Sometimes the Spaniard would follow Jan about the farm. "Grande!" he would say, gesturing with his arm to indicate the wide-rolling hills.
"O ah!" Jan would reply, "there's a heap o' land in the open air."
The Spaniard does not understand! He asks: "What?"
"O ah!" Jan would echo.
But it was the cleanly buxom Ann to whom Da Costa devoted himself. He brought home daily, though not ostensibly to her, a bunch of the primroses, a stick of snowbudded sallow, or a sprig of hazel hung with catkins, soft caressible things. He would hold the hazel up before Ann's uncomprehending gaze and strike the lemon-coloured powder from the catkins on to the expectant adjacent buds, minute things with stiff female prongs, red like the eyes of the white rabbit which Ann kept in the orchard hutch.
One day Juan came home unexpectedly in mid-afternoon. It was a cold dry day and he wore his black cloak and hood.
"See," he cried, walking up to Ann, who greeted him with a smile; he held out to her a posy of white violets tied up with some blades of thick grass. She smelt them but said nothing. He pressed the violets to his lips and again held them out, this time to her lips. She took them from him and tucked them into the front of her bodice while he watched her with delighted eyes.
"You ... give ... me ... somethin ... for ... los flores?"
"Piece a cake!" said Ann, moving towards the pantry door.