They were only Marget’s words, like the rest, but just for the moment they struck a little chill. It was likely enough that he had altered, as they said, when you came to think what those two years had meant. He had thought himself at the end of change when he left the farm, except for the change that is the beginning of things. If there were any currents left in his life’s stream, they had seemed too weak to carry him off his feet; yet now they were stirring and lifting him again. But if it was true that there were changes in himself, they could only be superficial, after all. Marget’s branding-iron could not permanently have disfigured his soul. At least he was sure that folks going home turned again into their old selves. When they went in at the door they forgot at once everything that had pushed its way in between. The real things were there, as they found; the real selves, the real souls. The rest was incidental as garments flung away. The old feeling took them that they were looking forward instead of back, happy because of the future instead of the past. Yet really they were happier than they had been before, because of the extra gladness of coming home. They would hardly know themselves when they looked in the glass, because the faces and feelings did not match. The place was full of things that took them back—like the smell and feel of things, and the sun on the floor. No matter what life had managed to do to them, it faded now. These were the real things where their real selves had stayed. They were the same, in spite of the years, abidingly, patiently, blessedly the same.
He was so certain about it all that he spoke even more forcibly than he had done before. “I’d not change to the marsh if I was dead and riz!” he said. “I’d not change to the farm if Squire offered me the Hall. And I’d be Kit Sill and for evermore Kit Sill, if I was coming from Heaven an’ nobbut from next door!”
Bob said drearily that likely his father knew his own business best. His own belief in the ultimate rightness of things had long since gone by the board, and he found it strange that Kit’s should be lingering still. The artist’s faith that yet all things shall be well had flamed for only a period in Bob. Marget had soon set herself to work to trample it out. Yet here was old Kit still brandishing the torch. But then Kit had only suffered for the space of a couple of years.
In spite of his admission, however, he seemed unable to let the subject drop. It was almost as if Marget must be whispering into his ear. “You’ll think on Marget said you could come back?” he wandered on. “She’s likely taken to you a deal better than I thought. If happen you don’t feel like settling at the farm, you’ve nobbut to say the word and come back.”
“I’ll settle, thank ye,” Kit said. “I will that.” Bob ought to have known, he thought, that it was simply a waste of time to talk like that. Marget was an outsider, of course, but Bob had once belonged. “Don’t fret yourself,” he said. “I’ll settle all right. I’ll bide.”
“Farm’s that smart it don’t know itself,” Bob said, “what wi’ new paint and paper and furniture as good as Squire’s. What, there’s a rug afore t’kitchen fire as’d likely make a carpet at our spot, I’m sure! There’s curtains to all the winders—some on ’em real lace; and parlour’s over grand to set in by a deal. They’ve been to a sight o’ pains fixing your old room an’ all. You’d think as the King hisself was coming to stop on the marsh.”
Kit listened to him, but only with half an ear, wondering why Bob should suddenly have so much to say. He knew nothing about the house of which Bob spoke, and didn’t want to know anything, if it came to that. The house he was going to see to-day was quite a different spot. It was empty and shabby and rather short of brass, but it was full of the soft tones that make for peace. There was no colour in it that the sun had never kissed, or wood that the years had not mellowed in its place. The worn surfaces knew his hand, and the uneven flooring had never troubled his feet. What, there was a sunk flag at the kitchen door that had never tripped his toe in fifty years!...
“Thomas mun ha’ done well for himself,” Bob was drawling at his side. “He mun ha’ laid by a deal more than we ever thought. I reckon he could ha’ taken the farm all right yon time as they went and turned you out. But they said the lass wasn’t for wedding him just then, and he was feared he’d loss her if he come away. She should think shame of herself, she should, for putting us all about.”
“Nay, nay,” Kit put in, “she did right to take her time. It’s an easy enough business getting wed, but none so easy to bear wi’ when it’s done. And she’s a good lass, they say, for all she give him sneck-posset at the start. She’ll do well for me, Thomas said; she’ll see to me like her own. I reckon I waint come off so badly, after all.”
Bob thought gloomily of the bearing with things which he had brought upon himself, and of the wife that was neither a good lass nor kind, but at the same time some remnant of feeling ranged him on Marget’s side. He, too, couldn’t help feeling sore because the old man was going away. He was not jealous as she was jealous, because her bone was being touched, but it hurt him that others should do for his father what he wanted to do himself. It was his place to be at the farm and to give his father a home, and, Marget apart, it would have been his pleasure as well. But both duty and pleasure were in this case out of reach, and it was his younger brother who had the right, as well as the place and the brass and the luck of a kindly wife. The last humiliation was that he should be here, driving the old man to the home that he preferred. Thomas had offered to fetch his father himself, but Bob’s pride had suddenly flickered, and he had refused. Now, however, he cursed himself for not letting Thomas have his way, because it seemed that he came with his failure in his hand—with a tacit admission that he had nothing to give. He wondered if Kit thought of it like that, and felt the slow blood rise and burn his cheek.