Simon, though he would not admit it, was troubled by the picture he had seen, up yonder on the moors; and, after the human fashion, he was willing to share his trouble with another.
“Well, I saw ’em—no denying that,” he said, returning slowly. “There were two riding at the front—like as it might have been Sir Jasper and Squire Demaine—and a lot o’ horsemen scampering after. There was thick haze all across the sky, and I saw ’em like a picture in a printed book. I’d have thought less about it, Martha, if it hadn’t been that Maister Rupert—the day, ye mind, he came home from fighting his brother—told me how, that varry morn, he’d seen the like picture up above his head—just horsemen, he said, galloping up and down where honest sky should be.”
“Ben o’ the stables war talking of it awhile since, now I call to mind. One here and there had seen the same sort o’ picture, he said; but I paid no heed. Ben was allus light and feather-brained—not steady, Simon, like ye.”
Her glance was tender, frank, dismaying; and Simon answered it with a slow, foolish smile. “Steady is as steady does. For my part—what wi’ rheumatiz, and seeing other folk get all the fighting, and me left at home—ye could mak a bit of a lile fool o’ me, Martha, I do believe. Ye’re so bonnie, like——”
“No harm i’ that, is there?”
“Well, not just what ye’d call harm—not exactly harm—but my day’s over, lass.”
“That’s what the rooster said when he war moulting, Simon; but he lived to crow another day.”
Simon had learned from the far-off days of soldiering that there are times when the bravest are counselled to retreat in good order. “Well, I’m i’ the moult just now,” he said impassively, “and it’s time I gat into th’ house, now they’re made me some queer sort of indoor servant. Lady Royd will be wanting this and that—ye know her pretty-prat way, needing fifty things i’ a minute.”
“But, Simon——”
He trudged steadily forward, not turning his head; and Martha sighed as she climbed the gate again and began to rock gently to and fro. “Men are kittlesome cattle,” she said discontentedly.