The others laugh as they lead her to crouch with them in the hay.
Why is there moaning through that little door?
Nan.
A heifer has milk fever. There is a silence.
Lib, in a low voice. Women have that....
Why are we thankful for a deal of trouble?...
My sister Jen was pleased and proud with herself;
And when her second obedience came to her
She was well eased—but goody Slippy-Stockings,
Who went for wisdom-dame, bore the hot jug
Too brimmed when it was time to draw the milk....
They had to dry the milk, and it, being eager,
Went the wrong way and oozed into her head:
The little one died so soon. She lay there
Sooing the oldest milking-croon of all—
"Baby calf-lips nuzzle not nigh you,
'Tis my fingers firm that try you Knowingly;
Patch-Eye, Teaty, I'll not wry you,
Let your warm milk down to me...."
Then she would wear her wedding gown all night,
And in the orchard we could hear her sing
Mall, go, gather a Posy—Lasses turn Grey—
Wander, Wonder—and, Peg was clouting her Nightcaps;
She sank heavily to uneasy stillness,
Then mooed a baby-noise; till, the fourth dawn,
She hollowed her arms gently across her body,
"Cold, cold," she said, and then "Cover us up"....
And she grew colder....
Maudlin. Much strangeness comes in it:
I've wondered what there is in me to gather
So secretly, why life can leak such whiteness,
And if we feel it change, and how in it
We sow hid things that never were in us—
Can it be that our thoughts go into it,
And all we feel and see must alter it
From white to white that seems but white to us?
I knew a woman and her daughter once
Who went together.... The young one's died; she cried,
O she did cry, until the mother said
"Here, lass, have mine; I know, and you shall know."
Girls, she did that quite calmly: ere he would take,
Mab had to cover his eyes with a warm cloth,
And even o' nights to wear her mother's clothes.
'Tis grave to suckle across the brood like that—
It threads the mind....
Bet. Mothering, mothering, mothering—
Cannot we find our lives except that way?
The moon seems to be high over the mist now, for there is light everywhere outside; so that, on peering into the night, it is with surprise all is found obscure and not easily definable or detachable amid the faint daze of light that feigns to illumine the valley. The women have become only black shapes upon the square litten patch which is the doorway surrounded by the blackness of the barn. A dog howls somewhere far away.
Lib.
That dog sounds from some low-set roadside farm;
What does it hear? There is a short silence.
Maudlin. Women, what does it see?
They say dogs howl when someone's fetch goes by.
Lib.
Mayhap it is the husband-shapes a-coming.
Nan.
We shall see nought but what is in our thoughts.
Yet I'd be very fain to see my man....
When Gib at Hornbeam-Shallows lost his wife
He had to hire a wench for the first time
And at next Martimas hiring came to me
And offered me four pounds for the half year,
Saying he'd give me his wife's milking coats
To make it up, ay, and her two best shawls,
One darned across the neck-place, one loom-new;
I told him I would liefer have her shoes—
That frightened him so well he stammered off.
But Sib had heard; she drew him with her eyes,
And said she'd go for three pounds and the shawls
If he would let her use a gown sometimes.
Then at each hiring she stayed on for less,
Till in the third year's end he wedded her;
And so she's gotten shawls and shoes as well.
I missed a savoury chance, for he is old
And childless; both stock and land are his:
Ay, if I had gone quietly to him
Ere now I might have had him for myself.
Bet.
I should not wait three years for any man....
When Sib would hire a lass Gib said his other
Had done without for seven and thirty years,
And he had ringed her but to save her wage:
At first he sent the hind to milk for her,
But stopped him soon, saying that men's hands
Made cow-teats horny; then at Whitsun hiring
He let him go, grutching it was waste
With such a goodly woman in the yard;
So now she has to herd and fork and winnow,
To drive the cart and take a side of thatch....
Gib says young wives are better worth their fodder
Than worn ones. Truly she has a gown sometimes,
For she goes ever in an old woman's wear—
He says the other's gear will last her days.
Nan must surely see more than that to-night.
Lib.
Ah, but Sib knows him: he does so fondle her;
He lets her hair down every eve to spread it
And feel the pleasure of the comb's sleek goings,
Bidding her "Stand over" as when a cow
Rubs up against the boust at milking-time;
While, when they gleaned their harvest fields by moonlight
To stint the widows, he would bend down as she
Bobbed up a mouth all blackberry-stains to kiss ...
Before she is fit for kitchen toil again
He will so wonder how she has grown the mistress....
Bet laughs.
Ursel, shivering.
Hush, do not laugh; it creeps up in the roof,
And drips on us again like the thick water
Through the black pulpy thatch-leak in November....
That laugh sounded as lonely as one flail....
There is a silence.
Maudlin.
The heifer ceased to moan a moment past—
It seems as if it holds its breath to listen....
There is a long silence.
Bet.
I need to speak, but what I have forgotten....
Ursel.
Lass, do not make us speak, or we may miss it....
Maudlin.
O, do not speak to us, or we may miss it....
Lib.
We could not hear you for this listening....
Nan.
I look so deeply that I cannot see...
I cannot listen for it for listening....
There is a long silence which pulses slowly with half-caught heavy breaths and slight restless rustlings of the hay in which the women seem motionless.
Bet.
Do I feel something? Do we feel something growing?...
Quiet steps are heard to shift the lane's pebbles. The women look sharply at each other, start soundlessly to their feet and lean toward the door; they move forward half eagerly, yet each seeks to put the others before her, so that as they near the door> Nan poises unwillingly foremost; when the light catches their faces they seem about to laugh.
Nan.
Nay, I'll not meet it—perhaps it is not mine ...
I will not know aforetime to despoil
The gradual joy of waking to a man—
I will not lose one feeling of dear change,
Or slur it by being conscious of the next....
Yet even then love should be marvellous
As the surprise of secret lights expected ...
O, if I meet some one I do not want....
Come, maids, join hands and let us go together—
Still, we might make too sure....
When Nan is across the threshold the others huddle back. The steps come nearer. In the road beyond Nan a woman appears quietly from the left; so far as it is possible to see, her features and array are the counterpart of Nan's.
Nan, continuing. Hey, here 's a woman ...
Lib, did you tell the slatterns at Cherry-Close mill?
Nay, 'tis some rag-bag sleeper under hedges....
Bet, in an undertone of wonder.
Why are their coats alike?
Nan, turning her head and calling.
Ursel, Ursel,
She's from the farm—our granary has been searched;
For see, she wears my old plum petticoat—
Come, let us strip her and pen her in a sty ...
But ... I have on my old plum petticoat ...
And how can she come from the farm when she goes to the farm?...
Lib, hastily and below her breath.
Fetches and wraiths ... fetches and wraiths ... fetches and wraiths ... Peering about her.
Is there no way from here?
Maudlin, under her breath.
My mother's grandmam
Saw her own fetch a week before she died....
Bet, in a low tone.
Come through the neat-house ere we too see ours—
Ursel, come ... come....
Ursel, in a hushed voice.
If all your days are used
Your fetch can meet you at the neat-house door—
Ah, stay, for Nan will need us when ... that goes....