him from some nightmare and was telling him that the light -of day was sweeping through the windows of his prison. - -“After that,” went on the other, “well, Peggy’s wiser than me by now, -for I’ve no notion o’ what happens afterward. We live on, I reckon; -though Mathewson, being fond o’ sleep at all times, would have it that -we never wake up again. I used to tell him that I came of a wiry stock, -and knew we were meant, like, to live on--in some sort o’ heaven, -maybe, seeing what a lot o’ t’ other place we get i’ this life.” - -There was something clean and vigorous, like a wind from the heath, -in this woman’s outlook on the life that had harassed her, on the -life that was to come. If her faith lay deep and hard to find, her -fearlessness and honesty had in them the same massive power that -underlay Billy’s oddities. - -Unconsciously Gaunt yielded to her mood. He had spent himself -generously to serve this late-found mother, and it was her turn now to -stretch a helping hand to him. - -Out of the quiet night, the fragrant moor, there came a quickened sense -of motherhood to the woman. Spring leads the younger folk down paths -where the valleys shelter primroses and nesting throstles; it leads -the old to the higher tracks where the sky and the moor-winds talk of -abnegation. - -“Reuben, my lad,” she said, her harsh voice softened to the lilt of -the heather-breeze, “Reuben, ye’re too full o’ life to live lonely for -Peggy’s sake. There’s Marshlands, too. Have ye never thought that ye -needed a son to follow you? Of course you have!” - -“Yes,” Reuben answered gravely. “Yes, I had thought of that.” - -“Why, Mathewson was a weakly man enough, but he never did forgive me -for bringing a lile lass into the world, instead of a lad; and I -always sort o’ respected him for it, somehow. Stands to sense, Reuben; -it’s the man’s way to want a boy or two, to carry the old name and -the old house on. It’s i’ the blood, and it goes deeper than any -kiss-i’-the-coppice love o’ women. Oh, I’m old, and I know, and I’m -telling ye!” she finished, relapsing into her favourite phrase. - -There was pluck in this quiet persuasiveness of the widow’s. She had -been bitterly jealous on Peggy’s behalf, though her girl was long past -all feeling of the kind. It had hurt her when now and then she had seen -Gaunt and Cilla together in Garth Street, or in the fields, and had -read their secret more plainly than they did themselves. Only by hard -endeavour, by grasping her love for Reuben, and bringing her sturdy -common sense to bear upon his welfare, had she found courage for this -talk at Peggy’s graveside. - -“Besides,” she added, after a silence, “it was always Miss Good -Intent.” For the first time a touch of the old bitterness was in her -voice. “What did I tell ye long ago, Reuben? Ye need a ladyish mistress -for Marshlands, ’specially now ye’re bringing the place into its old -shape again. I’ll not complain, lad; and, as for Peggy, she lies very -quiet and willun’t speak a word.” - -“We must wait, mother, wait and see what happens afterwards,” said -Reuben gravely. “We’ll not talk of it to-night.” - -The bitterness left her, and she came nearer and laid a hand on his -arm. “Life doesn’t wait. ’Tis only death can spare time for that. Just -tell yourself old scores are settled handsomely, Reuben, and find -yourself a mate.” - -The starshine and the silence of the moor wrapped the two of them -about. The fever-heat of August, the misery and fear, were softened, -till they seemed, to Gaunt, if not to the widow, part of a tragedy -much further off in point of time. - -A peewit came straying down the moor, and wheeled and cried about the -rowan-tree. - -“Hark ye,” said Mrs. Mathewson, “there’s Peggy’s parson come to say a -prayer or two above her. He’s constant, like, yond bird; she had him -so tame, ye’ll mind, that he’d eat from her hand, and he never went -south this winter, like most of his mates. He just comes drifting down -each night, like a lost bairn seeking home, and says his prayers, -and then goes lap-winging up the moor again. There, we’ll be getting -home, Reuben. ’Tis a grand night for two together, if they happen to -be springtime-young; but ye’re tired of an old woman’s chatter by this -time.” - -When they reached the porch, Gaunt stooped and kissed her awkwardly. -Such tokens were rare between them, and his feeling was always one of -shyness, as if he feared reproof. - -“You’ve been kind to me to-night, mother,” he said. - -“Well, I’ve a right to be. Take a breath o’ common sense down fro’ the -moor to the valley lands, and quit thinking o’ last year’s nests. Good -night, Reuben. I’m fancying lile Miss Cilla will not choose so far wide -o’ the mark, after all.” - -She stood at the porch-door long after he had gone. She was jealous no -longer on Peggy’s behalf. A great weariness had come to her--tiredness -of all things under this warm, soft sky, with its stars and its silent -peace. She had paid her debt to Gaunt. Her knowledge of all he had done -for her, when none but he came up to help her through the fever-time, -had stood to Widow Mathewson as a debt, and she had