“What have we done, then, Mr. Gaunt that you’re i’ such a hurry to get past the door?” roared Hirst.
Gaunt laughed, with a constraint that puzzled Cilla. “Well, I’ve called so often lately that I fancied my welcome might be overstayed.”
“Hear him, Cilla! As though every man in the dales didn’t know our ways. There’s two sort o’ folk, Mr. Gaunt. One sort would never set foot on my doorstep, if I could help it. T’ other sort can come dawn, or dusk, or middle day, and as often as they please. Now, step forrard, Cilla; we’ve been idling i’ the dark here long enough. Light up indoors, lass, and stir the peats, and set a couple o’ glasses out.”
When they followed Cilla in, and stood in the lamp-glow, Reuben looked across at her. “You are going a journey to-morrow?” he asked abruptly.
She did not meet his glance, but stooped to play with the kitten on the hearth. He saw the delicate colour come and go across her cheeks, as it did always when her feelings were touched in any way; and again he guessed that David was the cause.
“Yes. I am going—to Keta’s Well,” she finished unexpectedly.
One little, upward look she gave him, then went on playing with the kitten. The glance was so full of question, so quiet and yet so near to roguishness, that it bewildered Gaunt. Gradually he felt the ground grow firm under his feet again, as he realized that it was not David, after all, who had tempted her to make a journey. And suddenly he laughed.
“Well, now, durned if I know why you’re laughing,” said Hirst.
“Cilla tells ye she’s going up to Keta’s Well, as she goes every spring, to do a few lile oddments o’ business for me; and ye seem to fancy it a jest.”
“So it is,” said Reuben, “the best I’ve heard for many a day. It was the notion of Miss Cilla doing business for ye that tickled me, somehow,” he added hurriedly, seeing the yeoman’s half puzzled, half quizzical glance at him.