Will the Driver gave the folk little time to show their feelings. He had kept the seat beside him on the box for David—if seat it could be called, seeing that most of it was littered by mail-bags picked up from half-a-dozen scattered villages—and he motioned to David to clamber up by the fore-wheel. The crowd would not allow it, though, and lifted him with a “Heave ho! All together, lads!” And David was thankful that the mail-bags broke his fall a little as he was hoisted into his seat.
The hampers were passed up, and small, round butter-baskets, and parcels wrapped clumsily in thick brown paper. Each was a tribute from some one among the villagers who had felt no need till now to express his regard for the smith; and each had a dozen eggs in it, or a spice-loaf, or some other farewell gift of viands, until David broke into a laugh.
“Nay, lads, nay!” he protested. “’Twill take another horse to help pull all these parcels to Shepston—let alone a few odd men to help me get through wi’ what’s inside them.”
“Oh, tuts!” roared Farmer Hirst, striving to cover his grief that David had insisted on leaving Garth. “’Tis a long step and a far step fro’ Garth to Canada. Ye may varry weel be hungry ’twixt this and there.”
“The Queen’s waiting,” said Will the Driver, as he flicked the mail-bags with the end of his whip.
Cilla slipped from the shelter of her father’s shoulders, and came and reached up a hand to David. He could make nothing of the girl’s face, for it was both gay and downcast. He felt something slipped into his palm, he heard her bid him a quiet farewell, and she was gone. The team of three started forward, and a shrill cry came to them from behind.
Will the Driver pulled up, as if by instinct—an instinct he despised—and Widow Lister ran panting to the coach. She brought no gift, but then no one would expect such from a widow-body.
“I couldn’t let ye go without saying good-by, David,” she said, out of breath. “Besides, I want ye to take a message to your aunt Joanna yonder i’ Canada. ’Tis fifteen years and a day since she borrowed a saucepan fro’ me, and went off at her marriage, and forgot to return it.”
“Widow, we’re late,” said Will, his good temper near to the breaking point.
“Ay, but—David—tell Joanna it isn’t as I want the saucepan back—’tis burned through t’ bottom by now, no doubt—but I’m not one to like bearing a grudge all these years. If she’d only say she war sorry, now—”