‘Like that. I do think ye mid ha’ said a word, but I will not find fault no more, but jist ax ye to come straight back—an’ all will be forgive and forgot. Now I think, Mrs. F., we mid finish, ye mid jist write my name and I’ll put my mark to it.’
He heaved a deep sigh of relief, wiped his brow, and sat gazing at her as she appended his signature to the page.
‘That be my name, be it?’ he inquired. ‘It do look very pretty wrote out so nice and small. ’Ees, I can see as this here’s my name. I—S—A—. You put A twice, Mrs. F.’
‘Yes, it should be written twice.’
‘Ah,’ said the farmer, gazing at the page doubtfully. ‘Bithey now do only put it once—it be a matter o’ taste, I suppose. Well, now, I’ll put my mark.’
He ground his pen slowly into the paper, horizontally and perpendicularly, and remained gazing at it with a certain modest pride.
‘There, shut ’en up now, and write his name outside.’
Rosalie obeyed, and held out the document towards Isaac, but as he was about to take it she drew it back, a deep flush overspreading her face. After a moment’s hesitation, however, she again tendered it to him.
‘There—take it,’ she said, with a note of sharpness in her voice which would have struck a more acute observer than Isaac; but he duly pocketed it without noticing that anything was amiss.
Left to herself she sat for a moment or two in deep thought, her chin propped upon her hands; then suddenly rising, rushed out into the yard.