When he reached home, his cob was waiting for him on his own lawn. It had jumped the round, grey wall that guarded the highroad, and now, after a morning’s tribulation, was seeking for grass-stalks on the shaven lawn.
Horses and dogs were no harsh judges of Reuben Gaunt; and now, as the cob came whinnying to him, he said to himself with a laugh that it was the first friendly welcome he had had since riding up to Ghyll.
Priscilla had gone across the fields, carrying first disillusionment now in place of first love—the love that she had buried yonder in the wooded dingle. She felt no anger toward Reuben; it was as if she had seen him die suddenly and without warning, had seen him pass into a dim land of which she had no ken; and the stupor of her grief for him was on her.
For herself, the silver thread was loosened that had bound her to the spring. Sunlight and shadow on the pastures, the rising skynote of the lark, the fretting of the curlews and the plover; she saw and heard them, but could no longer understand their beauty. Between herself and life there was a dead, grey wall; and cowslips nodded vainly to her as she passed, and, when the lambs came frisking toward her, she did not heed them.
She was glad, on reaching Good Intent, to find that her father had finished his early dinner and was out in the fields. Mechanically she set about her duties, forgetting to take food herself; and, like David, she found a certain ease, a certain deadening of pain, in moving forward with her work. When Hirst came in about half after four, she was pale, and her eyes were listless, but she was mistress of herself and ready with a greeting.
“Thou’st overtired thyself, lile lass,” said the farmer, patting her shoulder as he crossed to the big hearth-chair. “Eh, well! Maids will roam i’ the spring, and forget their victuals; and maybe, after all, it does them no great harm.”
A gleam of comfort came to Cilla. She had no secret now from this big-voiced, big-hearted father, who looked for each passing change across her face as a lover might have done. Sad she might be, but she could look at Yeoman Hirst again and feel no shame.
“The spring tires one, father,” she answered quietly.
“Should think it did!” cried the other, settling himself with a pleasant uproar into his chair. “Blanketed in snow one week, and blanketed the next in sunshine. Ne’er heed, lassie; I’m no way for quarrelling myself with all this warmth that’s bringing up the clover fair like a fairy’s trick. Cilla, there’s David coming at five of the clock to help wi’ yond durned turkey-pen. I’m dry, lass, and I won’t deny a measure of ale would hearten up my innards. Let it be the light ale, though; light ale, light hearts, they say in Garth—and, bless me, ye need a lightish heart and a clearish head when it comes to netting off a pen.”
David the Smith, punctual to five—by his favourite clock, the sun—was waiting in the croft when Hirst came out.