She gave a sharp sigh, but her voice was firm. "Ay, I'll make up my mind to it, after a bit."
"It's a big change at our time of life, but you'll settle, never fear."
"Ay, I'll settle all right. Don't you fret."
"It's a good shop, Sarah."
"Ay."
"And Will's a right good sort."
"Oh, ay."
The sudden gentleness of her mood prompted him to a further unburdening of his soul. He leaned forward a little in the trap, staring over the grey fields, and with the note of pleading rising and falling in his tone.
"I don't mind telling you now, Sarah, but I've been fair fretted out o' my senses all this while. There's been times I've felt like just making off on t'sands, and letting tide settle it for me for good an' all. Ay, and by Gox! it very near come about, too, one day when I was mooning along and not looking where I was at! But there was you to see to, and I couldn't rightly bring myself to chuck up the sponge. 'Tisn't as if the lad was dead, neither,--there was that as well. He's as good as dead, likely, but it's a different thing, all the same. Folks can get along on a mighty little hope,--same as yon old horse as died just when it was learning to live on nowt! We've come to a bonny pass, these days, you and Geordie an' me, but the world isn't past bearing as long as the three on us is over sod."
It was with a sense of enlightenment and escape that they came out finally on to the high road, for in the cleft of the lane every curve of the land stole what little clarity was left to the slowly withdrawing earth. Even Sarah was faintly conscious of lightened lids, as well as of easier breathing as the borders of the road drew further apart. In the lane they had been high, looming presences, over-close to the lurching wheels, but now they ceased to oppress her, though she was still aware that they marched with her as she went. It was as if the furniture of the land was being withdrawn into the wings before the curtain of night was really down; yet even in its slow departure it still formed the picture and dominated the scene. The only real comfort for brain and eyes was on the unfurnished marsh, where even the fenced roads lifted themselves as often as not above their fences to look abroad.