Leadville could not let that pass. "I might 'a 'bin born down east o' Truro, still I can't tell you whether I was or no. But I feel in my bones an' veins that I'm no 'foreigner.' Couldn't fancy this place as I do if it wadn't so."
"'Tis your misfortune," said Mrs. Tom, taking her cloak from the door-peg, "as you fancy it so. If you was one of we, you'd act different."
Mrs. Byron had a bright day for her journey, a day with but one cloud. The staff of the hospital had gathered to see her start and when, on her trolly, and followed by her luggage and a certain long wooden box, oddly suggestive of a shortened coffin, she rolled herself down the hall and into the roadway, they broke into a cheer. The gallant bearing of this mutilated creature had drawn from them an emotional response. The beauty of it, the poignancy, touched them. Men pressed forward to offer their help and tears stood in the eyes of the women. That was the spirit, this elemental courage, this defiance of unhappy fate. Yes, Sabina was indeed true descendant of Old Squire—he to whom men for so long had given their respect.
In the road, drawn up and waiting, stood the farm wagon. Jim Rosevear, with a proper sense of the ceremonial nature of the occasion, had plaited the horses' manes and tails with coloured worsteds. The brass harness twinkled in the sun and the cart-horses had been groomed until their coats were nearly as bright. Sabina, occupied with her trolly, which was showing a tendency to turn a little to the left, was not immediately aware that the driver was not her husband. Not indeed until the trolly had been lifted to its place on the floor of the wagon and secured by ropes, was she at liberty to look about.
When she saw who was come for her she leaned forward in the cone. "Where's the maister to?" she asked.
Jim, who was getting ready to start, looked over his shoulder. "He's gone fishin'."
"Fishin'?" She had thought he might have gone on business down one of the many crooked streets of the little town, business from which he would return in time to drive her home.
"Fishin' for bass on the Head."
"Whatever took'n in the 'ead to do that to-day?" she said and dwelt for a moment on the incomprehensible nature of man. Strange that Leadville should not want to share her triumph, the triumph of the woman who belonged to him, who was flesh of his flesh; to share this triumph which was, in part, his. She had been in excellent spirits, but his absence dashed them. It required the manifested goodwill of the people in the streets to restore her equanimity.
In spite of this drawback, however, her progress was, in its way, royal. Throned in the wagon she passed slowly along the main road. Placed thus high and with trunk and head emerging from the wicker cone like an amazing flower, she was undoubtedly a queer figure; but the people who came running up the lanes and out of the houses along the route, to give her the blessing of their good wishes, missed the queerness. They had known her all the forty years of her life. She was part of the setting in which they played their humble parts. A little prejudiced in her favour through long association, this display of primitive courage moved them. They welcomed it as in keeping with the family tradition, as something worthy, and they offered it the kind encouragement of hearty handshakes and good words.