always had a liking -for meeting creditors. - -Peggy lay under the rowan, with the quiet of the lapwing’s evensong -above her. Reuben was striding down the fields, lusty and long to live. -But this woman, standing at the porch, was empty of all courage. - -“Spring blows warm to the young,” was her thought. “’Tis only right it -should--but what of the old, sapless folk?” - -She sighed, and laughed at herself the next moment, and answered her -own question. - -“Not so sapless, after all,” she said, in her brisk, tart voice as she -turned indoors. “There’s a farm to look after, and a lazy farm-lad to -get up betimes to-morrow’s morn.” - -Gaunt, meanwhile, had got down the fields as far as the foot-bridge -that decides a man whether he shall cross to Garth, or turn to the -right and seek the road which leads Marshlands way. Gaunt chose the -left-hand track, over the slender arch of stone. - -“I’ll go by way o’ Garth,” he said to himself. “The longest way round -is pleasant on a night like this.” - -The longest way round led him past Good Intent, and a big voice sounded -from the porch as he neared it. - -“Ye’ll have a rare fine day for your journey, Cilla,” Hirst was saying, -taking all the parish into his confidence, though he thought his tone -subdued. “I never saw a likelier sundown.” - -Gaunt stopped. A senseless lover’s dread had seized him. Cilla going -a journey? Had his hopes been all so much idleness? A journey meant -travelling overseas, surely--and David was in Canada--and there had -always been a friendship between them. - -“Yes, father,” he heard Cilla answer. “You always did say I had luck o’ -the weather when I took a journey.” - -Gaunt moved forward. The girl’s tone was so quietly happy that he -was sure now of his hasty guess. David was on his way home, so he had -understood; but perhaps he had changed his mind at the last moment, had -found a profitable farm out yonder, and Cilla was going out to him. He -remembered her longing, a year ago, to see what lay beyond Garth hills; -it was bitter to recall how eagerly he had prompted her restlessness, -had talked of other countries until at last he caught her fancy. And -now she was going out to marry David, and it would be the slow-going -smith who showed her the strange lands. - -The dim, white roads seemed to be slipping away from under Gaunt’s -feet. He no longer wished to stay for a chat at Good Intent; his one -desire was to get away with his misery, and conquer it as best he might. - -The yeoman checked him. He and Cilla were sitting on the stone bench -just inside the porch, as they had sat for the last hour. It was dusk -along the highway, but the porch was darker still, and Hirst, looking -out from its shelter, could not mistake the figure striding by so -quickly. - -“What have we done, then, Mr. Gaunt that you’re i’ such a hurry to get -past the door?” roared Hirst. - -Gaunt laughed, with a constraint that puzzled Cilla. “Well, I’ve called -so often lately that I fancied my welcome might be overstayed.” - -“Hear him, Cilla! As though every man in the dales didn’t know our -ways. There’s two sort o’ folk, Mr. Gaunt. One sort would never set -foot on my doorstep, if I could help it. T’ other sort can come dawn, -or dusk, or middle day, and as often as they please. Now, step forrard, -Cilla; we’ve been idling i’ the dark here long enough. Light up -indoors, lass, and stir the peats, and set a couple o’ glasses out.” - -When they followed Cilla in, and stood in the lamp-glow, Reuben looked -across at her. “You are going a journey to-morrow?” he asked abruptly. - -She did not meet his glance, but stooped to play with the kitten on the -hearth. He saw the delicate colour come and go across her cheeks, as -it did always when her feelings were touched in any way; and again he -guessed that David was the cause. - -“Yes. I am going--to Keta’s Well,” she finished unexpectedly. - -One little, upward look she gave him, then went on playing with the -kitten. The glance was so full of question, so quiet and yet so near -to roguishness, that it bewildered Gaunt. Gradually he felt the ground -grow firm under his feet again, as he realized that it was not David, -after all, who had tempted her to make a journey. And suddenly he -laughed. - -“Well, now, durned if I know why you’re laughing,” said Hirst. - -“Cilla tells ye she’s going up to Keta’s Well, as she goes every -spring, to do a few lile oddments o’ business for me; and ye seem to -fancy it a jest.” - -“So it is,” said Reuben, “the best I’ve heard for many a day. It -was the notion of Miss Cilla doing business for ye that tickled me, -somehow,” he added hurriedly, seeing the yeoman’s half puzzled, half -quizzical glance at him. - -“’Tis spring has gone to your head, my lad. That’s what ’tis. I was -like that myself when I was your age. I could laugh at th’ first idle -thought, or at none at all, soon as ever I heard the cock-throstle -whistling to the hen-bird, or saw the first o’ the green dappling every -hedgerow. Eh, lad,” he broke off, reaching for his pipe, “I’d swop my -time o’ life for yours, if you’d let me. But, then, ye wouldn’t. Ye’re -no