Hirst took his pipe-stem in his hand and waved it to and fro, with a chuckle intended to be low. “Like ye! Always like yourself, David. Hit life on the head with a hammer, ye, and never stop to dither round about the nail-top. What has Cilla to do with this letter coming overseas? Well, ’tis this way, David. When I was courting Cilla’s mother, there were ups and downs—more downs than ups, so far as I remember. The bonniest lass in the world, David, but I couldn’t get near her anyway; like a mare she was, when you try and catch her in the paddock, and she looks at you out of the corner of her bonnie brown een, and says, ‘Catch me if you can.’ What, short of baccy, David?”
“Nay, and thank ye; but I’m listening, Farmer, and my pipe may rest awhile.”
“Well, there came a day when I couldn’t bide it any longer. She was not for John Hirst, I fancied, and the devil came gripping the reins of me. ‘Priscilla,’ said I, going up to her father’s farmstead one summer’s gloaming and chancing to find her in the garden—‘Priscilla,’ says I, ‘I’m going forth from Garth.’ And she looked at me. I can see the look yet, David, though the poor lass is lying under Garth kirkyard to-night. ‘How far are you going, John, from Garth?’ said she. ‘Oh, a world and a half away,’ says I, as jaunty as may be.”
“Go on,” said David.
“Well, I meant all I said, for I couldn’t bide to live in Garth unless I got Priscilla for wife—mother and daughter of the one name, ye’ll notice, David, for ’tis a name I love, and smells of double stocks and pansies. ‘A world and a half away,’ says I. And Cilla’s mother fell to crying, same as her heart would break; and I cuddled her to me, David, and I mind to this day that a yellow-legged bumble-bee got up from the arabis flowers and boomed across our faces as we kissed one the other.”
“I’m beginning to catch your drift, Farmer,” said David.
“Time you did, David! Mind ye, there’s no two women like each other in this world. Men-folk are plain this and that, more oft than not, and easy ’tis to reckon up their substance and their shape; but women are teasy-like, and I’m no way for advising ye, David the Smith.”
“Ye think I’d better go overseas?” said David slowly.
“Well, ye’d better tell Cilla ye’re going, anyhow, and see how the lile lass takes it.”
Had David not halted to-night to look down from the hills into the grey valley, he might have welcomed Yeoman Hirst’s advice; but, so far as his leaving Garth affected his chances with Priscilla, he harboured no false hopes. Cilla was not one to walk lightly in the fields with any man, and it was sure that her choice had fallen, once for all, on Reuben Gaunt.