The farmer himself, at first glance, would have taken the heart of any one. He smiled at them as he spoke with an ingenuous twinkle of good humor in his eyes. A mere child he was; a child of the land. Such wisdom as he had, of the land it was. The world had nothing of it. His thoughts, his emotions, they were in the soil itself. Adam he was, turned out of his garden, scarce conscious of the flaming sword that had driven him from the fruitful places, but seeking the first implement his hands could find to toil with and bring the earth to good account.
Unable to persuade these two that they should give any return for the meal they had had, they expressed their gratitude as best they could and went away. It was not until they had come back through the sloping orchard and were again upon the towing path of the canal, that Mary thought of the possibility of returning there at some other time.
The simplicity of the life of those two, the sense she had had of that nearness to the earth they lived on had touched her imagination deeper than she knew.
"Just wait for me a moment," said she. "I must go back--" when, before they could ask her reason, she had left them and was running back through the orchard.
The door which led into the parlor kitchen was opened to her knocking by the farmer's wife. Face to face with her purpose, she stammered in confusion as she spoke.
"I know you don't think of supplying teas or anything like that," she said awkwardly--"but I do so like your--your farm, your house here, that I wondered if there'd ever be any chance of coming back again for a little while; staying here I mean. I wondered if you would let me a room and--if there'd be any trouble about providing me with meals, then let me get them for myself. I should like to come here so much that I had to come back, just to ask."
With no change of expression, no sign of pleasure at Mary's appreciation of their home, the farmer's wife looked round at her husband still seated at his tea and said,
"Well--what do 'ee think, Mr. Peverell?"
His mouth was full. He passed the back of his hand across it in the effort of swallowing to make way for words and then, as best he could, he mumbled,
"'Tis for you to say, Missis. 'Twon't stop me milking cows or cuttin' barley."