“I am lazy to-day, Cilla, as you told me. You go on your business, I on mine. Remember that the mail goes back at five o’clock.”
The men all said it was a devil’s trick of Gaunt’s to know just when to stay and when to leave; the women, most of them, found the trick praiseworthy; and Reuben, had you asked him, would have laughed, like the man-child he was, and have said that he deserved neither praise nor blame, since he was as the good God had made him. At any rate, he had judged wisely now in guessing that Priscilla would shrink from sharing a meal with him.
Priscilla of the Good Intent dined sparingly at the inn on the left hand of the road, where the landlady mothered her always after a brisk, impersonal fashion. Reuben dined at leisure in the right-hand inn, and sauntered out a half-hour after Cilla—punctilious always, even in the midst of a holiday, when business was to be done—had crossed the street and walked up into the grey bridle-way that sought the fell-top farms.
When Gaunt came out at last, he wandered up the fields. He had found business here at Keta’s Well, and his business was to think of Priscilla and to long for her. He saw the rathe-ripe primroses shine out at him from sheltered dingles, and he gathered a likely bunch. They were cool and fragrant, and he thought again of Cilla. The larks sang overhead, and the sad, wild curlews shrilled wide about the fields their song of destiny. And now from a watered hollow, as he passed it, a heron clattered noisily from among the trees; and again, as he looked up some dancing streamway, a kingfisher would dart, with a flash of blue that startled him, across the sunlight; and everywhere upon the hills the sheep were bleating happily, calling the lambs to the udders.
Few dalesmen could have withstood a day which seemed to hold, in the hollow of the quiet sky’s arch, all that was lusty, and good to hear and see, and sweet to smell. This was the land’s answer to those who said that her winter-time was bleak and bitter; and out from some forgotten Eden the west wind seemed to blow.
Reuben Gaunt withstood few pleasures at any time, and now he swung completely into friendship with this land which no remembrance of other countries could ever belittle to him. He felt again the throb of boyhood, of boyhood’s keen, unspoiled delights. Good impulses rose and carried healing with them. For this one day he was a good man in his own eyes, and that boded ill for Priscilla, who was going sedately about her business, moving from farm to farm with a lightness and a happy zest in holidaying which suggested something of the kingfisher.
Gaunt roved the fells, the primitive, strong motherhood of nature crying constantly to him from the pastured slopes, where big and little dots of white against the green showed fine sheep-harvests for the farmer-folk. His heart was big and clean—for this one day—and he thought of Cilla, and she seemed the brave, sweet symbol of this vale of Garth.
He thought, too, of Peggy Mathewson, living wide yonder of Garth village and likely wanting him beside her at this moment. He shook the thought away, and prided himself, God help him, on finding the better man in himself to-day.
Another thought he had—repentance for his sins—and this boded ill again for Cilla of the Good Intent. Repentance heretofore, with Reuben, had been a bird that laid her eggs in another’s nest, and left her young to turn out the foster-mother’s offspring.
The larks were shrilling about him. A peewit circled, dropped, and fell, not five yards from him as he stood motionless in dreamland; the bird looked shyly once at him, then dropped her plumed head and went on feeding placidly. So still the man was that a lamb, new-born and guileless, came bleating to inquire what manner of thing he was; and the old ewe-mother ran, forgetting that by nature she was timid, and butted Reuben with a quiet, yet warlike pressure.