“We’ll see to him, don’t you fret!” Agnes said cheerfully, in her firm tones. “We’ll have him so he won’t know himself afore long, wi’ nowt to cross him and the best to eat. It’s queer if we can’t shape better than Marget at the job. We ought to be shammed on ourselves if we can’t, that’s all!”
As if bent upon showing her willingness to begin, she left him to pick up the white cloth ready spread for a meal, and shook it on again with a hearty slap. Thomas, searching the roads of the marsh in her place, heard her busy behind him among the pots, her free step over the flags full of energy and goodwill. The clean air of the kitchen thrilled with kindly expectation and innocent pride. The sun and the cheerful room seemed the best setting in the world for the little scene of welcome that they had planned. Even the weather had kept the right sort of day for the old man’s coming home. Then it was evening, early evening, when all should go home by rights to rest and good food and cheerful voices and open doors—doors, flooded with sun which you took with you when you went in, yet left as much as they wanted for those outside; food, such as was being laid on the table behind; and a voice like his wife’s as she murmured over her job. “Father’ll think they forks right smart,” he heard her say; and, “It’s the bonniest china, I’m sure, I’ve seen for a while!” Between the setting of every two or three pots she asked for news of the trap.... “Likely they’ll have got off afore their time.”
“Nay, Marget’ll watch out for that!” Thomas scoffed. “It’s a deal more like to be the other way about. She was fair wild when she heard he meant coming to us, though I don’t see how she could ha’ looked for owt else. What, he was born here, to start wi’, and never stirred off the spot; and then, when his father give up, he took hold for himself. I’m sure it’s like enough he should want to come back.”
“He’s bound to hanker to be back on the marsh,” she agreed, admiring the plated tea-pot with an absent air.... “It was real kind of Aunt Martha Bainbridge to give us yon....”
“Ay, he’s hankered right enough!” Thomas said, with so much bitterness in his voice that it startled even himself. Agnes came out of her meditation with a jerk, and the little cloud settled again on her face. She looked anxiously at her husband’s back, which seemed to have taken on the sudden harshness of his mood. “’Tisn’t as if Marget had wanted him, neither,” he went on, in a sort of burst. “She’s no call to make a to-do because she’s going to be quit of him at last. She took him because she couldn’t for shame do owt else, and a bonny time he’s had wi’ her and her ways! What, it’s been the talk o’ the country-side, the life she’s led the poor old chap! Coming away from her’ll be like coming out o’ hell. Ay, she’s been bad to him, has Marget—she has that! She never let him play his fiddle or owt, and give him the back of her tongue from morn to night. Such a rare hand as he used to be wi’ the fiddle an’ all! There’s folks still ax after Fiddlin’ Kit.”
“Ay, well, poor old body, he’ll get nobody’s tongue here; and he can have his precious fiddle to bed and board. He can play till all’s black if he likes, and owt he likes—fiddle or toothcomb or big brass pan!”
“That’s right,” Thomas nodded. “That’s a good lass,” but she turned away almost brusquely and without a smile. “We mun do our best for the old folks, I’m sure,” she went on. “One o’ these days we’ll want seeing to ourselves.” She began to move about the table again, but with downcast eyes. “I’m rarely glad to have him, and that’s the truth.”
“Ay, an’ he’s suited as sheep in a turmut-field to come! Fair blubbered he did, the poor old chap, when it was fixed. I reckon he’d near give up hoping it would ever come off. Told me he couldn’t sleep for thinking on’t, he did that!”
Tears came into his wife’s eyes, so that the pots in front of her melted into a shining blur. “Ay, well, he’ll sleep right enough to-night, I’ll take my oath! I’ve made him a grand bed, wi’ a piller as soft as soft, and a bit of a rug alongside for his poor feet. Rarely snod an’ heartsome the room looks, to be sure. You’d best slip up and take a peep for yourself.”
He cast a glance at the new white-faced clock, which the uncertain old grandfather was trying to talk down. “Happen I’ll have a look after I’ve gitten back. I’ll likely miss the trap if I gang now. Any road, mind and see you hap him up warm. He’s shivered many a time at Marget’s, I’ll be bound!”