A quarter of an hour later he reined up in his yard. He had been away rather less than twenty-four hours, but it seemed like as many days. It was good to be home. A twist of blue smoke at a chimney told him Martha was stirring and he would get breakfast soon. He heard the blatter of calves in their shed and the deep, answering moo of cows from the byre, the splash and babble of the stream. In the elms the rooks had already begun to quarrel—familiar voices.
He found Bohenna in the stable wisping a horse and singing his one song, “I seen a ram at Hereford Fair,” turned the mare over to him and sought the yard again.
It was good to be home . . . and yet, and yet . . . things moved briskly outside, one found adventures out in the world, adventures that set the blood racing. He was boyishly pleased with his tussle with the vagabond, had tricked him rather neatly, he thought; he must tell Bohenna about that. Then the girl. She had not winced at the sight of his face, not a quiver, had smiled at him even. He wondered if she were still standing in the cow track, the blue cloak drawn about her, squelching mud through her bare toes—or was she ranging the fields after more turnips—turnips! She was no better than an animal—but a handsome animal for all that, if somewhat thin. Oh, well, she had gone now; he had scared her off, would never see her again.
He turned to walk into the house and saw the girl again. She was leaning against the gate post, looking up at him under her lashes. He stood stock-still for a moment, amazed as at a vision, and then flung at her:
“You—you . . . didn’t you hear what I said?” She neither stirred nor spoke.
John halted. He felt his fury going from him like wind from a pricked bladder. In a second he would be no longer master of himself. In the glow of morning she was handsomer than ever; she was young, not more than twenty, there was a blue gloss on the black curls, the brass earrings glinted among them; her skin had a golden sunburnt tint and her eyes smoldered with curious lights.
“What do you want?” John stammered, suddenly husky.
The girl smiled up at him, a slow, full-lipped smile. “You won me . . . so I came,” she said.
John’s heart leapt with old pagan pride. To the victor the spoils!—aye, verily! He caught the girl by the shoulders and whirled her round so that his own face came full to the sunrise.
“Do you see this?” he cried. “Look well, look well!”