“Will you come to my wedding?” he asked, ill at ease after his journey south, and all the brave thoughts that had kept him company on the northward road.
Priscilla laughed. It was the Garth way, when trouble must be met. “You have asked me, Reuben—and father, too; of course we shall be at the kirk.”
They walked side by side in silence until the grey gable of Good Intent showed near at hand. Reuben could not take his eyes from the girl’s face, and presently she looked up, embarrassed by a feeling of shame and unrest for which she could find no reason.
“I wish you both well,” she said, halting at the gate.
The voice was not Cilla’s; it was hesitating, cold. A random impulse took Gaunt unawares.
“Cilla,” he began eagerly.
She withdrew, and her coldness disappeared. She was self-reliant again, full of a dainty, half-mocking rebuke that would not stoop to anger.
“Good-by,” she said. “They call you running-water, Reuben, but I’ve better hopes of you.”
Reuben stayed a moment, watching her, until the house-porch hid her. For once he was troubled by the knowledge of his own weakness. An hour ago he had been full of his wedding plans, full of his early scamper out to Garth by the mail. Peggy did not expect him until late afternoon, and he had looked forward, with a boy’s zest, to the surprise of a morning visit to Ghyll. It was Thursday, and Peggy would be busy at the churn; he would help her at the work; Widow Mathewson would have her gibe, half tart, half friendly, when she put her head round the door of the dairy and found him “doing real work for once in a long journey.” That was the picture he had seen—until he overtook Priscilla on the road.
Gaunt set his face toward the moor and made his way up to Ghyll; but the brightness of the picture had gone. He blamed himself for that moment’s treason with Cilla; it seemed an ill beginning for his wedding. The day was hot and garish, too, and the fierce summer had set its mark on the pastures and the hedgerows. Such leaves as were left unshrivelled showed lifeless and drab, and never a bird sang. Thirst was walking like a spectre through the land, side by side with the heat. The fields were gaping wide, entreating rain. Even the yarrow flowers liking a lean and scanty soil, carried drooping heads. The sheep stood staring up into the sky, for they were tired of cropping grass that was tough and lifeless as ill-won hay.