After that revealing look Leadville had walked quietly past his wife out of the house. His dark thoughts, his secret hopes had risen to the surface. He had held them in for months but, in the end, they had escaped from him in a glance.
His footsteps died away on the hard mud of the yard, the warm silence fell again over the kitchen and, in the midst of it, a modern Lot's wife, Mrs. Byron sat strangely still. The steam died off the surface of the water, the sun crept a little farther into the room and the untidy pile of breakfast crocks gave back a glint here and a dazzle there. Mrs. Byron was undeniably shaken. Her poor hands were trembling and now and again a quiver passed over the rubicund cheeks. It was as if the woman would have wept, as if only a summer rain could have dissolved the ice at her heart, but as if the source of tears had for too long been dry.
At the sound of the yard-man's voice she raised eyes which, though tearless, were dim. Jim seemed a long way off but kind and human. She was old enough to be his mother and, like a mother who has secret sorrows, she answered him.
"I'm down in the dumps to-day, terr'bly. 'Aven't got any 'eart for nothing."
"Can I do anything for 'ee, missis?"
Being the eldest of a 'long tail,' he was used to doing odd jobs for a woman; and, at Treketh, his mother, dependent now on the unsatisfactory help of younger boys, sent him daily a regretful thought. Jim had been so handy, so good-natured.
Rousing herself, Mrs. Byron looked about. "You might light up the fire in the cloam oven for me, Jim, there's a good sawl."
Breaking a faggot apart he filled the oven with bushes and set a light to them. The smoke curled up the black chimney and little flames ran along the brittle wood. When the earthenware sides were sparkling hot the oven would be ready for the tins of bread, the cakes and pasties which were to feed the household during the ensuing week.
"Anything else I can do for 'ee while oven's hettin'?"
Mrs. Byron's eyes were the brave frozen blue of the seafarer and wistfulness was not possible to them, nevertheless Jim was conscious of that quality in their gaze. The son of a cross-grained father, words were not needed to tell him that the Byrons had had a difference. He moved deftly about, emptying the cool water and replacing it with hot, setting out the array of loaf tins and filling a scuttle. He was glad to be of use. It made him think of happy evenings with his mother, made him wonder which of the elder boys, Sidney or Charley, was carrying coal and water for her and what hand they made of it.