“There, father!” laughed Cilla, with that pleasant linking of her arm in his which was full of comradeship. “I believe ye love Garth village better than any soul that lives in it.”
“Well, no,” answered the yeoman, his voice rising to a roar of affectionate good-will. “There’s ye, Cilla, lass—but Garth runs a good second, I should say.”
Cilla was quietly happy these days, though she would admit no reason for it. On every side she heard guarded praise of Reuben; for the doctor, who seldom spoke ill of a man, was fond of spreading good reports abroad when honesty allowed it. It was known now in Garth, not only that Reuben had chosen to go into Ghyll and share its troubles, but that afterwards they had done all they could, he and the widow, to keep the plague from spreading down to the valley.
Priscilla did not ask herself why praise of Reuben was so welcome. She simply let the gold, September days drift by, and sometimes cried o’ nights when she thought of Peggy o’ Mathewson, sleeping beside the moorland burn. It was Cilla’s way to cry for others when her own happiness took shape.
At Marshlands, maybe, the servants, all save Michael, the head man, relished the changed outlook upon Gaunt less than their neighbours did. They found the master more intent on details of the farm and house than he had been; he went roaming, for a day or two, or a week, less often, and they were not free to drive Michael wild with their taunt of: “Well, th’ master idles all his time; why shouldn’t such as us?”
“The fever’s gone to his head, though he thought he’d ’scaped it,” said the housekeeper sagely to Rachel, the dairymaid, as she watched the butter-making. “I was allus telled it left its marks on a man, did fever.”
She was right. The fever had gone, not only to Reuben’s head, but to the heart of the man. He had never been trusted before, as Widow Mathewson had trusted him. He had not been asked—save when he ran the Linsall fell-races so gallantly—whether his courage were sound as his wind. No one had taught him the way of his manhood until the time of stress at Ghyll; but now he was moving with uncertain steps, like a child first finding its feet, along his proper road.
Cilla met him one forenoon on the bridle-path that ran through Raindrift Wood. For once in a way he was on foot, like herself, and not on horseback; and they stood looking at each other, startled by the sudden meeting.
“We—we have heard pleasant things about you, Mr. Gaunt,” said the girl, trying to break down their disquiet, “and—and, indeed, we are glad that—that nothing happened to you up at Ghyll.”
“I did what was needed, and was glad to be needed,” he answered simply. “There was nothing at all to talk about, though you know how folk build up a mole-hill and swear ’tis a mountain.”