David rarely lost his temper, and still more rarely did he seek expression for his feelings in strong language; but now he was silent for a moment, thinking of his love for Priscilla, fearing Gaunt’s love of her; and a sudden cry escaped him.
“Damn Reuben Gaunt, and the first day he set eyes on Garth again!” he said.
“Shouldn’t swear, David,” put in the other slyly. “Parson do say, whenever he stoops to talk to the likes o’ me, that folk who swear go to a fearful dry and overwarm spot. He’s wiser than ye or me, is parson, David, and we should listen to him, we.”
“Then he should tell us,” responded David grimly, “why deep-set troubles come to a man, Billy, without his earning them, and why a man must swear at times, or else do something worse.”
“Ay, ’tis a terrible makeshift sort of a world—terrible makeshift, David; but yet, in a manner of speaking and as a body might say, ye understand, it suits Billy right well. There’s always fields and hedgerows, eh?”
It was not till late, as Billy and he moved up the street toward his forge, that a strange fancy came to David Blake. He remembered, as a lad, the stir and gossip there had been in Garth nigh twenty years ago. A company of strolling players had come to Garth, had played there to wondering rustics in the barn at the end of the village, and had gone their way—all save one, who stayed behind and found her way, late on a mirk and windy night, as far as Marshlands. She was found dead at the gate of the homestead on the morrow, and a four-year-old child was crying at her side. None ever knew the rights of the tale; but old Gaunt of Marshlands was known as the wildest roysterer in the dale, and, though some disbelieved the story that the woman had come to him for help and that he had deliberately turned her back, to die in the rain and cold, yet all believed that Gaunt was father to the child.
The child was Billy the Fool, adopted and well cared for by all Garth—a village bairn, the plaything and the property of all kindly folk. And Reuben Gaunt was the acknowledged son and heir to Marshlands.
“’Tis odd,” muttered David often and often, as he worked at the anvil and glanced at Billy. For he remembered the consistent hatred shown by the natural toward Reuben Gaunt.
CHAPTER V
GHYLL FARM was in the parish of Garth, but it lay so high on the moor-edge, and so far away from the sheltered village, that it was reckoned out of bounds. Moreover, Widow Mathewson, who lived there with her daughter Peggy, was accounted something of a heathen even in the charitable judgment of Garth folk.