“’Tis spring has gone to your head, my lad. That’s what ’tis. I was like that myself when I was your age. I could laugh at th’ first idle thought, or at none at all, soon as ever I heard the cock-throstle whistling to the hen-bird, or saw the first o’ the green dappling every hedgerow. Eh, lad,” he broke off, reaching for his pipe, “I’d swop my time o’ life for yours, if you’d let me. But, then, ye wouldn’t. Ye’re no fool, eh?”
When Reuben said good night, no whisper passed between Cilla and himself; but she set out the old, mended lilac frock before she got to bed, and smoothed the folds as if it were a living thing, dear to her from old acquaintance. In her heart she knew that Gaunt would see it on the morrow.
The dawn, when it came cool and fragrant through her open window, found Cilla half awake already. She had dreamed of Ghyll Farm, of fever and penance and disaster; it was good to wake to this clean, real life that called to her from out-of-doors.
She did her work about the house, gave Yeoman Hirst his breakfast, then went up to don the lilac gown.
“Too bonnie to be good,” said Widow Lister, as she watched Cilla pass her door a half-hour later. “When we’re made for sorrow, and should be humble-like i’ face o’ death to come, ’tis tempting Providence to wear such a becoming shade o’ lilac.”
Cilla went down the street, radiant, like the spring, with some happiness that came from within. She was eager, buoyant, and she moved along the grey, old highroad like some tall fairy who had forgotten that the world was tired and humdrum.
Will the Driver came rattling up to the Elm Tree Inn with his team of three, and greeted Cilla with the pleasant air of welcome that she commanded at all times.
“Bless me, but ye’ve a trick o’ tempting spring out from frosty corners,” he laughed. “Ye’ll be for Keta’s Well? I always did say there’s one day o’ spring that’s better than the rest, and that’s when I carry Miss Good Intent for a passenger.”
In the midst of the bustle attending Garth’s busiest moment of the day, while mail-bags were being exchanged, with the gravity befitting an affair of Her Majesty’s, while parcels were being handed up and down between Will and the chattering knot of folk, Reuben Gaunt came swinging down the street.
Last year he had ridden in; but to-day he was on foot, and he clambered up to the empty seat at Cilla’s side as if it were reserved for him. She turned shyly to him as soon as Garth was left behind and the white, sunlit riband of the highway stretched in front of them. “You—you did not say last night that you had business, too, at Keta’s Well.”