“Oh, ay! I was not thinking o’ come-kiss-me-quick shapeliness, and all that light make o’ moonshine. He’s showing his true breed at last, and I’m glad. His father—well, he’s under sod, and I oughtn’t to say it, but he was as near the devil’s likeness as I’ve seen yet. ’Twas a pity, lile Cilla, for the Gaunts go back to Norman William or thereabouts, and there have been few black sheep i’ the flock. Now, get to bed wi’ your fancies, lass. I’ve said as much as a cautious man ever dare say i’ praise o’ Wastrel Reuben; but I’ve seen your daft looks—yours and his across the hearth, all as if there’s never been a couple wanted to wed before—and you must gang your own gait, for Lord help the man who tries to stop ye, slim as ye are.”
Exhausted by his eloquence, Hirst would reach out for his mug of ale, and Cilla would go softly up the stair, with shame in her cheeks and peace at her heart. She would lean at the open window, not knowing that the night wind blew cold, and would see new beauties in the moonlit street, the moonlit, hazy fields beyond.
It was to be the bitterest winter known for fifty years in Strathgarth. Yet, when December came, and the frost strengthened its grip, and all the land began to wear a pinched and sullen look, Gaunt felt the warmth of life increase. He lost his dogged recollection of former slights when meeting his neighbours at market or along the highways, just as they had long been willing to admit that their settled judgment of a man might, for once, be wrong. They heard his laugh less often now, but it was heartier when it came, and one they liked to hear. By gradual stages he was settling into his true position as master of the biggest and the oldest farm in Garth.
Hard work was asked of him that winter. Before Christmas there was a three days’ snow that drifted over every sheep ungathered from the higher lands. When his own ewes were recovered—and he took more than his share of a labour asking great patience and endurance—he made his way as best he could to Ghyll Farm, getting along by the wall-tops mostly, to see how Widow Mathewson was faring.
He found her helping the man to clear the last fall of snow away from the space between the house-front and the well; her cheeks were ruddy, and her voice rang crisp and almost merry, when she saw Reuben struggling through the croft.
“Bless me, but this has been what parson would call a visitation!” she cried. “’Tis sweeping we’ve been, an’ sweeping all ower again an hour or two after; we’d have lost our way to the well-spring if we hadn’t. It was kind o’ ye to come, Reuben. You’d no easy journey, I reckon, up th’ moor. It must hev been like climbing a feather-bed set on end.”
“So it was, mother, when the walls didn’t help me; but I’d a fancy you might need me.”
“Now had ye?” said the widow crisply. She was always apt to lose ten years of her sorrow when fighting one day’s inclement weather. “Because o’ my sheep all overblown up the moor? Ye should never waste pity, Reuben; there’s little enough about, and ’tis precious, like.”
“You have them safe, then?”
“Safe? I learned farming while ye were i’ your cradle, and that means I learned weather, too. We’d a lile soft spell o’ warmth last week? And ye never dreamed it meant snow to come?”