"How did you know?"
"How do my Peverell know there'd be rain acomin'? He says he feels it in his bones. Men's bones and women's hearts be peculiarsome things."
IV
It was a boy. Full in the month of March he came, with a storm rushing across the fields where the rooks already were gathering in the elm trees and the first, dull red of blossom was flushing the winter black of the branches against the clouds of thunder blue.
High as was the cry of that southwest wind, sweeping the trees and rattling the windows in their casements, his first cry beneath the thatch of Yarningdale Farm uplifted above every other sound in the ears of Mrs. Peverell and Mary as they heard it.
The doctor who attended her from Henley-in-Arden had proposed an anæsthetic.
"Your first child," he said. "It'll just make things easier."
Had her pain been less she would have spoken for herself. Had she spoken, a cry might have escaped with the words between her lips. She looked across at Mrs. Peverell who knew her mind and she shook her head.
"She wants it just natural," said the farmer's wife.
"'Ee can see for 'eeself she's strong. 'Tain't no hide and seek affair with her."