fool, eh?” - -When Reuben said good night, no whisper passed between Cilla and -himself; but she set out the old, mended lilac frock before she got to -bed, and smoothed the folds as if it were a living thing, dear to her -from old acquaintance. In her heart she knew that Gaunt would see it on -the morrow. - -The dawn, when it came cool and fragrant through her open window, found -Cilla half awake already. She had dreamed of Ghyll Farm, of fever and -penance and disaster; it was good to wake to this clean, real life that -called to her from out-of-doors. - -She did her work about the house, gave Yeoman Hirst his breakfast, then -went up to don the lilac gown. - -“Too bonnie to be good,” said Widow Lister, as she watched Cilla pass -her door a half-hour later. “When we’re made for sorrow, and should be -humble-like i’ face o’ death to come, ’tis tempting Providence to wear -such a becoming shade o’ lilac.” - -Cilla went down the street, radiant, like the spring, with some -happiness that came from within. She was eager, buoyant, and she moved -along the grey, old highroad like some tall fairy who had forgotten -that the world was tired and humdrum. - -Will the Driver came rattling up to the Elm Tree Inn with his team of -three, and greeted Cilla with the pleasant air of welcome that she -commanded at all times. - -“Bless me, but ye’ve a trick o’ tempting spring out from frosty -corners,” he laughed. “Ye’ll be for Keta’s Well? I always did say -there’s one day o’ spring that’s better than the rest, and that’s when -I carry Miss Good Intent for a passenger.” - -In the midst of the bustle attending Garth’s busiest moment of the -day, while mail-bags were being exchanged, with the gravity befitting -an affair of Her Majesty’s, while parcels were being handed up and -down between Will and the chattering knot of folk, Reuben Gaunt came -swinging down the street. - -Last year he had ridden in; but to-day he was on foot, and he clambered -up to the empty seat at Cilla’s side as if it were reserved for him. -She turned shyly to him as soon as Garth was left behind and the white, -sunlit riband of the highway stretched in front of them. “You--you did -not say last night that you had business, too, at Keta’s Well.” - -“The same business that brought me here a year ago,” he answered -soberly. “There’s some property I want to own--” - -Cilla was looking ahead and his tone misled her. “Surely you have -property enough? Marshlands, father always says, is just the right -size--big enough to keep a man busy all day and every day, and small -enough to walk around it when he finds an idle morning.” - -“Well, yes. ’Tis a case of Naboth’s vineyard, maybe. At any rate, I -shall never care much for Marshlands, unless I get this other property -to round it off.” - -Something in his tone made her glance quickly at him, and it was -hard to believe that a year of upward struggle lay between the old -Reuben and the new. His face was full of boyish mischief. He looked -as if he had known never a care in the world, but had lived always in -this warmth of the spendthrift, teeming spring. She understood him -better in that moment, understood how easy it had been to name him -“running-water,” because they had given him never a chance, until last -year, of proving his mettle. He had proved himself, once for all, and -now was a boy again until the next summons came. - -Cilla let her own mood run with his. She knew his meaning now, and -would not look at him, and could not trust herself to speak, but -the white road, and the green, homely pastures, and the birds that -fluttered up the hedge-sides in front of the rattling coach, led out, -she knew, to the enchanted lands “beyond Garth hills.” They lay nearer -home, these lands, than Cilla of the Good Intent had guessed. - -They were passing Widow Fletcher’s now, and Will the Driver turned in -his seat as they went by. - -“Am having a holiday, I, Mr. Gaunt,” he laughed. “I won’t say I’m glad, -for it wouldn’t be seemly; and I can’t say I’m grieved, for it wouldn’t -be true; but the widow, she broke an ankle in trying to catch me up a -week ago, just when I’d dodged her for once. Widows are trials, I own, -and maybe t’ other lile woman at Garth--her sister--may be laid by for -awhile with a sprain, or a touch o’ rheumatiz, or what not. There’s -always hope, as the fox said, when he was leaving his tail in the -keeper’s trap.” - -Gaunt laughed in answer, and passed the banter which was true coinage -here on the open highway; but Cilla, stealing a glance at him, saw that -the grave look had returned. He was thinking of a widow up at Ghyll -yonder, who had met life from another, and a braver standpoint. - -She, too, felt that a chill had touched the warmth and glamour of this -drive to Keta’s Well, as if the breeze had shifted suddenly from west -to east. She remembered the pool where Mrs. Mathewson and she had met -while rescuing sheep from April snow, recalled the struggle between -Reuben and Billy, and the widow’s tale of what had happened long ago at -Marshlands. The tale had recurred to her many times during these past -weeks, and with it a distrust of Reuben