“She’s not for me,” said the smith, looking straight and bravely into Hirst’s face.
“Tuts! Where’s your pluck, David? Put a bit of the devil into that honesty of thine, lad, for all women like a touch of keen sauce to their victuals.”
“There’s devil enough in me nowadays, and thank ye—rather too much for my liking. Truth is, my temper’s breaking, Farmer, and breaking badly. Like an ill-forged bit of metal it is—breaks if ye hit it gently.”
“Ay, I know—I know, David, lad!” put in the other, with the wise, tolerant smile of age. “Bless me, ’tis a few odd years since the first man went daft-wit over the first woman, and there’s been other-some in your place, David, in the in-between years.”
“I’ll go, anyway,” said David by and by. “Can’t bide still in Garth as things are. Yet how I’m going to live without Garth street, and the forge, and the fields running up to the moor—I cannot guess. ’Twill be a wrench when it comes, for sure.”
“Well, now, ’tis not for a lifetime, supposing Cilla lets ye go—which, mind ye, I don’t believe.”
The door at the stairway foot was opened suddenly. Priscilla had left her watching of the moonlight and her thoughts of Reuben Gaunt to come down and spread the supper-board. Her tread was light at all times, and the two men were so intent on their talk that they heard nothing until the rattle of the door-sneck warned them.
Yeoman Hirst prided himself on taking any situation by the horns at a moment’s notice. So now he laughed, setting the roof quivering again, and, “David,” said he, “you’re full of droll tales to-night. Pity that Cilla did not come before to hear yond last.”
Cilla knew her father’s diplomacy, and guessed at once that they had been talking of her. Her self-command had in it some of David’s quality; perplexed as she was by her constant wish to ask David’s help, bewildered by the glamour-web that Gaunt had spun about her, she gave no sign of trouble.
“David is merry to-night, father,” she answered quietly, and went into the outer kitchen to fetch the supper things.