“Well, ye mustn’t notice ’im too much,” declared he bravely. “’E won’t plague ye, if ye stand up agin’ ’im. Ye must be a bit saucier. I’m sure ye used to be saucy enough to me when first I fancied ye!”
“That was ’cos I knowed ye loved me,” smiled she, and then they kissed again. But they couldn’t keep the sauciness up, and the next thing she said was said sadly enough.
“It’s near six months to Lady Day,” she whimpered. “And I sha’n’t ’ave no news of ye till then!”
“I’ll write when I get a bit settled,” he said.
“I’d never get the letter,” moaned she.
“Ye must go to the Post-office for it,” he answered.
“Post-mistress might tell,” objected she. But then with a sudden inspiration: “May be Nan Fordham ’d fetch it for me. She’s a good child. And ye might put A. B. on it, same as the girls do when they ’vertise for a situvation.”
“Why, yes, that’s capital,” he cried. “What a clever one you is, to be sure! Nobody’d find that out, I’ll be bound.”
The comfort was a little one, but they hugged it and planned their plan with fresh courage. But it was parting all the time, bitter-sweet, though they painted the future brightly for one another, and took their fill of the kisses the memory of which was to keep them alive: it was parting and it hurt.
They made it last as long as they could; sheltering her from the blasts with his arm around her, he took her to the edge of the wood, and many a time did he leave her, yet was fain to come back for a last word, a last embrace. But it was all over at last; he was gone, and she was left on the empty road, swallowing her tears, alone.