against which she struggled -loyally. - -“What are ye thinking of?” he asked, breaking a long silence. - -Cilla knew that this distrust would lie between them always, if she did -not answer frankly. She was glad he had given her so plain an opening. -Hard as it was to speak, it would be harder afterwards, if she let the -chance go by; and Cilla was never one to let the bigger evil come, for -lack of courage to meet the lesser. - -“I was thinking of Billy, and a story I did not want to hear. Reuben, -why do you always pass poor Billy as if he were nothing to you?” - -“He gives me little chance to do anything else,” said Gaunt, reddening -as he met the quiet, questioning glance that would not be denied. “He -hates me for some reason.” - -“Perhaps he knows--it is hard to tell what the poor lad understands, -behind all that foolishness of his--perhaps he knows he’s your -half-brother, and that you’ve denied it time and time again. ’Tis your -denial troubles me.” - -Cilla could be merciless when there was need to reach the truth. She -would not let his glance waver; she compelled him to be honest. - -“Cilla,” he said at last. “I _had_ to deny it. I’ll own to my own shame -at any time, but not to my father’s. He may have been this or that, my -father; but I’ll lie any day to keep what good name I can for him.” - -Will the Driver turned again, and pointed up the fells with his whip. - -“You always liked to see the deer, Miss Cilla,” he broke in. The wind -of his own fast driving had carried their talk behind him, and he did -not know how welcome was the interruption. “They’re browsing yonder -near the fell-tops, just to the right o’ the spinney; d’ye see them?” - -Cilla sought for the brown specks, far up the pastures that stepped -boldly to the sky. These specks of brown stood for the pride of bygone -overlords of Strathgarth, in the days when their deer forest stretched -out from Shepston to Keta’s Well, and a league or two beyond. And Will, -whose forefolk, like himself, had lived within the limits of Garth’s -hills, was proud of their diminished forest’s splendour. - -“The old stag’s fair riotous, so the keeper tells me,” went on Will. -“He’s tame as a cushat the rest o’ the year, and will feed fro’ your -hand; but soon as ever spring comes in, bless me, and saving your -presence, Miss Cilla, he’s the devil and all with his nasty temper. -Gee-up, Captain! We’re late,” he added, laying a gentle lash across the -leader. “We’re always late, what with this constant plague o’ widows on -the road.” - -Cilla leaned forward, her face between her hands, and watched the road -slip past the hedgerows. This man beside her, of all men in the world, -had humbled her. He had gone willingly into a house of fever; he, the -acknowledged wastrel of the parish, had put his back into the work -of making Marshlands what it should be, and had changed the stubborn -outlook of his neighbours from dislike to growing friendliness. That -was much; but the confession she had wrung from him meant more to this -girl whose sense of honour was clean and dainty as an April day. The -father had done ill with his own life, and with his son’s; yet Reuben -had striven to keep what starveling flowers he could in bloom about the -old man’s grave. - -Gaunt waited till she chose to break the silence. He had learned -patience last August, as he had learned strength, while he waited on -the sun-scorched uplands to know if Peggy o’ Mathewson’s would live -or die. He had learned further patience while nursing a half-ruined -property into new health. - -Suddenly Cilla turned to him, and his heart beat faster than ever it -had done while winning the great race at Linsall Fair. All that the -spring day held of tenderness, of trust and hope and love of life for -living’s sake, seemed gathered into Cilla’s glance. He had won his -biggest race of all. - -“We’ll get down here, Will,” he said by and by, as they neared the old -green lane that led back to Garth. - -“Thought ye were bound for Keta’s Well,” said the driver, with the -dalesman’s frank curiosity. - -“So we were; but we’ve changed our minds.” Gaunt’s laugh was a boy’s -again. He seemed not to care how soon all Strathgarth knew the meaning -of the glance that Cilla had given him. “You’ve forgotten the old -saying, Will; folk are free to change their minds i’ the spring, like -the weather.” - -Cilla did not question, but took his hand and slipped lightly to the -highway. At another time her father’s business up at Keta’s Well would -have been all-important; but to-day she had forgotten it. - -“Humph!” muttered Will, as he drove forward between the lusty -hedgerows. “Just a year since last I carried the lile fools as far as -Keta’s Well. ’Tis a long while, seeing a babby could have told the two -o’ them what ailed them. Well, I’m not complaining. If Miss Good Intent -is half as bonnie wedded as she is single, there’s none of us need -grumble. Gee-up, Captain! Her Majesty will put up with a lot, but she -gets terrible cross if we’re late with her mails. Gee-up, lad, or shall -I make ye?” - -Gaunt had opened the gate, and Cilla and he were loitering down the -lane which once had been the highway, but which now was grazed by sheep -and cattle. There was a curious privacy about this abandoned road, -a charm which haunts neglected thoroughfares. The raking fells lay -white against the sky on one hand; on the other lambs bleated to their -mothers in the sheltered hollows. The birds could not be quiet, and a -happy din went up into the sunshine and the warmth. The lark sang “like -as if he’d burst his lile throat all to pieces,” as Billy put it, and -the throstle piped, high and clear, as if he meant to be obeyed, and -the curlews were dipping and wailing, wailing and dipping, with their -note of everlasting sorrow. - -A hare got up from under their feet. A squirrel peeped at them from the -bough of a leafing sycamore. Men had been busy once along this green, -neglected lane; and the fret of their tired feet had passed, and the -mother of us all had chosen this for her quiet house, where birds might -nest, and flowers could bloom, and men’s insolence was hidden out of -sight. - -If ever two folk were given the one right day and the one right place -for wooing, Gaunt and Cilla were favoured now. The peace of the lane, -the eagerness of all the teeming life about them, the very fell-tops, -pointing with white fingers to the blue and happy sky, seemed made for -them; and Cilla was proving once again the truth of the Garth saying -that “Miss Good Intent could always have the Queen’s weather for the -asking.” - -A year ago they had trodden the same lane as boy and girl, had kissed, -and fancied life held nothing better. They had seen life face to face -since then, had lived through long, ugly days that seemed too sordid -for romance; yet here was the glamour, walking step by step with them, -a glamour that was built, not on the sands of fancy, but on foundations -sure as those of the sturdy hills about them. Gaunt turned to look at -Cilla. She was dainty in her lilac frock. Any man, passing her, would -have halted for a second glance at this lass whom Strathgarth summers -had treated kindly, whom Strathgarth winters had given a reliance -unknown to folk bred amid softer climates. He scarcely knew the face -of which he had dreamed of nights; its peace, and its tender, eager -beauty, were borrowed from all that lay beyond Garth hills, and from -all that lay within them. - -They came to the bend of the lane where last year they had met Peggy o’ -Mathewson’s, and Cilla halted for a moment. - -“Poor Peggy,” she murmured, generous and warm of sympathy as this day -of spring that set the world to rights. - -“It was never meant to be,” said Reuben, with no assurance in his tone, -but rather like a child who gropes helplessly for the answer to a -riddle. - -And Cilla smiled through her tears. “My dear, it was never meant to be. -Reuben, there’s a lile bird singing at my heart. I can’t mistake the -song.” - -“No wonder they called it Fairy’s Lane,” said Reuben. “I used to laugh -at the notion once.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - -David the Smith had chosen this same day of spring for his return to -Garth, though he had sent no word of his coming to Yeoman Hirst. He -remembered the boisterous good-will shown him when he left the old -haunts to cross overseas. Because he returned the same single-hearted -David who had loved Garth village from his babyhood, he was shy of such -another welcome at his home-coming. He would not take the mail from -Shepston, the mail which carried Gaunt and Cilla to their betrothal, -but walked instead. - -He wanted to see the daffodils in bloom, in the crofts and the wayside -gardens that bordered the highroad. He wanted to be free of chatter, -and to feel his two legs carrying him, as a man’s legs should, between -the grey, remembered hills. He wanted, most of all, to find Cilla of -the Good Intent at home, and to tempt her--God’s pity on the man’s -brave simplicity--with tales of other lands. - -At four of the afternoon he came to Garth, and shied, from old habit, -when Widow Lister pattered out to meet him. - -“Glad to see ye again, David,” she said, coquetting, as she always did, -with a hale and well-to-look-at man. “Bless me, what a power o’ heat -there must be, yonder over Garth hills. Ye’re freckled and tanned, -David. ’Tis good to look at a face like yours; puts one i’ mind o’ sun -and hay harvest.” - -“Oh, I’m well enough; but ’tis Garth for me, I reckon, till I’m taken -to the kirkyard, and may be afterwards.” - -The widow’s face lengthened, from habit, into grave, forbidding lines. -“Afterwards is as ye’ve done i’ this life, David.” - -“Yes,” said David, cheerily. “I’m content to rest on that standby, -Widow.” - -She was silent for awhile, daunted by a strength that was rooted deeper -than her shallow soil would ever know. - -“Your aunt Joanna has no such fear o’ the after life,” she said, with -sudden triumph. “She borrowed a tin kettle fro’ me, did Joanna, and she -forgot to return it, like, when she married into a heathen land.” - -“Ay, she’s good at forgetting. But see ye, Widow, I didn’t come all -this way to talk o’ tin kettles. I came to see bonnie Garth, with her -face