"What ails, master?"
"Ails? I heard you the first time, Japhra. I was thinking. I'm troubled—sick. That's what ails."
His face flushed with the same cloudy redness that the beat of rising tears drives into the faces of children. On the Ridge he had put against his trouble the stiffness that was of the bone of Burdon character. Down here was sympathy—and he was very young; it sapped the stubbornness.
"That's what I'm here for," he said thickly. "To tell you, Japhra."
Japhra had a keen look to meet the misty countenance that was turned to him.
"Food first, then," he said, and gave a twinkle and a sniff at the savour from Ima's cooking that made Percival smile in response. "Naught like a meal to take the edge off trouble. There'd be few quarrels in the world if we all had full bellies always."
"Well, food first, then," Percival agreed, making an effort; and he raised his voice: "What's Ima got for us?"
She turned at the sound of her name and smiled towards him, and the smile caused beauty to alight upon her face as a dove with a flashing of soft wings comes to a bough. He saw it. Her beauty abode in her mild mouth and in her seemly eyes. Her parted lips discovered it to step upon her face; her raised eyes released it, starry as the stars that star the forest pool, to star her countenance.