Joll’s Farm lay somewhere near Carwithiel, across the moor where Taffy had gone fishing with George and Honoria. On the Monday morning when he stepped through the white front gate, with his bag on his shoulder, and paused for a good look at the building, it seemed to him a very comfortable farmstead, and vastly superior to the tumble-down farms around Nannizabuloe. The flagged path, which led up to the front door between great bunches of purple honesty, was swept as clean as a dairy.
A dark-haired maid opened the door and led him to the great kitchen at the back. Hams wrapped in paper hung from the rafters, and strings of onions. The pans over the fire-place were bright as mirrors, and through the open window he heard the voices of children at play as well as the clacking of poultry in the town-place.
“I’ll go and tell the mistress,” said the maid; but she paused at the door. “I suppose you don’t remember me, now?”
“No,” said Taffy truthfully.
“My name’s Lizzie Pezzack. You was with the young lady, that day, when she bought my doll. I mind you quite well. But I put my hair up last Easter, and that makes a difference.”
“Why, you were only a child!”
“I was seventeen last week. And—I say, do you know the Bryanite, over to St. Ann’s—Preacher Jacky Pascoe?”
He nodded, remembering the caution given him.
“I got salvation off him. Master and mis’-ess they’ve got salvation too; but they take it very quiet. They’re very fond of one another; if you please one, you’ll please ’em both. They let me walk over to prayer-meetin’ once a week. But I don’t go by Mendarva’s shop— that’s where you work—though ’tis the shortest way; because there’s a woman buried in the road there, with a stake through her, and I’m a terrible coward for ghosts.”
She paused as if expecting him to say something; but Taffy was staring at a “neck” of corn, elaborately plaited, which hung above the mantel-shelf. And just then Mrs. Joll entered the kitchen.