“Why, that’s Cilla’s voice!” cried the yeoman, halting suddenly. “She’s home before her time; and how she’s managed it beats me, for the mail isn’t due for an hour yet.”
And David watched the white highway below, where it came out of the shelter of the trees and curved past Good Intent. He felt sick and helpless.
Then he saw her, for the first time in the months that had seemed years in passing. Gaunt and she stepped into the road, as if they owned it and the whole, round world besides. She was wearing the lilac gown, but it had not been donned for David the Smith. They passed out of sight toward the porch of Good Intent; and, because they were looking at each other, they did not see the two men in the croft above.
“Well, you’ve got your wish,” said Hirst, bewildered by the misery in David’s face, and trying still to believe in his old creed that all would yet go well with everybody. “We’ll step down, David, lad, and Cilla shall give you tea of her own brewing, and—”
“Thank ye,” said David heavily, “but I’ll be getting down to the forge. That’s where my heart will have to bide from now on, and I might as well make a beginning.”
The yeoman watched him go. “Oh, bless me,” he muttered ruefully, “I do like to see things go right for all. Pity I hadn’t two lile Cillas, i’stead o’ one, if David’s bent on breaking his heart like any raw young lad.”
A busy hum sounded from the forge as David neared it. Not many weeks ago the fire-glow had lain across the road, a crimson splash on the white April snow; now it fought for mastery with the clear, hot sunlight. David lifted his head when he heard the rhythmical song of the bellows, as an old fox-hound rouses himself when music of the pack sounds down the wind. The blow had fallen on him mercilessly; but already he felt heartened a little, a very little, by the sturdy light of the forge. He stepped to the doorway, and looked in. Dan Foster’s lad was working the bellows, and Billy was playing at smithy work. David watched the man’s muscles tighten and relax, relax and tighten, as he plied his hammer; and an off thought came to him that the world’s work would be better done if more folk played as Billy did.
Billy paused at last to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and turned, and saw David standing in the doorway. There was no surprise in his face. He was content to play through the long winter, until the swallows came to build their nests again in Garth. He knew they would return, and waited patiently; for Billy, as all Garth knew, “was not wise.”
“First o’ the swallows came yesterday, David,” he said, “and blessed if ye haven’t followed, quick as ye could scramble. ’Tis good to see ye both.”
David was sore at heart. If he had been a woman, he would have leaned against the smithy wall and sobbed himself into a makeshift peace. As it was, he sought about for some trivial help in need. He found the help in that quiet, persistent thought of others which, perhaps, had lost him Cilla; the wise were apt to think him dull.