To-day she looked neither forward nor behind. She crossed the moor with feet as light as Gaunt’s, and he laughed when they reached the top and halted to take breath.
“You’re just a wild moor-bird, Peggy.”
“And why not, Reuben; I was hatched in a moor-nest.”
The day’s heat had brought its own recompense in a measure, for a haze was creeping up from the heath, softening the glare. The breeze was quick up here, and almost cool. Far down below them they could see Linsall village and its bridge, resting like a small, grey Paradise in the cup of the tall hills.
“You were hatched in the pastures,” went on Widow Mathewson’s lass, after a silence. “There’s a difference always ’twixt moor nestlings and pasture birds.”
“Oh, I don’t know! I’m fond o’ the moor, myself—”
“Ay, fond—fondish, as ye are o’ women—but—eh, lad, ye’ve no love o’ the heather, and the smell of a marsh when it yields to your foot and all but gets ye under. ’Tisn’t the same to ye, Reuben. Ye’ve always a back-thought for the pastures, green i’ winter an’ green i’ spring, and never a change. They’re snugger, Reuben, and snugness was always to your liking.”
Gaunt only laughed, and they ran down the track, hand in hand, till they reached the wall that guarded the intaken fields. Linsall village was bigger to them now, and they could see that it was thick with folk.
“They’ll be dancing on the green to-night?” said Peggy, after they had climbed the wall and were walking soberly down the long, raking field that led them to the Linsall road. “Well, I feel like dancing, Reuben. My feet were never so light under me—”
“Oh, now, be quiet!” muttered Reuben, with a touch of superstition and a passing sense of disquiet. “We’re not near a rowan-tree, Peggy, to touch it for luck when we boast.”