"You'll have to speak different from that, Mr. Thornthet," she called shrilly, "if you're coming to Blindbeck to act as our hired man!"
The laughter broke out again, and then stopped, cut short. Simon, red to the ears, raised the whip violently above the horse's back, but it was checked before it descended by Sarah's outstretched hand.
"Bide a minute, Simon," she said quietly. "Just hold on. What's Eliza meaning to say by that?"
Simon looked helplessly about him, noting the interested gaping faces on all sides. "Ax me on t'road," he said desperately, yearning to get away. "It's time we were getting on, missis. Ax me on t'road!"
"Nay, ax him now, and ha' done wi' it, Sarah!" Eliza jeered, advancing again. "Or ax me if you want, and I'll tell you mighty sharp! Likely you've been wondering what's to come o' you when you leave the farm? Ay, well, our cowman's job is going begging at present, and I hear your master's thinking o' taking it on."
There was a pause after that, in which even the pig-sty audience was hushed as mice, and the fretting horse itself was suddenly still. Those nearest to Sarah heard her give a sigh, the same little sigh with which she had loosed her hold on the Parlour Dream. The next moment Simon had thankfully eased the reins, and the trap went creaking and jolting out of the still yard....
Eliza watched it triumphantly until the very last, and then, bursting into a laugh, turned expectantly for applause. But for once her usually appreciative audience failed her of her due. They avoided her eyes and looked at their boots, or leaned over the pig-sty walls and pretended a passionate interest in the pigs. The Addisons, in whom Christian charity was apt to rise and fall like a turned-on jet, murmured tepid thanks for their entertainment, and hurried away. Even the smug cousin refused to play up to Eliza for once, partly because of a latent fineness of feeling which she had hurt, but chiefly because she had trodden on his toes. Turning his back determinedly upon Mary Phyllis, he bent to whisper something in Sally's ear. She hesitated a moment, lifting her eyes to his sobered face, and then followed him slowly towards the track across the fields.
VIII
Outside the farmyard wall Sarah again put out a hand to Simon's arm. "Yon's Taylor's spot, isn't it?" she enquired, as the cottage came up. "Just hold on a minute, and let me see."
He obeyed, watching her nervously as she bent and peered at the house, and wondering uneasily what she was about. She knew the house well enough, both inside and out, so she could not be stopping to look at it just for that. She must be trying to form some impression of it that was wholly new, perhaps picturing it as it would be when she had come to live in it herself.