“No, no, Mr. Gaunt,” he said in his gruffest voice, “I’m not going to enter any ministry. Foolish thoughts will slip out at times. Now, you mean to stay here awhile longer? I think I’ll ride home by way of Marshlands, all the same. Scared as they are, they’ll be glad of my news. I shall tell that hulking hind of yours, Peter Wood, to bring you up a change of clothes and linen. It was useless before, but now you can burn all you stand up in, and put on something that doesn’t carry any memory of the fever with it. You’ve burned all the sick-room things, by the way—bedding, and hangings, and what not?”
Gaunt nodded. “And whitewashed every corner afterwards. Mrs. Mathewson would have it so.”
“Bless me, a couple of sensible folk seem to be living up at Ghyll Farm! All as practical and trim as if I’d had the overlooking of it myself.”
“Well, you see, doctor,” said the other, with a smile that had no mirth in it, “it was a big job we’d undertaken, and big jobs are worth doing thoroughly, once you take them up. There was no need for us to help Ghyll become a plague spot for the whole of Garth.”
“Oh, the world’s standing on her head, Mr. Gaunt! The tough old doctor suspected of leanings towards the ministry, and you preaching thoroughness. There, there, I must have my jest. There’s no offence, I hope?”
With a cheery nod and a jerk of the reins, the doctor was trotting up the moor, leaving the wholesome crispness of a northwest wind behind him.
At ten of the next morning Reuben heard a shout as he crossed from the mistal-yard. Peter Wood, the hind at Marshlands, stood midway up the croft. He carried a bundle in his arms, and his knees were shaking.
“I dursn’t come no farther, sir, I dursn’t.” The big, ungainly lad was almost blubbering as he stood, a figure of woe, in the drenching sheets of rain. “Doctor said I’d to bring these, an’ I’ve brought ’em, but niver a stride nearer Ghyll will I come. Couldn’t, sir, if I tried; my feet willun’t let me.”
“Nobody asked you to. Set your bundle down, Peter, and I’ll fetch it when you’ve taken your precious body out of harm’s way. Is all right with the farm, Peter?”
“Ay, the farm’s all right, an’ th’ folk in it are all right so far; but—”