“Very well, and thank you kindly.”
She followed him out of the porch, and up a path that led round the house to the old-fashioned garden at the rear, where there were roses, and lilies, and pinks, and sweet-williams growing in a glorious medley. She uttered little shrieks of delight, as she ran hither and thither, breaking off here a cluster of roses, there a lily-head. Jacob stalked silently behind her, clasp-knife in hand, cutting ten stalks where she had culled one, until at last a very sheaf of flowers rested in his arms.
“I’ll have to go all the way to carry it for you,” he remarked in a satisfied tone.
Bethia turned and clapped her hands together. “Oh, what a lot! I never thought you were going to get all those for me. How shall I ever thank you?”
“I’ll carry it for you,” repeated Jacob. “This way out, my dear; there’s a little gate jist here.”
A faint after-glow still lingered on the horizon, but already the silver sickle of the young moon appeared in the transparent sky. A bat circled round their heads from time to time, yet some love-lorn thrush serenaded his mate somewhere not far off, his liquid ecstatic notes filling the air, as it seemed. Great waves of perfume were wafted to Bethia’s nostrils as she paced along beside the farmer, whose tall figure towered over her, the silhouette of his face showing clear above the irregular line of hedge.
As they walked he questioned her from time to time, and learned how the girl had only come back to live with her parents within the past year, having been absent for some time teaching in a school at Dorchester.
“School-teachin’!” commented Jacob. “That be how you do speak so nice and clear. I speak awful broad myself—never had much eddication.”
“Hadn’t you?” returned Bethia, with interest.
“Nay, never had no time for that. My father, he died when I were a lad, and my mother weren’t one as could manage a farm so very well. She was a bit soft, my poor mother, and very easy taken in. So I did put shoulder to the wheel, and I mid say I’ve been a-shovin’ of it ever since.”