“Come, come with me, for the rain grows harder. I know where I can hire a covered carriage at an inn. ’Tis only five minutes farther on, and poor Tim’s unhappy.”
“He’m hungry. You won’t be hard ’pon my li’l bwoy if I come to ’e, Martin?”
“You know as well as I can tell you. There’s one other thing. About Chagford, Chris? Are you afraid of it? I’ll turn my back on it if you like. I’ll take you to Okehampton now if you would rather go there.”
“Never! ’Tis for you to care, not me. So you knaw an’ forgive—what’s the rest? Shadows. But let me hold your hand an’ keep my tongue still. I’m sick an’ fainty wi’ this gert turn o’ the wheel. ’T is tu deep for any words.”
He felt not less uplifted, but his joy was a man’s. It rolled and tumbled over his being like the riotous west wind. Under such stress his mind could find no worthy thing to say, and yet he was intoxicated and had to speak. He was very unlike himself. He uttered platitudes; then the weight of Timothy upon his arm reminded him that the child existed.
“He shall go to a good school, Chris.”
She sighed.
“I wish I could die quick here by the roadside, dear Martin, for living along with you won’t be no happier than I am this moment. My thoughts do all run back, not forward. I’ve lived long enough, I reckon. If I’d told ’e! But I’d rather been skinned alive than do it. I’d have let the rest knaw years agone but for you.”
Driving homewards half an hour later, Chris Blanchard told Martin that part of her story which concerned her life after the birth of Timothy.
“The travellin’ people was pure gawld to me,” she said. “And theer’s much to say of theer gert gudeness. But I can tell ’e that another time. It chanced the very day Will’s li’l wan was buried we was to Chagford, an’ the sad falling-out quickened my awn mind as to a thought ’bout my cheel. It comed awver me to leave un at Newtake. I left the vans wheer they was camped that afternoon, an’ hid ’pon the hill wi’ the baaby. Then Will comed out hisself, an’ I chaanged my thought an’ followed un wheer he roamed, knawin’ the colour of his mind through them black hours as if ’twas my awn. ’Twas arter he’d left the roundy-poundy wheer he was born that I put my child in it, then called tu un loud an’ clear. He never knawed the voice, which was the awnly thing I feared. But a voice long silent be soon forgot. I bided at hand till I saw the bwoy in brother Will’s arms. An’ then I knawed ’twas well an’ that mother would come to see it. Arterwards I suffered very terrible wi’out un. But I fought wi’ myself an’ kept away up to the time I’d fixed in my mind. That was so as nobody should link me with the li’l wan in theer thoughts. Waitin’ was the hard deed, and seein’ my bwoy for the first time when I went to Newtake was hard tu. But ’tis all wan now.”