First love was harbouring with Priscilla. She was in tune with the birds and the leafing land, and she had to put a hand on the bosom of her lilac gown, because the gladness of the day went almost beyond bearing.
For once, she was earlier abroad than her father, who had allowed himself another hour of bed after yesterday’s hardship in the fields. Before it was time to set his breakfast on the board and pour out his tea for him, she had done a score of little things about the house, and in the dairy, and in the croft above the house where the fowls were up betimes.
“Am going up the fields, father,” she said, as she cleared the table after breakfast.
“Right, lile lass! Maids must saunter time and time i’ spring. Wholesome, too, I say—and I warrant ye’ve your day’s work trimly in your hands already.”
“Was down an hour before you, father,” she put in playfully.
“Ay, old bones are lazy bones. Shame on me, Cilla, lass, to break my fast at half after seven in the morning. Ye’ll not tell David?” he added, with the boisterous slyness that his daughter understood so well.
“I’m not likely to,” she said demurely, and went up-stairs to doff her apron and to don a hat.
Here, again, the earlier trouble beset her. What head-gear should she choose? To be sure, she did not look to meet Reuben in the fields; but he might ride in for a talk with her father—might be in the croft among the hens and turkeys, or in the paddock, or in the house-place when she returned. She wanted Reuben to approve her when they met.
She made her choice at last, and Yeoman Hirst, just going out to see that his men were at their work, turned for a look at her as she came down the stair.
“Bless me, ye grow bonnier, Cilla!” he cried, with a muffled roar of true affection. “Tuts! ’Twill be a blithe lad that tempts ye to share house with him.”