The farmer hesitated for a moment. He was not in a mood for talk. Nevertheless the force which had already set his feet upon a hidden road drove him forward and he took his accustomed way across the now slushy yard, straight to the porch. Clean blue flagstones ran by the hedge-gripe, turning at right angles along the side of the house; but, as Byron had once contemptuously said, "They were all right for cats and women, he wasn't afraid of a little mud."
As he opened the door the appetizing smell of new bread rushed out. Sabina had been baking and, on the side-table, stood a row of crusty loaves flanked by lightly piled splits while behind was enough white cake and saffron cake to carry the household over Christmas.
Byron stood for a moment, his bloodshot eyes scanning the place. The kitchen being a dark room, a new-comer required time to forget the sun. As his pupils widened, however, he perceived ensconced in Old Squire's big chair, a little man, rosy-gilled and grey-haired. This man was eating, with an air of pleasant enjoyment, a thunder-and-lightning split and, beside him on a stool, stood a cup of tea. Though Dr. Derek had been out all night he looked as if fresh from his bath; and no one could have supposed that this snack of new bread was in place of the breakfast he had missed. Opposite him, her unwieldy bulk seeming about to overflow the wicker cone of the trolley, sat Mrs. Byron, a quiet somewhat distrait figure. The contrivance had been made when she was a comparatively normal shape. Since then she had grown stouter, 'gone abroad'; and a new and roomier cone was becoming imperative. She looked tired after her morning's bread-making and her face had lost its jovial look. Over it a breath had passed, dulling the gaiety, wiping away even content, and the breath was one to which all of us, unhappily, can fit a name.
Dr. Derek looked up at the farmer's entrance. "Just come from Curvithick," said he, "and thought I'd look in on my way home."
Curvithick Farm, the mistress of which had been cheerfully expecting her thirteenth child, lay on the other side of the main road at the head of the valley. The land marched with that of Constantine Rosevear. "Maggie Martin 'av got a baker's dozen now then," said Mrs. Byron but she spoke without her usual interest in her neighbour's concerns.
"She's done better than that," and Dr. Derek helped himself to another split. "She's got twins!"
"Twins? My dear sawl and body, whatever they gwine do now with so many childer?"
"Twelve last night and fourteen this morning!" Dr. Derek looked pleased. He held that a declining birth-rate meant the opportunity of his country's enemies and was himself the father of five sons and four daughters. He was wont to declare blandly that he lived in the West because the women there had, on the whole, a sense of their duty to the empire.
"Boy and cheeld?" pursued Mrs. Byron.
"Yes, one of each kind, a pigeon pair." He beamed at her through round glasses, the rims of which had a yellow gleam, and passed his cup for more tea. "Your splitters are excellent, Mrs. Byron—but you," he shook his head, "what have you been doing with yourself?"