new-washed for spring and all the posies out i’ the garden-strips.” - -With a good-humoured nod he moved on to Good Intent, and found the -yeoman leaning over the gate of the seven acre field, watching his -lambs with that peculiar air of leisure and detachment from all worry -which comes to farmers in and between the bustle of these warm, -full-blooded days of spring. - -“Have your ewes done well, then?” asked David, as quietly as if he had -seen Hirst every day during the past months. - -The yeoman turned with a start. “David! Now, ye startled me, I own. I -was just thinking o’ ye, and reckoning ’twould be all about time for ye -to be taking shipboard home; and then your voice came sudden-like; and -I fancied it must be your ghost, come to tell us you were drowned at -sea. There’s the daft fool I’ve grown, David, since you left Garth!” - -“There’s not much ghost about me,” laughed David, as he gripped the -other’s hand with old-time strength. - -“Well, no, if a grip like a pair o’ pincers be aught to go by. Stand -ye there, David, and let me take a square look at ye. I’ve never been -better pleased to see a man i’ my life.” - -He walked around his friend, as if he were a specimen of farm stock -whose points he was anxious to appraise correctly. Then he gave a great -roar of approbation. - -“Thought spring was treating me well when the ewes twinned so grandly, -and scarce a lamb lost; but there was better to come, ’twould seem. -David, ye’ll have to stay i’ Garth. ’Tis a different place without ye.” - -David looked around him--at the pastures, full of the music of -lambing-time, at the rough-built walls that traced a grey, irregular -pattern across the green face of the land, at the spinneys and outlying -barns which were so many landmarks to remembrance. Then he leaned his -arms on the gate, and gave a quiet laugh. - -“Oh, I’m here to stay,” he said. “The months have been years to me out -yonder. It will take a lot to ’tice me out o’ Strathgarth Dale again.” - -“So what of all those traveller’s tales ye promised Cilla? I tell ye, -David, she looks for livelier doings than ever she saw at home.” - -“Oh, I’ve tales enough, maybe. ’Tis a different life, but--” - -“But naught so much to brag of?” put in Hirst “There! That’s just what -I always said.” - -“The life’s well enough for those it suits, but it’s over-young for -me.” David picked up a straw and chewed it with a pleasant sense of -leisure. “’Tis this way, if I can get my tongue round a plain meaning. -I’m ready to do a day’s work with any man; but, when it’s done, I like -old things about me, th’ old grindstone at the corner, Widow Lister’s -bit of a garden-front, with its daisies, and London pride, and lile -clumps o’ primroses. I want to be near all that my father loved, and -his father afore him and back to Flodden Field, or near thereby. Out -yonder ’tis naught but looking forrard and hurrying. They’ll come to -our way o’ thinking by and by, when their roots have taken deeper hold; -and they’ll do more work i’ the year, though they tell ye otherwise.” - -This was the David who had left the homeland. Unwavering in his love -for Strathgarth, quick to realize a new phase of life, yet slow to -accept it, he returned unspoiled, a little surer of his faith, if that -could be, in the righteousness of older lands and older way. - -“Your aunt Joanna didn’t treat ye very well,” said Hirst, after one -of the pleasant silences that long ago had helped to make the two men -friends. “It puzzles me that ye bear no malice, like.” - -“She’s as God made her, like all of us. There’s lile use in going -against handiwork o’ that sort. She asked me to go, and I went; and, -when she hadn’t a use for me, I came back.” He stooped to pick a fresh -straw, and again laughed gently. “’Tis as simple as falling out of a -tree, and no back reckonings either way, now I’m free to live i’ Garth -again.” - -Hirst was not given to intuition. He thanked his Maker every Sabbath -for the past week’s mercies, and tended his flocks with cheery zeal -throughout the next six days; but insight into the hidden workings of a -man’s character was rare with him. - -He looked at David now--David, whose eyes were blue and honest as the -sky that roved over the sloping fields, the rounded hills--and was -compelled to understand his comrade. He knew now why Cilla had liked -David well, but could not marry him. The “far” look in David’s eyes was -that which nature’s priests wear--the look that Billy the Fool carried -when he watched a pair of nesting throstles--the look of the folk who -are content to watch life’s business, and to help it forward whenever a -chance for kindliness meets them at the road corner. - -Again the friendly silence fell between them. David returned to mother -earth again, and his voice had a wholesome snap in it. “What is Gaunt -o’ Marshlands doing these days? Running still to waste like water?” - -“Well, no. He’s found running water has its uses in a thin-soil -country, and is tilling his lands with it instead.” - -“Gaunt tilling his lands? Cuckoo’s eggs will be hatching throstles -next.” - -“I thought you said folk were as God made ’em,” said Hirst, with a -touch of sharpness. - -“Aye, but Gaunt’s as he made himself. I can’t abide the man, and never -could.” - -So Hirst, to his own surprise, found himself defending Reuben. He spoke -warmly of his fearlessness at Ghyll, of his plucky fight to win back -a good name for his house. Not until met by this dogged opposition of -David’s, had the yeoman guessed how well he had grown to like Gaunt. - -“Let bygones be bygones,” he finished. “’Tis not like ye, David, to -keep up a grudge like this.” - -“No, ’tis not like me, and I never felt it for another man; and I won’t -say I’m proud o’ the feeling. But there it is, and there it will have -to bide a while longer, seeing I can’t get rid on’t.” - -Hirst, like a wise man, guessed that Cilla was the cause of the -ill-feeling, and talked no more of Reuben. He chatted of Garth’s doings -through the winter, led David on to talk of his adventures; but all -the while he noted a growing restlessness in his companion. David kept -glancing down toward the farm, then up at the pastures, as if in great -fear or hope of some intrusion. - -“No, she’s not at home,” said Hirst, with a sly roar of laughter. “The -lile lass is faring out at Keta’s Well.” - -David looked shyly at the yeoman, surprised that his secret had -been guessed so easily. Then a great loneliness took hold of him, -an instinct of trouble and foreboding. He had come straight to Good -Intent, not pausing even for a visit to his forge; and there had been -one picture in his mind. He would find Cilla, wearing the lilac gown, -at the farm. He would see a new light in her eyes after the long -absence and the unexpected return. He would find readier speech than of -old. - -“I’ve travelled so far,” he said, more to himself than to Hirst; “and -she’s a stay-at-home most days o’ the year, and I fancied she’d be -about the place just this one day.” - -“Oh, tuts! She’ll be back i’ a few hours’ time, David. No need to go -thinking the end o’ the world is coming because a lass is doing some -bits o’ business for her father.” - -Hirst, with all his cheeriness, was ill at ease. He knew that this -man’s dream would not come true; he felt that a hint in time would be -kindly, and yet he shrank from giving pain. In his indecision he turned -slowly down the croft, and David followed him. - -“Why, that’s Cilla’s voice!” cried the yeoman, halting suddenly. “She’s -home before her time; and how she’s managed it beats me, for the mail -isn’t due for an hour yet.” - -And David watched the white highway below, where it came out of the -shelter of the trees and curved past Good Intent. He felt sick and -helpless. - -Then he saw her, for the first time in the months that had seemed years -in passing. Gaunt and she stepped into the road, as if they owned it -and the whole, round world besides. She was wearing the lilac gown, but -it had not been donned for David the Smith. They passed out of sight -toward the porch of Good Intent; and, because they were looking at each -other, they did not see the two men in the croft above. - -“Well, you’ve got your wish,” said Hirst, bewildered by the misery in -David’s face, and trying still to believe in his old creed that all -would yet go well with everybody. “We’ll step down, David, lad, and -Cilla shall give you tea of her own brewing, and--” - -“Thank ye,” said David heavily, “but I’ll be getting down to the forge. -That’s where my heart will have to bide from now on, and I might as -well make a beginning.” - -The yeoman watched him go. “Oh, bless me,” he muttered ruefully, “I do -like to see things go right for all. Pity I hadn’t two lile Cillas, -i’stead o’ one, if David’s bent on breaking his heart like any raw -young lad.” - -A busy hum sounded from the forge as David neared it. Not many weeks -ago the fire-glow had lain across the road, a crimson splash on the -white April snow; now it fought for mastery with the clear, hot -sunlight. David lifted his head when he heard the rhythmical song of -the bellows, as an old fox-hound rouses himself when music of the pack -sounds down the wind. The blow had fallen on him mercilessly; but -already he felt heartened a little, a very little, by the sturdy light -of the forge. He stepped to the doorway, and looked in. Dan Foster’s -lad was working the bellows, and Billy was playing at smithy work. -David watched the man’s muscles tighten and relax, relax and tighten, -as he plied his hammer; and an off thought came to him that the world’s -work would be better done if more folk played as Billy did. - -Billy paused at last to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and turned, -and saw David standing in the doorway. There was no surprise in his -face. He was content to play through the long winter, until the -swallows came to build their nests again in Garth. He knew they would -return, and waited patiently; for Billy, as all Garth knew, “was not -wise.” - -“First o’ the swallows came yesterday, David,” he said, “and blessed if -ye haven’t followed, quick as ye could scramble. ’Tis good to see ye -both.” - -David was sore at heart. If he had been a woman, he would have leaned -against the smithy wall and sobbed himself into a makeshift peace. As -it was, he sought about for some trivial help in need. He found the -help in that quiet, persistent thought of others which, perhaps, had -lost him Cilla; the wise were apt to think him dull. - -He took a pouch from his pocket, and handed it to Billy. When the black -clay pipe was charged, he passed a match across. It pleased him to see -Billy light it tranquilly upon the anvil, pleased him to watch the slow -wreaths of smoke curl among the rafters. - -“Your ’baccy always smoked a lile thought sweeter than other folk’s,” -said Billy. - -In some muddled way, David understood that the welcome he had looked -for, here in Garth, came from this massive, tranquil man whose power -of speech was hindered. The warm air of the forge, the smell of it, -soothed the fierce pain of David’s loss. - -Billy the Fool laughed unexpectedly; it was his privilege. He had -caught sight of Dan Foster’s lad, standing idle by the bellows with a -look of wonderment about his cherry-red face. - -“A queer lad, he,” said Billy. “He’s been working ever since you left, -he has, while this same fool has had all the fun. ’Tis a terrible -pranksome matter, this hammering horseshoes into shape. Ye take a bit -o’ hard iron, and it says it will no way budge, however hard ye hit it; -and ye say it shall budge; and then it gets into a fearful rage, and -spits at ye with its lile, red sparks; and ye go on hammering, just for -frolic, like, till bless me, if there hasn’t a horseshoe grown out o’ -yond same bit of iron, like a sycamore-leaf fro’ the bud.” - -The smith had lit his own pipe, and was listening with something of -the old content to Billy’s familiar line of thought. All the fool’s -interest in life, trace it deep enough, centred round growth of some -kind. It might be growth of the plants under sheltered banks, that -caught the first footsteps of the spring, which claimed attention from -him; it might be the mother-work of birds when they hatched their eggs -in the many nests he over-watched, or the whitening of the pastures -when ewes began to drop their lambs; it might be the forging of an iron -rail, or the building of a wall; but the instinct at the root of all -his pleasures was growth. Untrammelled, as no other man in Garth was, -by the frets and small indignities of daily life, Billy had learned -insight into the deeper truths. He could write no verses, nor wished -to; but he moved through the quiet village life, for all that, a great -poet, not of his own dales only, but of the world. - -David’s nature was akin to his in many ways, and at times such as -this, when Billy let his heart peep out and showed why toil was play -to him, the smith was apt to feel a touch of awe, as if he listened to -a greater than himself who was talking of eternal verities. The next -moment Billy would lose his high, abstracted look, and would return to -some foolish detail of the world about him. He did so now. - -“I’ve your money all ready for ye, David,” he said, going to the far -corner of the smithy and reaching down a small, square box from the -shelf. “Made the box myself, soon as ever ye left Garth, and made a -slit, I did, big enough for money to go through, but not for fingers. -Te-he, David! Not for fingers, I reckon.” - -David was puzzled as the other jingled the coins as he crossed the -floor, and placed his money-box in the smith’s hands. “What is all -this, Billy?” he asked. - -“Play money,” said the fool impassively. “Ye see, David, I’ve no more -use for coins than for pebbles i’ a stream, so I saved ’em up against -your home-coming. Charged terrible high prices, I, for shoeing a horse; -and folk laughed, and they paid it, they did, because ’twas only Fool -Billy; and there’ll be a right proper nest-egg ready for ye, David.” - -The tears were in David’s eyes at last. He had gone on a wasted errand -to another land, and had returned empty of thanks and pocket; he had -come cheerily home, ready to start afresh with strong hands and a clean -conscience as his only capital, and had encountered Widow Lister and -her anxiety touching a tin kettle borrowed years ago. He had looked -down from Hirst’s croft at a strip of sunlit highroad, and had seen a -pair of lovers, full of spring’s tender insolence and right-of-way. -All had slipped from under his feet, all save Billy the Fool, whose -pleasure, like his own, was to give--always to give, asking no return, -claiming only a pipeful of tobacco at the day’s end, and a tranquil -smoke over the morrow’s gifts to other folk. - -David passed a hand across his eyes, and moved to the anvil, and took -up the hammer. “Ye can run home, lile lad,” he said, turning to Dan -Foster’s lad. “Stay, here’s a sixpence for ye to spend on yourself. -Billy, ’tis work and play again, as i’ the old days. Just bend your -back to the bellows.” - - -THE END. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRISCILLA OF THE GOOD -INTENT *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this eBook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that: - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |