“Cilla,” whispered Gaunt, “you’re making a new man of me. You—”
He halted in his speech, and the girl, had she glanced at him, would have seen perplexity and helpless anger in his face; but she was looking ahead with dreamy eyes—looking so far ahead that she scarcely saw the strapping lass, limber and well-featured, who was coming up the stream-track.
Gaunt had seen her, though, and was asking himself why Peggy Mathewson had chosen this one hour for a saunter up the waterside. As they drew near his anger changed to fear; for Peggy was apt to be outspoken, and might ruin with a word this new and better life which, to his fancy, opened out before him.
Banned by Garth village as she was, there was no man in it who could say that this lass from Dene Farm was anything but comely; more than one, indeed, had sought her company, in a diffident and non-committal way, to the anger of their womenfolk. Yet Peggy had never shown her beauty to the full, as she did now in the moment of her tribulation. She had seen Gaunt before he was aware that she was near, and had needed no second glance to convince her that a lover and his lass came wandering down the stream; and, having lived a country life, she knew that there was no way of dealing with a nettle save to grasp it. For that reason she straightened her firm, tall body—which had drooped a little because, until she turned the bend of the stream, she had been thinking kindly thoughts of Reuben—and she moved up the stream as if she were over-lady of Garth Valley.
To Gaunt’s surprise she took no heed of him, but stayed to pass the time of day with Cilla.
“Spring’s here at last, after the long winter,” she said, in the rich voice that even now moved Reuben.
“Here at last, Peggy,” answered Priscilla, who banned no one, child or man or woman, whatever folk might say of them. “You’ve chosen the best time of day for your saunter, too.”
“Likely I have,” laughed the other. “I’m courtship-high, Miss Priscilla, as they say in Garth, and my lad waits me somewhere up the stream.”
“Well, then, I wish you happiness,” said Cilla, out of the warmth of her own glamour-tide. “’Twill be no secret soon, Peggy, that Mr. Gaunt here wants me to marry him some day.”
Cilla rarely stayed to measure the wisdom of her words, and never when her heart was glad, because then, of all times, it was right to give sunshine out.