“Ay, but not mich. I’m skilled enough i’ nursing-work, so far as that goes. But t’ fever shoves a body aside, an’ willun’t let nursing have its say.”
For the first time she let weakness overcome her. Her tears were few, but full of passionate relief; and they were a tribute to the sense that, for once in her stormy life, she had a man about her in time of need.
Gaunt patted her gently on the shoulder. All the hidden liking between the oddly-assorted pair was patent to them both.
“That’s better!” he said. “Wish Peggy up yonder could cry like that. ’Twould do her a power o’ good.”
Toward gloaming of that day, as Reuben stood at the window after one of his fruitless visits to the room above, he saw a lad come up the slope of the moor. He ran out across the croft, and shouted to the lad. Already he had learned the instinct of all who had seen the fever close—the instinct to cry, like a leper of old, that none must come too near.
The lad ceased whistling, and halted in surprise; for Reuben, though he did not know it, was waving his arms like one far gone in drink or madness.
“I war nobbut stepping up for a sitting of eggs fro’ th’ widow. Miss Cilla o’ Good Intent telled me to come,” he said, half blubbering. “’Twas promised, yond clutch of eggs, an’ Miss Good Intent wants t’ chickens reared i’ good time for the winter.”
Gaunt saw now that it was Dan Foster’s lad, whose delight, like that of bigger men-folk, was to run errands for Priscilla when he was not blowing the bellows for Fool Billy at the forge.
“Bide where ye are!” he called sharply. “I want you to go back to Marshlands, and tell them I shall not be home for weeks. Have you got that message into your head, Dan?”
“Ay,” said the lad, recovering from his bewilderment.