“I can do blacksmith’s work,” he said.
There was a pause. Merle glanced at him involuntarily, as if she could hardly believe her ears. Could he be in earnest? Was the engineer of the Nile Barrage to sink into a country blacksmith?
She sighed. But she felt she must not dishearten him. And at last she said with an effort: “It would help to pass the time, I daresay. And perhaps you would get into the way of sleeping better.” She looked out of the window with tightly compressed lips.
“And if I do that, Merle, we can’t stay on in this house. In fact a great box of a place like this is too big for us in any case—when you haven’t even a maid to help you.”
“But do you know of any smaller house we could take?”
“Yes, there’s a little place for sale, with a rood or two of ground. If we had a cow and a pig, Merle—and a few fowls—and could raise a bushel or two of corn—and if I could earn a few shillings a week in the smithy—we wouldn’t come on the parish, at any rate. I could manage the little jobs that I’d get—in fact, pottering about at them would do me good. What do you say?”
Merle did not answer; her eyes were turned away, gazing fixedly out of the window.
“But there’s another question—about you, Merle. Are you willing to sink along with me into a life like that? I shall be all right. I lived in just such a place when I was a boy. But you! Honestly, Merle, I don’t think I should ask it of you.” His voice began to tremble; he pressed his lips together and his eyes avoided her face.
There was a pause. “How about the money?” she said, at last. “How will you buy the place?”
“Your brother has promised to arrange about a loan. But I say again, Merle—I shall not blame you in the least if you would rather go and live with your aunt at Bruseth. I fancy she’d be glad to have you, and the children too.”