“I saw his hand.”
“But d’you tell me you know Adam’s hand?”
“It would be a blind man that couldn’t tell it from Elias’ hand. Why, the one is as brown as that coffee, and the other as white as the cup, with great blue veins all over it.”
“Well, now I shouldn’t have thought of it, but so it is. Well, it’ll be a busy day, Dolly. Just hark to the wind!”
It had, indeed, increased during the few hours since dawn to a very violent tempest. The panes of the window rattled and shook. Glancing out, Dolly saw cabbage leaves and straw whirling up past the casement.
“The great hayrick is giving. They’re all out trying to prop it up. My, but it do blow!”
It did indeed! When Dolly came downstairs it was all that she could do to push her way through the porch. All along the horizon the sky was brassy-yellow, but above the wind screamed and stormed, and the torn, hurrying clouds were now huddled together, and now frayed off into countless tattered streamers. In the field near the house her father and three or four labourers were working with poles and ropes, hatless, their hair and beards flying, staving up a great bulging hayrick. Dolly watched them for a moment, and then, stooping her head and rounding her shoulders, with one hand up to her little black straw hat, she staggered off across the fields.
Adam Wilson was at work always on a particular part of the hillside, and hither it was that she bent her steps. He saw the trim, dapper figure, with its flying skirts and hat-ribbons, and he came forward to meet her with a great white crowbar in his hand. He walked slowly, however, and his eyes were downcast, with the air of a man who still treasures a grievance.
“Good mornin’, Miss Foster.”
“Good morning, Mr. Wilson. Oh, if you are going to be cross with me, I’d best go home again.”