Martha's repressed indignation found instant outlet. "Adam Bate," she remarked severely, "you 'em's got a low depraved mind, that's what's the matter with you. Miss H'Aura ain't o' the cuddlin' sort, no, nor me neither, as you know to your cost, or shud do by this time. No! Miss H'Aura, bless her dear heart, has such a outlook as no man can ever reach to it truly; an' when one is a-lookin' down from a 'eight, it's hard to tell on what rung o' the ladder a feller's standing. There's always somethin' in the way o' right seein', either 'is body or 'is head, specially if it has good looks."
"Not if 'e be low 'nuff, Martha, woman," replied Adam, stooping closer to his beetroot, some of which seemed to get into his sunburnt ears. "When she be so high as a star, and he be a creepin' wum in the yerth, an' there never cud be no count of bein' ekal----"
"Then 'e'd better leave coortin' alone," interrupted Martha uncompromisingly, "seein' 'e cud never clasp her, try 'e ever so hard. But head or heart, you mark my word, when Miss H'Aura's time comes, him as cares least, an' lays least finger to her, is the one for that prize. An' there won't be no billin' and cooin' among your yapple trees, Mr. Bate--so there!"
Adam stood looking after her admiringly. "'Twarn't so bad if it hadn't bin for that trick o' blushin'; but there, beet is beet, and what's in the hands comes out in the face. I'll tell her so when I gives it in fur bilin'."
With which remark he chuckled, and settled down to his weeding once more. For fifteen years he had made ineffectual attempts to court Martha, and nothing now would have surprised or taken him aback more than the faintest success.
On her side, Martha kept up the conflict with external spirit, but with a certain sneaking admiration also for his pertinacity. As she went back to her kitchen she also chuckled. "Blushed like a babby," she murmured, "an' he wrinkled like a bad batch o' bread. I'll tell him that there beetroot's bled when he brings it in."
Aura by this time was out of the woods and cresting the bracken-patched hillside, the silly Welsh sheep, alarmed even at her gracious presence, fleeing from the tussocks and rocks far ahead of her with grunts and whistles such as no other sheep in the world can make.
The lilies on her arm brought a passing sweetness into the fresh morning air, and as she carried them her thoughts were busy with what Martha had said to her. What did it all mean? Her arms, which in all their young and vigorous life had never held a child, closed tenderly round the flowers as if they had been the body of the dead baby. Poor little babe! to come into this world unsought, to leave it to be quarrelled over. The motherhood which was hers by right of her sex wakened in her strongly; she laid her soft cheek caressingly once more on a white petal, then, in sudden impulse, she kissed it softly. Poor little childie! But Gwen had loved it, and it had not minded being unbaptized. It had not even minded its fatherlessness. Neither had Gwen; but then she, poor soul, was what people called wanting. Wanting in what? Not in motherhood, certainly.
Aura had often seen the two playing together on the sunny banks about the shepherd's cottage; the toddling baby with its fists full of its mother's curly hair, both faces aglow with laughter and with love.
And now the child was dead. Poor Gwen!