“I’m selfish this way, Widow Fletcher—that I’ve only a minute more to waste in talk. Hand up your basket. ’Tis just another trifle to the load.”
Mrs. Fletcher let the team start forward, after giving the basket into safe keeping; then ran down the road with an agility surprising for her years.
“Will! Will the Driver!” she called.
He pulled up with a sort of weary haste. “Ay?” he asked over his shoulder.
“You’ll be passing here to-morrow? Well, you might just call at Mason’s little shop in Garth and bring me a half-pound of tea. There’s number three painted on the canister, Will—but Mason will know the number, if you say ’tis for me. Poor widows need their comforts in this life, and tea soothes a body, like.”
Will started forward in earnest this time, and addressed the empty road in front of him, where the leafing hedge on the right hand was casting plumper shadows than it had thrown since last its twigs were bare.
“Runs in the family,” he said, flicking an early fly from the leader’s back. “Widow Fletcher here, and Widow Lister yonder at Garth—they always want you to do something for them, and always ask you to do it after you’ve fairly started. There’s a trade in widowdom up hereabouts, I fancy. Gee-up, Captain, will ye?” he broke off, touching the leader more sharply with his whip. “You were born of the male kind, Captain, and so was I, and we’ve got to make up for lost time ’twixt here and Garth.”
“Cilla, shall we get down this side of the village?” said Gaunt suddenly. “We’re nearing Willow Beck Bar, and ’tis summerlike for a saunter home by the fields.”
Priscilla looked again at the fells, and smelt the sweet of the breeze as it passed her. It was three miles from the grey little toll-house to Good Intent, and there was a suggestion of mystery and adventure in this finish to a holiday.
“Why, yes,” she answered simply, “I’ve seven packages with me, but Will will see that they get safe to Good Intent.”