He seemed to hear the soft whit whitter of the skimming gold and to see the blank look on the faces around him.
There were other ways of getting rid of gold, however, than by chucking it into a pond. You had in this civilised world but to let your neighbour know that you had it in your pocket, and it was sure to go.
So, despite his refusal, with a light laugh he started down the hill.
[CHAPTER XVII]
Aura, however, felt bruised and broken, as with slower, heavier foot than usual she crossed the drawbridge, and choosing the back way, went through the cottage to the kitchen.
Her first look at that sanctuary of shiny saucepans showed her that something in the nature of a domestic cataclysm had occurred during her absence; for the kitchen-table was littered with cake-tins, and the materials for making cakes, a savoury smell telling of cakes rose from the oven, and Martha herself, with a hot flushed face, was beating viciously at the whites of eggs which were to go towards a further making of cakes. Now such activity was Martha's invariable method of showing that she had what she called "a bit o' time" to herself; therefore her invariable habit when she found herself once more monarch of all she surveyed and so presumably rather pressed for time.
"Has Parkinson gone?" asked Aura swiftly.
"Yes! Miss H'Aura," replied Martha, pausing to make a dive into the oven and come up therefrom still more flushed and still more determined. "She's gone. Bad barm won't never bake 'ouseholds as my mother used to say; and glad was I to be rid of her, for I shud a' put her past afore long, yes! I shud, and a' got 'ung for it I s'ppose--it ain't any good lookin' shocked, Miss H'Aura, for a body can't 'elp her feelin's, and put her past I shud, for Bate, he began to pity her shet up alone! 'If you says much more,' says I, 'it's to the pigstyes she'll go'--an' the only proper place for 'er, Miss H'Aura, and me havin' to black my tongue tellin' master it was the sow as was squealin' so! But there! Them as 'as no 'eads takes it out in 'earts, and Bate is that soft about wimmin, 'tis all I can do to keep from kneadin' more flour to him as if he was a silly batch o' bread! But we'll do all right without 'er caps an' aprons; and so I told Bate."
Martha's face, indeed, wore a determination which augured well for domestic comfort.
"But grandfather--" began Aura anxiously, "he ought not to be disturbed."