There was a stone porch jutting forth over the side door that led into the passage. Within this refuge, on either side, was set a stone bench under an unglazed ogee window. Honeysuckle had intermingled its growth with that of the climbing roses, and made there a parlour of perfume. Hither Ellinor conducted the lord of Bindon, and here he allowed himself to be installed, obeying her as one who walks in dreams and is glad to dream on.
The maids had parted in noisy flight, each on her different errand, starched gowns crackling, clogs clacking, pails clinking as they went. Ellinor threw down her cloak and her basket and disappeared, light as the lapwing, rejoicing with all a woman’s joy to minister to the beloved. She returned with a little wooden table, which, smiling, she set before him and was gone again. This time it was out into the yard and into the dairy, and her head flashed in a sun-shaft. When she reappeared, she was walking more slowly, and between her hands was a yellow glazed bowl brimming with new-drawn milk.
“For you, Sir David,” she said.
It was foaming and fragrant of clover blossom as he lifted it to his lips.
“And now,” she went on, “you shall taste of my baking. I had a batch set last night and the rolls ought to be crisp to a touch.”
The following minute brought her back, flushed and triumphant, bearing on a tray a smoking brown loaflet, a ray of amber honey and a rustic basket full of strawberries. She paused a second reflectively, and cried:
“A pat of fresh-churned butter!”
And again his eyes watched her cross the shaft of sunshine and come back, and they were the eyes of a man gazing on a dear and lovely picture.
“Now, David, is this not a breakfast fit for a king?”
He looked at the table and then at her; and then put down the loaf his long fingers had been absently crushing.