“Ah, well, now, mother’s hard on ye, and always was,” said Peggy, touching the man’s arm with a certain fierce tenderness.
He answered nothing, and Peggy went through the wicket, and moved slowly across the field, knowing that he would follow.
“You seem to think the same, from what you said just now,” he muttered, falling into step with her. He was minded to return in dudgeon by the path which had brought him up to Ghyll, but the girl’s pliable, trim look disarmed him.
“I said that I loved you, Reuben Gaunt. Whether I trust ye or not and am a fool for all my pains to love where I can’t place trust, is not for me to ask. Oh, pity of me!” Her shoulders opened to the wind, and she laughed at herself and him. “To have a mind to think with, Reuben, and to live near to the fresh air and the wind, and yet to let your heart go loving, spite of all. I’ve trained a few dogs in my time, Reuben. Wish I could give myself some wholesome thrashings, and be quit of you for good and all!”
Gaunt was no fool, just as he was no wise man. It seemed the wind had blown from the four quarters at one time when he was born into a usually steady world. He was no fool; and, though he smarted still from Widow Mathewson’s contempt, he was quick enough to see that Peggy had some special grievance of her own.
“What’s amiss, lass?” he asked.
“This much is amiss—that now and then I find myself in Garth, and now and then I hear gossip of Miss Good Intent. She’s bonnie and slim to look at, I own, and worth perhaps a score or two of you, Reuben; but I’m not concerned with what she is or what she’s not—I’ve no mind to share you with another.”
“What are they saying, then, in Garth?” He stooped to pluck an early daisy, and Peggy’s mouth twitched with a sort of scornful humour. Reuben Gaunt was not wont to take a tender interest in wild flowers.
“They are saying,” she went on, “that you’re seen over-often with Priscilla Hirst; they say that you’ve a look on your face, when with her, that they remember from old days. I remember it, for that matter.”
They had come to the little wood where water ran between the budding hazels, where catkins yielded to the fluttering wind. Reuben stopped, and put an arm about her waist, and the remembered look was in his eyes.