"They are all most generous," said Meg quickly, and she ate the slice of beef. Certainly, whatever her fears were, she did not imagine that any of her relatives-in-law would have grudged it to her. She could not let that imputation rest on them.
The food brought a tinge of colour to her face, and she regained her usual gentle dignity of manner. She would not allow this good gossip, who asked a great many questions, to fancy that she was terrified at going back. It would not be fair to Barnabas!
How miserable she really was it would be hard to say. The more she thought of it, the more her shrinking from what was before her grew.
She pictured Tom's repressed contempt, and Barnabas passionately angry, as when he had thrashed Timothy. She dreaded the way they would all ask about her father—whether she had found him, and why not; and then, with a horror of loneliness, she remembered that she could never even try to see him again now. "As she had sowed, so she must reap!" Ah, it was beginning again! Meg rose hastily.
"I promised that I would go back to-night," she said, "and I must go. I meant to drive; I had enough money of my own to pay for that—but I have lost it, and my husband's too, which is worse. He will have to pay a very long bill for me as it is." And Meg blushed painfully. "I don't want to run up any more debts. What would be the cheapest possible way of getting home—if I don't walk?"
"Walk!" said the landlord, "you don't look fit to walk a quarter of a mile, let alone fifteen! I'd provide you a trap very reasonable, ma'am, though it's late to be going all that way now—or—oh! here's Johnny Dale back; I sent him about the purse—well, have they got it?"
"Dun knaw nothin' 'bout it, theer," he answered, with a slow stare at Meg, who, on her part, was filled with a vague recollection of having seen this boy at the farm. "Granny's got round again. Will 'ee tell the preacher so?" he said suddenly, breaking into a broad grin. "And will 'ee tell Maister Tummas that I'm doin' well, and gettin' five shillings a quarter besides my keep, and granny's uncommon obligated to him for gettin' me th' place, and she's over here to-day marketing?"
"Ay, so she be; and that's how you can get back, ma'am," cried the landlord. "Why, Granny Dale 'ull have to pass within a mile of Caulderwell. She could put you down at the cross path, if you could run that bit in the dark. I'll be bound she'll do that much for your husband's sake, though that donkey of hers is precious slow; you won't be there afore eleven. Here, Johnny, where is that granny o' yours? In the bar, eh? She doan't hold with the preacher's principles 'cept when she's by way o' dying, the old sinner! But the donkey'll take you back safe. Shall I go and find her? Though I don't know," he added doubtfully; "Granny Dale's a queer sort of company for a lady like you."
And he went on his mission, the preacher's wife thanking him with the pretty gratitude that won his liking. He little guessed that, at the bottom of her heart, Mrs. Thorpe would have rejoiced to know that she, personally, would never get home again.
It was very late when the donkey cart at last started. Granny Dale was a most erratic old dame. She would not be hurried—"Not for twenty Mrs. Thorpes".